25.8.2025: The artist on the podium

Rafael Jablonka hosted a discussion with Platon and Viennese gallery owner Peter Coeln - and the members and supporters of Kunst in Seefeld came in droves. In a relaxed atmosphere, the New York-based photo artist with Greek roots talked about how he found his visual language and achieved technical mastery. Above all, however, it was about his encounters with the famous and powerful of the world. 

As a photographer for TIME and The New Yorker, he has taken portraits of personalities from Barack Obama to Muammar al-Gaddafi, from Vladimir Putin to Silvio Berlusconi. He says of his role as a photographic artist: "My job is not to do advertising. My job is to create an authentic moment and hold up a mirror to society." This is one of the reasons why his photographs - such as the World Press Photo award-winning portrait of Putin for TIME - have been used not only by the people portrayed, but also by dissidents such as Pussy Riot or the LGBTQ+ scene.

In addition to these iconic images of power, Platon also repeatedly photographs "ordinary" people from the island of Paros, where he spent part of his childhood. With the clear black and white photographs that can be seen in the current exhibition at KiS, he also created a monument to a vanished world: the last grocer who brought his goods to the village on a donkey, the curious postwoman or an old olive tree are among these scenes with their white houses and faces full of character.

Numerous members and supporters of KiS - Kunst in Seefeld listened intently to Platon's explanations. During the one-and-a-half-hour panel discussion and the subsequent closing event, they learned a lot about the pictures shown in the exhibition and the photographer's artistic intentions.

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Works by Platon at KiS

On June 13, 2025, KiS hosted the vernissage of the exhibition "Plato: Photos from the island of Paros". "The camera is nothing more than a tool. What counts is the story, the message, the feeling, the connection," says the photographer, who was born Platon Antoniou in London in 1968 and has Greek roots, about his work. And: "Taking a photo is a very technical thing, but I spend 99.9 % on this connection that allows me to reach someone. And that connection opens up the chance that you [the viewer] will feel something too." In his photographs, Platon captures the personality of his subjects. He pays attention to their gaze, their hands or a particular expression on their face.

Platon also applied what is usually visible in his portraits of influential people to the people of the island of Paros, the place of his childhood. The large-format black and white photographs can be seen at KiS from June 13 to September 28, 2025.

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Works by Sherrie Levine fascinate

Great interest and a large audience, good discussions and interested questions ... Sherrie Levine's works - from the grotesquely beautiful bronze figures to the monochrome works "After Yves Klein" - raise many questions. Which Florian Waldvogel also picked up on in his introduction: "The artist provokes answers, but she doesn't give them." Seen at the vernissage: KiS founding members Renate Labak with her husband Alexander and entrepreneur Christian Jäger, Daniela Lanziner Mühlberger (Chairwoman of Kunstraum Innsbruck) and Seefeld's Deputy Mayor Toni Hiltpolt (photo), curator Karin Pernegger, architect Kathrin Aste, gallery owners Bernd and Sonja Kugler, pharmacist Kurt Grass (Seefeld) with his wife and many more.

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Valerie Fritz & Goran Stevanovich

The concert by Valerie Fritz and Goran Stevanovich on May 7, 2025 was once again attended by numerous members of KiS - Kunst in Seedeld with an interest in music and art in the old fire station hall in Seefeld. The duo played contemporary works, for example by Polish composer Mikolay Majkusiak (The Best Composer of the Young Generation - Fryderyk Festival 2020), and compositions from the classical-romantic repertoire, for example by Robert Schumann.

Would you like to attend the next concert? As a member of the association, you will receive regular information about our events. Please contact usif you would like to become a member.

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Tour with Angela Braster

Angela Braster is herself an active member of the KiS association. She loves art and art history as well as exchanging ideas with people interested in art. During the tours through the showrooms of the Jablonka Collection, she provides interesting information about the artists and their works. Among others Sherrie Levine, Eric Fischl, Philipp Taaffe, Francesco Clemente, etc.

Rafael Jablonka is currently also showing works by the New York-based photographer Platon from the series "Service" in the Schaulager of his collection, in conjunction with the exhibition "Platon - Photos from the Island of Paros" at KiS.

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About Giovanni Segantini and life

Michael Krüger on paintings by Giovanni Segantini - that was the theme of a reading at KiS at the end of October 2024. The audience experienced the author Michael Krüger, but also the publisher, who, as the long-standing director of Carl Hanser Verlag, has followed and helped shape the German-language literary scene like no other. In conversation with Rafael Jablonka, he explored the significance of painting in all our lives. What is it about pictures that fascinates us and makes us want to spend a lifetime with them? Why do people need pictures? They are "probably what remains of us and show what we have lost forever." 

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