Evan Hume
Artist Feature
Every week an artist is featured whose single image was published by Der Greif. The Feature shows the image in the original context of the series.

3/24 Master of Things – Company clocks collection - GDR company clock collection of Frank Ochmann, Uhrenhof in Olbersdorf (Saxony), on the left you can see the large clock center. It measures 3.85 x 1.80 meters and all clocks in and around the house are set via this center.

4/24 Master of Things – Gallstone collection - They love women and cholesterol and no one wants them, except Ms. Widulin from Berlin. The taxidermist collects gallstones and thus continues an old tradition in the museum laboratory of the Berlin Medical History Museum of the Charite. After all, the museum's founder, Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902), collected like an obsessive the diseases of the human body in the form of wet and dry preparations in almost unimaginable quantities.

5/24 Master of Things – Gallstone collection - Various gallstones in all sorts of colors and shapes and labeled with numbers. They are stored in small plastic containers .

6/24 Master of Things – Gallstone collection - A very special and fragile gallstone reminiscent of coal, it measures about 10 cm.

7/24 Master of Things – Collection of hair - On May 26, 1977, at a late hour during the academy celebration, Regine Chossyh once again admired the hair of her fellow celebrants and, in a celebratory mood, asked them to give her some, pulled out a pair of scissors and indeed, depending on the generosity of the donor, she received a hair or a whole tuft. Since then, her collection has continued to grow. There are many dated and signed hair donations from friends and acquaintances, even a beard cut by Arnulf Rainer or by Daniel Spoerri. The origin is probably early childhood imprinting: Regine's mother put her Russian fur in her bed as a baby when she cried. She snuggled into it and was quiet. Her first word is said to have been "woof". There is a photo of Regine enthusiastically grabbing her father's chest hair.

11/24 Master of Things – Collection of lipstick - Kiss-proof and artfully draped - that's how the lipsticks from René Koch's collection shine. The star makeup artist and cosmetician, also known as "Mr. Lipstick," knows exactly how to skilfully showcase his favorites: in the world's only lipstick museum.

14/24 Master of Things – Own passport photo collection - At the age of nine, Thomas needed a passport photo to get the license to compete in cycling. Then photos were always needed, for poetry albums, for the identity card. There was always at least one passport photo left and they shouldn't just lie around. So he always stuck one to the other with adhesive tape. Since then, he went to the photo studio at least once a year.

15/24 Master of Things – Own passport photo collection - All passport photos in the collection (as of 2020)

16/24 Master of Things – Collection of sick matches - Whoever has heard of Frieder's collection usually fishes out a suitable object for his collection the very next time he touches a matchbox. The abnormalities in the apparent conformism in the matchbox are too striking. The deviations are all the more noticeable the tighter the frame. To describe a match is very simple and anyone could do it without effort. But is the unusable, functionless match still a match?

18/24 Master of Things – Collection of sick matches - Siamese matches: The only way of a union of matches. Collectively, the value increases with the degree of the angle between the two matches.

20/24 Master of Things – Collection of toilet paper - Gaby Faehndrich has collected 550 different types of toilet paper from 20 countries on four continents. She has sorted most of them into albums and file boxes.
Caroline Heinecke - Herr der Dinge
Dec 16, 2020
Of all the motives that move people in their innermost being and make them act, there is hardly one that does not have its origin in collecting. By accumulating and presenting things of the most varied kinds, people gain orientation and not only live out their passion, but also their vanity and their drive for power. Objects have always been selected and accumulated, whether to use or purely observe, and information has always been collected so that it can be shared or facilitate decision-making. But it is precisely in an age when information is gathered to increase capital that I am spurred on to depart from this trend and turn my attention to collections that seek to represent the supposedly useless. Regine von Chossy from Munich, for example, collects hair and exhibits it in her own hair museum with dated and signed hair donations. The photographer Karl- Ludwig Lange collects bricks because the stamps on them reveal the local history of his surroundings. The preparator Navena Widulin from Berlin collects gallstones, thus continuing a tradition of the Berlin Medical History Museum of the Charité. It is almost as if the objects in the collections had been collected under the gaze of their masters, as if they were in fact subjects. For if one looks at the pictures through the collector’s eyes and with their innocence, what has just been declared nonsensical, strange, worthless, even disgusting or foolish suddenly becomes clear, familiar, beautiful and fascinating.