Home Sweet Home

Von Sarosdy’s un-dappled meadows, strapping farmers and buxom milkmaids artfully posed in surreal alpine landscapes are at once idyllic and provocative. Exceedingly lavish and yet ironic, Anne-Marie von Sarosdy illustrates the manifold, complex and often ambivalent feelings connected with the term “homeland.” Her picturesque epics give new life to subconscious dreams. As such, they relate to the current and very powerful tendency to occupy own, readily comprehensible spaces. Evoking childhood memories and fairytales, this technically accomplished photographer consciously plays with the conventions of kitsch. Realer than real, sweeter than sweet, these images capture our deepest longings. Everything is as it should be and reveals more about our hidden desires than we generally would like to admit. For love, for home, and—most poignantly, perhaps—our impossible quest for perfection. Acutely aware of the irony in her work, von Sarosdy uses homespun iconography to probe what it is we truly desire. Kitsch, art, day dreams: These photographs apply to all of the three—with a wink. They are fun. And yet, they are also slightly eerie. Text in English, German, French and Spanish.