Since 1999 Katja Stuke and Oliver Sieber have been publishing Frau Böhm, an exclusive photo magazine which comes wrapped in clear foil. Each issue is a small edition dealing with a single topic. With Frau Böhm the two of them have proven that it is possible to leave the established structures of communication in the art business. The magazine shows a modern way of dealing with photography which is different from the current exhibition and publication business. „There are other media for transporting photography. We do not depend on (exhibition) spaces. A photograph is more than an object to place on the wall“, thus Sieber in the catalogue of the latest exhibition of the Böhm project in Osaka.

The works of the two photographers define individual artistic positions. Yet each new issue proves that different approaches to the same topic can comment on and comple- ment each other, how an impulse can be adapted and passed on. However, after six years of Böhm and in logical consequence of their concept, the two artist wanted to extend their photographic dialogue to the outside. In June 2005 they established the virtual exhibition space Böhm Handelszentrum („commercial centre“) on the web, serving not only for the global distribution of their own work, but also offering befriended artists a platform for communi-cation...

The idea to carry on the exchange with other artists at a place that is as easy to reach in Osaka as it is in Toronto surely was influenced by the fact that Katja Stuke and Oliver Sieber spend more time abroad than at home, because of travels or artists-in-residence-programmes. Compared to the real exhibition space the virtual one offers many advantages: the internet makes it possible to create less labour- intensive and very flexible exhibitions; it is available to every computer user, it is not tied to a time and a place, as a mass medium it allows for quick distribution, it is highly communicative and up to date, allowing a quick reaction of those involved. Both photographers want the virtual spaces to be understood as „real spaces“, and indeed, why make a difference between „real“ and digital reality, when the digital picture is a mere place holder for the „real“ print?

The Böhm Handelszentrum is housed in four containers, a metaphor for a flexible, minimalistic and cheap form of architecture. Containers can be used universally. Bananas and weapons are shipped world wide in containers, you can live in containers, though usually only refugees or construction workers are expected to do this, and you can stage exhibitions in containers which have the advantage of disappearing as fast as they arrive. Thus the container space itself shows qualities which can be taken as part of the virtual world. Containers like the Web allow for a way of working without the restrictions of time and place, they can be erected and removed quickly at very low costs. Aware of these advantages the promotors of the Photo Espana 2005 in Madrid, had a container put up at the Plaza de Santa Ana, where Katja Stuke and Oliver Sieber produced Die Böhm # 25 and made it ready for distribution, presented their works, communicated with visitors and put the Böhm Handelszentrum online. Thus the opening of the virtual container exhibition spaces took place in a real container-exhibition space.

To our left we are entering the laboratory where we find further examples of the serial images of the artistic duo, besides the photo of the current Böhm edition. The pictures on the walls can be enlarged by mouse click. To the right we find the entrance to the parlour where the works of guest artists are shown on a regular basis. The interest in such a exhibition practice is a different one; it is not concerned with profit, but with bartering, the currency is not money but communication. The whole thing, as the name tells, is meant to be a laboratory, as a space for experiments and tests. Such a gallery space offers the possibility of exchange with other artists who in turn offer the operators of the laboratory the chance of reflecting on their own works of art. The stimulation by others points of view here becomes the breeding ground for new image worlds. As this was the main interest, the incorporated shop was soon disbanded. Now the room in the middle is home of the archive, where earlier exhibitions, by the duo or their guests, are shown. Here something took shape that Oliver Sieber has always desired of photography. „I wished that I could create a line up of many single photos. I´ve always been fascinated by collecting, lining up and putting things into archives.“

Even more striking is the conversion of this idea into the Frau Böhm-Blog that can be reached from the starting page of Die Böhm. Together with Hisako Nakagawa the duo invited selected photographers, artists and friends to respond to a first picture with a further image, related formally or by content. Thus the photos, assembled to a chain of association tell a continuing story without sideways and dead ends. Those who purchased Die Böhm # 28 should be pleased: the result (for the time being) are nearly 400 photographs of consistently high quality.

The private and the public space do not only mix in the contact-container as the digital placeholder for the virtual artists‘ studio. The infiltration and interaction of public and private also becomes manifest in the photographic works of both artists, as they are realized in the Böhm-concept. The real and the virtual flow of communication, the dialogues with passers by in a shopping area, with fans of photography or befriended artists form the backbone of Katja Stukes and Oliver Siebers concepts of life and work. The flow of commu-nication starts between them as the smallest nucleus, is continued in exchange with friends and colleagues. Then the work is published for a small yet interested public, before the world is included in the communication at the end. Trusting the multiplication factor the artists duo circles round the globe with intersections creating patterns. They are very much in unison with themselves and with each other, yet extremely polyglot and facing the outer world. Maybe they can combine these extremes, because they always have something at their disposal - the camera and the archive which they can have access to at every place in the world.