Information
The major survey exhibition “Trace - Formations of Likeness” is in collaboration with The Walther Collection, a New York City/Neu-Ulm–based art foundation internationally recognised for their critical engagement with contemporary and historical photography, as well as lens-based media. The more than 1000 works on display by a diverse group of artists from different cultural backgrounds, as well as archival, documentary and vernacular photography, offer a global context to reflect on the divergent trajectories of photography today. Collectively, they showcase the medium’s capacity as both an instrument for empowerment and formation of the self, as well as its complex uses as a tool for control and subjugation.
The exhibition’s core focus is portrait photography — of people, objects, and places — and the tracing of societal transformation across geographic spaces and contrasting socio-political and cultural landscapes. The photographic portrait is deployed as a means to shape identity, to advocate for social change and as a subversive strategy for visibility, often through an intimate investigation of politics of memory, history, and embodiment. The portraits on display range from Zanele Muholi‘s visual activism with its powerful presentation of Black members of the South African LGBTQ+ scene, to Accra Shepp‘s series of Occupy Wall Street protesters revolting against social and economic inequality in the streets of New York City, to Zhang Huan‘s documentation of his performances in which the human face is transformed into a stage expressing cultural belonging.
Exhibition period
14.4.23 - 23.7.23
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Pressemappe
Pressemitteilung
Essay: Fixing Up the House / The Passion of Photography. Mark Sealy
Image Sheet
Press images on request after the end of this exhibition.