MI cannot claim that Andra Spalart imposes herself on the audience. On the other hand, she doesn't reject it either. She has finally made her entire collection accessible online, and anyone who clicks through the extensive holdings will be amazed by the treasures that the collector, who was born in the Rhineland in 1952, has amassed over forty years. A slim, athletic woman in her early seventies, with short silver hair and light blue eyes behind rimless glasses. Direct ads, no trick. She is interested in taking good pictures, “but I don't have the ability to take pictures,” says Andra Spallart during a FAZ interview in her warehouse, which also serves as an exhibition room.
In southern Salzburg, where an Alpine road leads straight into the heart of the mountains, Spallart found a home for the photographs in a warehouse ten years ago after moving from Vienna. Inside the hall, the ceiling height is six meters and high shelves. On the first Saturday of every month, she opens her empire here for two hours: nothing more is possible. She has only one employee, the graphic artist Christoph Fuchs, who also looks after her collection: “Without him I would not have done it at all.” “.
Latest acquisition: an apple tree
No advertisements, no journalistic work. “In Salzburg, people don't know me at all,” the collector says without regret, “but anyone who wants to find us can do so.” In fact, she no longer officially collects items at all, but merely adds to the collection. Selectively. But sometimes you just can't resist. Their latest acquisition: an Apple Tree that the photographer lit with a flashlight at night with the lens wide open, over and over again. Now the tree looks as if it has bright flowers.
Even if she were not artistically inclined, Spalart says firmly: “I would not allow myself to participate in the organizing process.” This also applies to the current exhibition “Verzweigt”, which will be shown in a reduced version at the Städtische Galerie Rosenheim in 2023.
Collection runs in the family
Because the subject of trees in the history of photography is vast and confusing, Spallart cut her own way into the thicket, mostly through black-and-white photography from one hundred and fifty years ago, including works by Ansel Adams, Alfred Eisenstadt, Adrian Bischoff, and Mario. Giacomelli, Jack Schneider, Axel Huth, Sandra Kantanen, Nicholas Korab, Herbert List, Albert Ringer-Patzsch, Edward Weston.
It all started in the family, where they already collected art, but “didn't do it” at the time. Her first husband also collects paintings. But it's not until Stefan Reuss shows her one of his photographs of Joseph Beuys in 1984 that she takes it spontaneously. The fire starts to burn. Andra Spalart appears in newspaper reports with the job title “Housewife.” This didn't bother her. After training as a nurse and “dropping out” of high school, she worked in surgery in Düsseldorf. “This is exactly what matters to me: being a nurse,” she says today. Two husbands and three daughters – today she lives on Lake Chiemsee near one of her children and helps on a pony farm. Once a horse girl, always a horse girl.
