About Christoph Selbach

At the heart of my work lies the question of how images become images. I explore the relationship between image and imagination, order and truth, surface and meaning. In this context, images appear as open, material and context-dependent structures in which truth is not a given, but emerges as an effect of order.

I am interested in the process of image formation not as a linear sequence, but as a circular process: ideas generate images, and images shape ideas. This process is not neutral. It is subject to cultural expectations, norms, image types and recurring forms of legibility. Images therefore do not arise in isolation, but within contexts that help to produce their meaning and can shift it at any time.
A central point of reference in my work is systems of order. They structure perception, create comparability, stabilise validity and determine what appears visible, plausible or true. For me, order is not a given state, but a constructed framework. It appears stable because it functions, not because it is true. Truth therefore appears in the image not as an inner core, but as an effect of formation, context and regularity.

My works begin precisely there. They investigate how images are produced through orders, how these orders generate legibility, and how their validity shifts as soon as contexts, surfaces or rules are altered. In doing so, I am interested in