film portrait

More than twenty-five years ago, a sporting Swiss, trained as an anthropologist with an economics background, opened what has since become the definitive gallery of photography in his country. Kaspar Fleischmann’s vision of a commercial gallery space in Zürich, at the time a near barren landscape for photographic appreciation, let alone collecting, was to establish an institution and not just a selling space for the promotion of photography. His plan was to present the highest quality works available, publish catalogues to document his exhibitions and collections, offer symposia and lectures in the field and essentially fill the educational void that was keeping his countrymen ignorant of the developing market for photographs. Almost ten years behind the market evolving in the United States and England, Mr. Fleischmann’s task seemed daunting at least. To say that he has succeeded can only give the briefest synopsis of his accomplishment. To say that he was victorious seems more fitting.

The gallery’s program from the very beginning has been to offer a mixture of single artist exhibitions, group shows and thematic installations. Titles such as The Print and its Illustration and Women of the 20s and 30s coupled with International Contemporary Women of Photography have become the hallmark of Kaspar Fleischmann’s didacticism. In 1999, his twentieth anniversary exhibition „Essence“ aimed at conveying the owner’s notion of the photographer’s artistic core, is being prepared.

Zur Stockeregg, an extremely active gallery in international photographic art fairs, is one of the very few to succesfully transpose the gallery’s philosophy to the transient exhibition stalls of fairs such as the ART Basel, Paris Photo and the Photography Show (AIPAD). Regular visitors to those fairs recognize that Mr. Fleischmann’s booths are more often than not thematically based with recent exhibitions on „Laundry“ and single artist exhibitions of Swiss photographers such as Robert Frank and Albert Steiner.

Kaspar Fleischmann has always been an art dealer willing to collect in depth the artists he has felt essential to his passion for the medium. His two catalogues of Paul Strand’s photographs, illustrating his extensive collection of over 100 photographs by the master, are well known and respected. Collected over several years, the Strands represent just one aspect of his commitment and ability to express that commitment.

Kaspar Fleischmann, the gallerist, has intentionally presented a broad range of photographic works. His history of exhibition (see chronology) attests to this, from the Dada collages of Erwin Blumenfeld, exhibited in 1982 to exhibitions of contemporary photographers such as Kenro Izu, Michael Kenna and David Parker. In summer 1999, Galerie Zur Stockeregg underwent renovations, so that a new space would be prepared for the art of the new millenium.