Swiss photographers Jojakim Cortis and Adrian Sonderegger are presenting their latest works at the Museum im Bellpark in Kriens, showcasing their innovative approach to questioning photographic truth through meticulously crafted miniature recreations. The exhibition, running from August 24 to November 9, features their new "Studio" series alongside three-dimensional models created for a documentary about Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier.
The duo, who have been collaborating since meeting at the former University of Art and Design Zurich in 2005, gained international recognition for their "Icons" series that began in 2012. In this groundbreaking project, they painstakingly recreated famous photographs as three-dimensional models using everyday materials like styrofoam, cardboard, glue, and paint. Their reconstructions included iconic images such as the sinking Titanic, the exploding Hindenburg airship, the famous Tiananmen Square tank man photograph, and even the elusive Loch Ness Monster snapshot.
What sets Cortis and Sonderegger apart from typical art photographers is their deliberate transparency about the construction process. They never attempt to hide the artificial nature of their recreations. Studio equipment, tools, glue tubes, and cutting instruments remain visible at the edges of their photographs, creating a meta-commentary on the nature of photographic truth and the constructed reality of all images.
Their latest "Studio" series takes this concept further by focusing on their own workspace in Adliswil. The artists create meticulous miniature replicas of their studio, then introduce deliberate scale distortions that create surreal and entertaining visual puzzles. Viewers encounter oversized apples that dwarf furniture, enormous saws that dominate the space, pencils the size of logs, and tiny paper bags that appear almost microscopic in comparison to their surroundings.
These proportional manipulations create what the artists describe as feeling like "someone adjusted the proportion control." The effect is both playfully deceptive and thoroughly entertaining, inviting viewers to question their assumptions about scale, reality, and photographic representation while providing a sense of being lovingly fooled by master craftsmen.
The Kriens exhibition also features original three-dimensional models created for "The Missing Films," a 2026 documentary about controversial Danish director Lars von Trier. For this project, Cortis and Sonderegger constructed miniature versions of von Trier's residence and selected film sets from his movies. These works represent what could be described as "sets of sets" - fictional recreations of fictional spaces, creating a double layer of artifice that ultimately reveals itself as pure construction.
This approach to creating "photographs of photographs" and "sets of sets" demonstrates the duo's sophisticated understanding of how multiplying fiction ultimately exposes fiction. By deliberately layering artifice upon artifice, they force viewers to confront the constructed nature of all visual media, from news photography to cinema to fine art.
Cortis and Sonderegger function as illusionists who simultaneously perform their tricks and reveal their methods. This paradoxical approach creates the unique magic of their artistic practice - they are completely transparent about their deception while still managing to surprise and delight viewers with the quality and ingenuity of their constructions.
Before developing their current artistic practice, both photographers worked commercially for advertising agencies and magazines. However, their collaboration evolved toward exploring fundamental questions about the nature of photography itself, leading them to develop their distinctive methodology of physical reconstruction and re-photography.
The painstaking nature of their work cannot be overstated. Each recreation requires weeks of careful construction in their Adliswil studio, with every detail considered and crafted by hand. The artists must not only analyze the visual elements of famous photographs but also imagine how those elements might exist in three-dimensional space, then construct that imagined reality using basic craft materials.
The Museum im Bellpark exhibition represents a significant survey of their evolving practice, from their breakthrough "Icons" series through their introspective "Studio" works and their latest venture into film set recreation. Together, these bodies of work establish Cortis and Sonderegger as important contemporary voices in the ongoing dialogue about truth, fiction, and representation in our image-saturated culture.
