5th International Conference Colour in Film

Color Mania – Curating the Materiality of Color in Photography and Film in the Museum Context
Or: How to bring Historical Film and Photography Color Processes into an Art and Science Exhibition
From September to November 2019, Fotomuseum Winterthur presented the exhibition Color Mania – The Material of Color in Photography and Film. The show was a collaboration between the museum, one of the leading institutions for the presentation and discussion of photography and visual culture, and the innovative and extensive FilmColors research projects (ERC Advanced Grant FilmColors: Bridging the Gap between Technology and Aesthetics and SNSF FilmColors: Technologies, Cultures, Institutions) led by Barbara Flueckiger at the University of Zurich. Combining historical exhibits – items related to the history of color film and color photography – with contemporary artworks, Color Mania offered an experience that allowed for multiple entry points and different readings (and directions of reading) that intersected and combined within the exhibition space. It was conceived as a show that joined both art and science.
This presentation will provide an insight into the Color Mania exhibition project, its background(s), concept and challenges. From the standpoint of the curator (or better: the scholar-preservationist-curator), I will discuss questions related to presenting film colors in the exhibition space and bringing film historical and film technical academic research as well as aspects of preservation, restoration and digitization in form of a museum show to the general public. Moreover, my presentation will also introduce the book Color Mania, which was published on the occasion of the exhibition and which deepens and broadens selected elements and themes of the on-site show.