Category: Uncategorized

Thomas Höpker shaped photojournalism in Germany like no other. His photo reports have taken him all over the world. He worked as a reporter for the Münchner Illustrierte, later for the magazines Kristall and Stern. Right from the start of his career, Höpker saw his task as “living in close contact with the times, fathoming and unraveling the present”. In 1977 he moved to New York and in 1989 became the first German photographer to become a full member of the MAGNUM-Photos agency.

From the wealth of his life’s work, Thomas Höpker – Intimate History shows internationally known and never shown photographs. The synopsis conveys Höpker’s interest in social issues and his empathy for the people he portrays. Authenticity and photographic witnesses are the defining constants of his work. Unexcited, subtle and far from sensationalism, many of his motifs became icons of social documentary photography, also known as Concerned Photography, thanks to their precise image design and the dense image statements.

The exhibition was curated by Katharina Mouratidi and Miriam Zlobinski.

You can find all the information about the accompanying program here.

An exhibition as part of the EMOP – European Month of Photography.
In cooperation with the Ernst Leitz Museum, Wetzlar.

Image: © Thomas Höpker and MAGNUM-Photos

Kelly Beckta, Supratim Bhattacharjee, Chinmoy Biswas, Philip Cheung, Giacomo d’Orlando, Veronique de Viguerie, Maroussia Mbaye, Espen Rasmussen, Daniele Vita

The BarTur Photo Award was founded in 2011 by entrepreneurs Amnon and Armon Bar-Tur in memory of their late wife and mother Ann Lesley Bar-Tur, a British artist.   

Endowed with a total of $20,000, the annual award honors photographers and photographic artists from around the world who use photography as a medium to sharpen our view of the world and focus on the burning issues of our time. In the abundance of photographic material we are confronted with today, the BarTur Photo Award aims to discover and support the best contemporary photographic talents and to make their work better known. Special attention is given to the work of women, queer and non-binary photographers, as well as photographers from the Global South, who are particularly invited to apply for the award.  

The award seeks work that is unique, compelling, and inspiring. The selection process is supported by a jury of leading industry representatives, including in 2022 Austin Merrill (Everyday Africa), Katharina Mouratidi (Artistic Director f³ – freiraum für fotografie), Fumio Nanjo (Mori Art Museum, Tokyo), Ossaini Raggi González (University of the Arts, Cuba), Karin Rehn-Kaufmann (Leica Galleries International) and Simon Roberts (photographer).

The focus of the BarTur Photo Award is not on the presentation of works that have already been published or shown in an exhibition, so among the winners of the BarTur Photo Award 2022 are true discoveries: fresh, new photography with innovative approaches, equally from young, unknown image authors as well as from renowned photographers.

Opening: February 8, 2023, 7 p.m. | Admission is free for the entire duration of the exhibition!

Photo: © Veronique de Viguerie

With works by: Sandra Buschow, Attila Hartwig, Silke Jacobsen, Nancy Jesse, Jörg Meier, Michael O’Ryan, Saskia Reis, Helen Stevens, Tara Wolff

The f³–MASTERCLASS PORTRAIT exhibition combines nine positions in contemporary portrait photography. Under the direction of Sibylle Fendt, the photographers developed individual series within a year.

The result is an astonishing variety of narrative forms, in which the focus is always on the human being. In humorous, melancholic, abstract, nostalgic, narrative, conceptual and collaborative works we meet namesakes, neighbours, soul mates, displaced people, disadvantaged people, our own families – and always ourselves.

The f³–MASTERCLASS PORTRAIT is aimed at photographers and photo artists who focus on the genre of portrait photography. The participants discussed their work in regular project presentations and intensive dialogues. In addition to the creative/artistic examination of the series, questions about the organization of exhibitions, the sale of pictures, the publication and marketing of photographs, in short: everything that belongs to the everyday work of successful photographers and photo artists, finds a place in the master class.

Vernissage: November 9, 2022 from 7 p.m. in f³ – freiraum für fotografie. Admission is free!

Photo: © Tara Wolff

Tina Modotti is undoubtedly one of the most enigmatic figures in the history of photography. She was an actress, photographer and revolutionary.

Born into the poorest of circumstances, she already had to contribute to the maintenance of her family at the age of twelve. At 17, she embarked from Genoa for the United States in search of a better life.

In 1923 she met the well-known photographer Edward Weston in San Francisco, who introduced her to the medium of photography. Attracted by the revolutionary mood in politics and art, she moved to Mexico with him, like many other intellectuals and artists. Her encounter with the country shaped her life: her main photographic work was created there between 1923 and 1930; she held up a mirror to the country and identified with it socially, politically and culturally.

Modotti quickly developed her own, partisan photography that advocated a fairer world. Her photographs are historical documents of inestimable value. But it does not stop at documenting social circumstances in the country: together with her circle of friends, which included Frida Kahlo, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Lotte Jacobi, Anna Seghers and Pablo Neruda, she was politically active. In 1930 she was expelled from her adopted country, to which she returned in 1939 after staying in Berlin, Moscow and Spain. In 1942, at the age of only 46, she died of a heart attack in a taxi.

The exhibition was curated by Gisela Kayser and Katharina Mouratidi.

Lender: Reinhard Schultz (Galerie Bilderwelt)

In Cooperation with: BLMK (Brandenburgisches Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst)

Supported by ENGAGEMENT GLOBAL with funds from the

With works by: Maria Kapajeva, Natalia Kepesz, Justyna Mielnikiewicz, Oksana Parafeniuk, Alicja Rogalska, Violetta Savchits, Elena Subach, Agata Szymanska-Medina, Tatsiana Tkachova

With works by: Mohamad Abdouni, Michael Bailey-Gates, Maika Elan, Milan Gies, Julia Gunther, Robin Hammond, Claudia Kent, Clifford Prince King, Laurence Rasti, Bradley Secker, Shahria Sharmin, Melody Melamed, Laurence Philomene, Pauliana Valente Pimentel, Soraya Zaman

Digital presentation by: Damien Blottière, Gianfranco Briceño, Francesco Cascavilla, Kostis Fokas, Benjamin Fredrickson, Goodyn Green, Alexandre Haefeli, Florian Hetz, Jonathan Icher, Jan Klos, Matt Lambert, Pepper Levain, Daniel Jack Lyons, Maria Clara Macrì, Mark Mcknight, Rafael Medina, Lia Clay Miller, Manuel Moncayo, Hao Nguyen, Ralf Obergfell, Joseph Wolfgang Ohlert, Brian Oldham, Bettina Pittaluga, Spyros Rennt, Jordan Reznick, Lissa Rivera, Red Rubber Road, Ashkan Sahihi, M. Sharkey, Christopher Sherman, Donal Talbot, Birk Thomassen, Lasha Fox Tsertsvadze, Luis Venegas, Lukas Viar, Danielle Villasana

New Queer Photography is dedicated to all queer people who suffer for their way of life, fight for it, or simply celebrate it.

Julia Gunther takes us on a lesbian beauty pageant in a South African township in her series Rainbow Girls, Bradley Secker portrays LGBTIQ+ asylum seekers from the Middle East who are forced to work as prostitutes in Turkey in SEXugees, Shahria Sharmin documents the lives of Hijras, who have been tolerated as transgender and intersex people on the Indian subcontinent for centuries, Milan Gies deals with prevailing body images in Europe in his work State of Identity, in The Pink Choice, Maika Elan portrays everyday queer life in Vietnam, and Clifford Prince King shares intimate moments between gay black people and people of colour in the USA.

Although current films, series, and Western culture in general suggest that there is broad social acceptance, being lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex (LGBTIQ+) or simply queer – as a unifying term – still means discrimination, stigmatisation and exclusion in numerous countries and societies. This not only applies to non-western and non-industrialised countries, but also within Europe, where every tenth person who is open about being queer is still the target of physical violence or sexual assault, as demonstrated by a survey published by the EU Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) in 2020.

For more than four years, dedicated art director and editor Benjamin Wolbergs has collected perspectives from queer photographers from all over the world for his publication New Queer Photography: in addition to works from Europe and the USA, there are series from India, Lebanon, South Africa, Vietnam and the Cape Verde Islands. In their experimental artistic practice, the authors of the images reflect the attitude to life of a new and young generation of queer people who – despite discrimination – live their identity with self-confidence and pride. They use the artistic space to play with genders and ascribed role models without prejudice or danger. Their approaches range from purely documentary reporting to an artistic/staged examination of their own body images.

New Queer Photography reveals visual worlds which have previously gone unseen, aesthetically resisting the heteronormative pigeonholing of gender roles. The photographic positions taken present answers to questions about one’s own sexuality which go beyond the boundaries of taboo, traditional norms and expectations of mainstream society. The exhibition and the programme accompanying it focus on those whose realities, interests and needs are still not sufficiently accepted and visible in the media, in public and in private.

The exhibition was curated by Katharina Mouratidi and Benjamin Wolbergs.

Photo: Self Portrait, 2018. © Michael Bailey-Gates, courtesy The Ravestijn Gallery.

In Cooperation with: Heinrich Böll Stiftung e. V.

Supported by:

„We should all be feminists.“ (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author)

Musician Peaches sits enthroned in front of a group of black dressmaker’s dummies thrown together, photographer Katharina Bosse lies in a bathtub in red light, as if in a darkroom, author Hengameh Yaghoobifarah leans back in an armchair in a tight-fitting dress, dancer Oska Borcherding performs on a flat roof, the Berlin skyline in the background, and actress Bettina Hoppe simply stands in her living room.

Since 2021, Berlin photographer Sibylle Fendt, herself a member of the renowned agency OSTKREUZ, has been portraying artists, actors, authors, musicians and filmmakers. She skilfully transfers the traditional genre of artist portrait into the modern age with her medium-format camera and analogue film material: in bright colours, large-scale, simple or playful, using double exposures and deliberate staging, she explores the work of artists of different generations and backgrounds with sensitivity and great intensity. Many of those portrayed are united by the fact that feminism and the breaking open of traditional gender roles play a central role in their live and occupation. Sibylle Fendt, however, does not place womanhood at the centre of her work, but rather a feminist positioning. “My pictures depict personalities, not genders!” says the photographer.

_:* Portraits of Artists provides a unique insight into the variety and diversity of contemporary artistic practice and introduces us to its representatives, who all too often operate away from the limelight.

Photo: The artist Kis Keya. © Sibylle Fendt, 2022.

Supported by:

In Cooperation with:

 

Supported by:

Within the framework of the f³ – Masterclass Portrait 2020-2021, eight intensive works were created, which can now be seen in a joint final exhibition. The subjects of the eight photographers are as different as they are themselves. But the human being is always at the centre.

The renowned photographer and lecturer Sibylle Fendt supervised the participants’ projects for a year. In an intensive dialogue, they dealt with many questions: “How do I approach the person I want to photograph? “What is the relationship between me and my protagonists? “How is this reflected in my work? “What photographic approaches do I pursue? And finally: “What do I want to tell and how?

In regular project presentations, the participants learned to talk about their work and analyse their projects in terms of visual language, technique and approach.

The exhibition combines a great variety of possibilities to reflect on a person, a group, a place of encounter and on being human in itself. The photographers encountered their protagonists with melancholy, wit, seriousness, precision, rigour, pathos and love and created eight unique photographic series. They met soulmates, siblings, people of all ages, a fighter with many obstacles, an ageing icon, their own mother, lateral thinkers and ex-friends. And they always photographed themselves as well.

Direction: Sibylle Fendt

With works by:
Johanna Eckhardt
Rannveig Einarsdóttir
Angela Giebner
Nick Grossmann
Isabel Kittler
Helen Stevens
Giulia Thinnes
Paula G. Vidal

EXHIBITION: 24. – 28. November 2021
Wednesday – Sunday, 1 – 7 pm
FREE ADMISSION!

Photo: © Isabel Kittler, from the series „Sandra K.“, 2021.

What is it actually, the thing we call love? What does it mean to us? Does love make it possible for us to overcome differences which divide us? Is love the most beautiful feeling in the world or is it a mere construct? Does love mean everlasting attachment, the fulfilment of material needs, time spent together, submission, protection – or does it mean disappointment, perhaps?

Croatian photographer Davor Rostuhar proposed to the love of his life, Andela, whilst on an expedition to Antarctica. Together, the adventurous couple decided not to embark on a romantic honeymoon, but instead to travel around the world for a year to explore the phenomenon of love.

On five continents and in 30 countries they conducted 120 interviews. They met people from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds, and travelled to both, big cities and the countryside. They visited remote tribes in the Amazon and nomads in the desert, spent time high up in the mountains and on South Sea Islands. They spoke with people who live together in all manner of different living arrangements, and ranging in age from five to 90. They asked all of them the same question: What is love, anyway? and recorded their stories.

During their research, they came across couples in the first throes of their romance and couples who had never expressed their emotions in 67 years of marriage. They came across queer love, forbidden love, polyamorous relationships, arranged marriages and strictly religious couples. Across people who defy convention, who transcend boundaries, or who have left everything behind in the name of love. Across love at first sight, love which is slow to bloom, and across unions which began with kidnapping.

In Love Around the World, people from all over the world give fascinating, intimate glimpses into their lives and show what relationships mean to people in different cultures. The collection turns some of our ideas about love on their head and expands our Western view of life in other parts of the world. In the end, this much becomes clear: love is an abstract concept. What people associate with it may be very different. In some languages, there is not even a word for love. However, as an opportunity love is universal.

Supported by: Engagement Global im Auftrag des BMZ
Berliner Senatsverwaltung für Wirtschaft, Energie und Betriebe, Landesstelle für Entwicklungszusammenarbeit

All Photographs: © Davor Rostuhar.

The f3-freiraum für fotografie is showing the final exhibition of the f3-Masterclass Documentary Photography from 25-29 August. Since spring 2020, the participants have been working on their individual photographic projects under the guidance of photographer Andreas Herzau. Intensive discussions, questions about their own photographic signature, image strategies and forms of presentation as well as reflection on current photographic practice were the focus of the workshop days. The results are as diverse as the participants themselves and have only found their present form through the joint discourse.

The following works will be shown in the exhibition:

Uta Genilke, Grauzone
Eva Grillhösl, Urban Paintings
Ralf Henning, Dead End Paradise
Jaqueline Hirscher, Wenn es einmal länger dauert
Michael Kemmer, In Memoriam
Regina Kramer, Wo es war
Jörg Meier, Zarte Verbindungen
Kerstin Musl, Musikerin, die [ˈmuːzɪkəʁɪn]

EXHIBITION: 25 – 29 August 2021
Wednesday-Sunday, 1pm – 7pm
FREE ADMISSION!

Photo: © Jaqueline Hirscher

With its first solo exhibition in Germany, f³ – freiraum für fotografie honors the American photographer Ruth Orkin, a chronicler of the 1940s and 1950s.

Everyday scenes, cityscapes, portraits. Ruth Orkin’s photographs tell stories. Of the up-and-coming America of the post-war period, of the attitude to life of a society on the upswing and of women conquering new roles beyond that of housewife and mother. Her humorous yet serious view of the world is evident in the details of the images, in her sense of movement, timing and composition.

Ruth Orkin is one of the few professional women photographers of the 1940s and 1950s. Although she published in numerous newspapers and magazines such as the New York Times, Life or Look and her photographs were part of the legendary MOMA exhibition The Family of Man, she is still little known internationally. In contrast to many of her male colleagues, whose works are among the icons of street photography.

Ruth Orkin began taking photographs at the age of ten. In 1939, she produced her first major photographic work. At the age of 17, she crossed the USA by bicycle and with the camera, once from L. A. to New York for the World’s Fair. She moved there in 1943. 

With the publication of a photograph in Star magazine, her career as a freelance photographer began in 1945. Ruth Orkin was commissioned by Life to travel to Israel in 1951. She documented the young country and its (newly arrived) inhabitants as well as life in the kibbutz. This trip was one of her most important personal experiences.

One of her most famous images is the photograph American Girl in Italy. For the photograph, she portrayed her travel acquaintance Ninalee Craig (Jinx Allen) surrounded by men in Florence in 1951. Jinx became her friend and muse, inspiring her to create an entire series that shows, with an ironic eye, what it was like to travel alone as a woman in the 1950s. 

Throughout her life and work, Ruth Orkin has experienced, reflected and subverted society’s expectations. Her photographs are modern, free and perceptive commentaries on those times. Ruth Orkin would have turned 100 on September 3, 2021.

The exhibition has been curated by Katharina Mouratidi, Artistic Director f³ – freiraum für fotografie, and Nadine Barth, barthouse Berlin.

Supported by:

Foto: American Girl in Italy, Florence, Italy, 1951. © Orkin/Engel Film and Photo Archive; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2021.

Jon Amad, Stefano Belacchi, Daniel Beltrá, Adam Dean, Aitor Garmendia, Aaron Gekoski, Kelly Guerin, Jan van IJken | Precious Animals, Britta Jaschinski, Lissy Jayne, Konrad Lozinski, Selene Magnolia, Jo-Anne McArthur, Kristo Muurimaa, Adam Oswell, Carlota Saorsa, Andrew Skowron, Timo Stammberger, Luis Tato, Gav Wheatley    

Actually, it’s clear to all of us: our consumer behavior has been ecologically unsustainable for a long time. But instead of really looking for alternatives, we accept factory farming so that our daily piece of meat is always available. To follow the latest trends, we wear clothes that are produced under conditions that are unworthy of humans and animals. For our recreational pleasure we visit zoos where animals are kept far away from their natural habitat.

A closer look at industrial agriculture, the fashion and entertainment industries, research and fishing reveals the cruelty to which animals are subjected on a daily basis. The belief that we can use certain species for our needs is ingrained in us: we capture and imprison them, wear their skin, eat their flesh, and experiment on their bodies in the name of science. How is it that we make such distinctions between domestic and farm animals?

For the project HIDDEN – Animals in the Anthropocene, 40 photographers have joined forces, including some of the world’s best-known wildlife photographers, such as Daniel Beltrá, Aaron Gekoski and Britta Jaschinski. With their photographs, they want to pay attention to this painful subject and raise awareness about the deplorable living conditions animals endure every day.

We know that what we see is wrong.

An exhibition in cooperation with We Animals Media.

Supported by:

Image ​© 2020 We Animals Media / Britta Jaschinski

Susanne Emmermann, Mary Hartwig, Silja Korn, Gerald Pirner

BLIND PHOTOGRAPHERS presents works by four artists from different generations, all of whom lost their sense of sight at some point in their lives. For years now, each of them has been artistically exploring something that is essentially impossible: the act of seeing.

They use the technique of light painting for their photographs, which is almost as old as photography itself. In completely darkened rooms, they work out various aspects of the image they want to convey to viewers using a range of very different light sources they’ve selected themselves. Sighted assistants support them by arranging the motifs according to their instructions and verbally translating what they themselves cannot visually perceive. In this way, the BLIND PHOTOGRAPHERS maintain a high degree of control over the resulting images.

Through their concentrated interaction with the medium, each of them develops an individual and unique visual language. This can range from an abstract play of colors and shapes through black-and-white self-portraits to expressionist narrative forms reminiscent of the works of old masters.

Image describers are available to you during our opening hours, who, through their mediation, allow a completely new view of the works on display. For the blind or the visually impaired, this is a common practice to experience exhibitions. The detailed descriptions open up new horizons for sighted visitors – they learn a different, more intense way of seeing.

In cooperation with Fotostudio für Blinde Fotograf*innen in Berlin and with the kind support of Aktion Mensch.

Photo: © Susanne Emmermann | Fotostudio für Blinde Fotograf*innen

With works by: Shirin Abedi, Hoi Kin Fung, Ana María Arévalo Gosen, Jan Richard Heinicke, Patricia Kühfuss, Maximilian Mann, Maxime Matthys, Sina Niemeyer, Ashfika Rahman, Luca Rotondo, Jeremy Suyker, Angelos Tzortzinis

Multimedia works by: Sarah Hoffmann | Crosscut / KCTS 9, Helena Lea Manhartsberger | Katharina Neuhaus, Ilvy Njiokiktjien, Sadegh Souri, Michele Spatari

The LUMIX FESTIVAL for Young Visual Journalism is one of the most important platforms for young documentary photography in Europe. SELECTED WORKS exclusively presents a selection from this year’s edition of the festival. Works by young and committed photo journalists of the 21st century who deal with political, cultural, ecological and social processes in their documentaries. They do not only see themselves as observers of current events, but also want to actively intervene in global debates with their photographs. 

The exhibition has been curated by Gisela Kayser and Katharina Mouratidi.

DIGITAL OPENING: August 13, 2020, 7 pm at www.fhochdrei.org

In Cooperation with: LUMIX FESTIVAL for Young Visual Journalism

Foto: © Shirin Abedi, from the series May I Have this Dance?

With works by: Eve Arnold, Micha Bar-Am, Bruno Barbey, René Burri, Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Elliott Erwitt, Leonard Freed, Jean Gaumy, Burt Glinn, Ernst Haas, Josef Koudelka, Erich Lessing, Peter Marlow, Susan Meiselas, Wayne Miller, James Nachtwey, Marc Riboud, Miguel Rio Branco, George Rodger, Sebastião Salgado, David Seymour, Chris Steele-Perkins, Dennis Stock

Photojournalists show us the world. As observers, they take part in historical events in the front row and document current affairs. Their pictures, taken at the decisive moment – the fraction of a second – shape our collective memory.

Photographs such as Robert Capa‘s from the Spanish Civil War, René Burri‘s portrait of Che Guevara, Koudelka‘s reportage of the Prague Spring or Marc Riboud‘s photograph of a young woman standing alone with a flower in her hand in front of the armed U.S. National Guard, have shaped how entire generations understand politics and influenced their social action.

ZEIT-ZEUG*INNEN shows works by members of the legendary agency Magnum Photos. With great commitment, passion and at high personal risk, they have captured moments that made history. The exhibition is a touching visual journey through five decades of photojournalistic work in the 20th century, the so-called Golden Age of Photojournalism. The photographers had access to high-circulation magazines to distribute their extensive long-term reports. Before the popularity of television, it was their pictures that reached a large readership, connected them to the big world and brought news to their living rooms at home.

ZEIT-ZEUG*INNEN is kindly supported by the FamilyOffice partnership PARITER|fortis from Munich.

Photograph: © René Burri/Magnum Photos, Che Guevara, 1963.

f³–freiraum für fotografie shows from 24.–26. January the closing exhibition of the first f³–Masterclass. Over the past nine months, the participants, under the direction of photographer Andreas Herzau, have been working on their individual, photographic projects. The workshop days were characterized by intensive discussions, questions about their own photographic handwriting, image strategies and forms of presentation. The results range from portraits of the LGBTIQ * community in Berlin to studies of Chinese living culture to photographs that address the construction of nature in our cities.

OPENING: Thursday, 23. January 2020, 7 pm
EXHIBITION: 24.– 26. January 2020, 1 – 7 pm
FREE ADMISSION!

PARTICIPANTS: Gustavo Alàbiso, Sandra Buschow, Michael Bause, Renata Chueire, Alina Fedorenko, Juliane Lindner, Mira C. Merks, Caroline Prange, Walburga Wolters.

Free guided tours through the exhibition:
January 24, 2020, 5 pm
January 25/26, 2020, 3 pm

Photo: © Mira C. Merks

With works by: Merry Alpern (USA), Jan Dirk van der Burg (The Netherlands), Espen Eichhöfer (Germany), William E. Jones (USA), Carola Lampe (Germany), Beat Streuli (Switzerland)

Today, more than ever, taking photos and being photographed are part of our daily life. And yet, those who take pictures of passers-by without asking for permission run the risk of being sued. Photographs taken without the consent of the person portrayed are in conflict between the personal right and that of artistic freedom. Thus, the following questions arise: What is more important, the right to one’s own image or the right to take pictures? Where are the ethical boundaries of photography? Where does artistic freedom end? 

The photographer Espen Eichhöfer was faced with an injunction after exhibiting a photograph that had been taken on the streets of Berlin. This case, which ended in 2018 before the Federal Constitutional Court, shows how important it is to deal with this contemporary issue.

THE ILLEGAL IMAGE offers a range of snapshots taken in secret, images that fell victim to censorship, to socially critical reports and conceptual studies of the medium of photography. Six artistic positions illuminate the question of legal and illegal images – between social taboo, social relevance and artistic freedom.

The exhibition is curated by Espen Eichhöfer, Katharina Mouratidi and Natascha Pohlmann.

Photo: © Espen Eichhöfer.

 

The photographer Nelly Rau-Häring documented life in East and West Berlin from the mid-1960s to the 2000s like hardly anyone else. In doing so, she followed her two great passions: her enthusiasm for photography and her curiosity about the people of Berlin. Together with her virtuoso eye for expressive detail, this makes her a very special chronicler.

Through the eyes of Nelly Rau-Häring we experience contemporary history: We are involved in the political protests of the late 1960s in West Berlin and observe the official celebrations on 1 and 8 May in East Berlin, we take part in popular amusements such as the horse races in Hoppegarten and Mariendorf. We see how Neuberliners of the first migrant generation appear in the cityscape, we accompany war widows to the cafés at Ku´damm and observe the shop window displays in the GDR of the 1980s, we feverishly watch the fans of Hertha BSC in the football stadium, stand in the queue of GDR citizens* waiting for the welcome money, cross the western part of the city with the S-Bahn and experience how the isolated Berlin changes after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

OST/WEST BERLIN is far more than the image of a city and its people in transition. Beyond the factual, the photographs concentrate on moods and feelings, on the joie de vivre and contradictions of the post-war and pre-war years, which Nelly Rau-Häring perceived in divided and later reunited Berlin. It is not a matter of a historical view, but of the personal that shows itself in the social.

In cooperation with Hatje Cantz.

With kind support: Stiftung Berliner Sparkasse.

The Canadian Ian Willms and the Argentine Pablo E. Piovano are the winners of the Greenpeace Photo Award. The prize supports the realization of photo documentation of relevant environmental problems and is awarded since 2014 every two years by Greenpeace Switzerland and Greenpeace Germany. In their long-term projects, the two photographers deal with the current issues of land rights, climate change and the impact of oil exploitation on indigenous communities.

Pablo E. Piovano (* 1981) documents decades of land conflicts in Patagonia. In the Araucania region of Chile, the Mapuche defend their land rights as Native Americans – even against the government that accuses them of being terrorists. They fight against the destruction of their livelihoods and claim the right to live their centuries-old traditions. In his photographs, Piovano contrasts the unique beauty, biodiversity and cultural diversity of Patagonia with the brutal struggle for its future.

In his project As Long as the Sun Shines, the photographer Ian Willms (* 1985) shows the consequences of oil sands exploitation in Alberta, Canada. Against the backdrop of the Rocky Mountains, enormous clearing areas tear deep wounds into the land. The oil from the tar sands is washed with massive amounts of water, energy and chemicals – an “ecological disaster of the highest explosiveness” (Lars Lindemann, picture editor magazine GEO). For more than eight years, Ian Willms photographed the connections between economic recovery, global climate change and social injustice to indigenous people.

In Cooperation with Greenpeace e.V.

Photo: © Pablo E. Piovano

The political scientist Gesine Schwan, the photographer Walter Schels, the professor Jeanine Meerapfel, the toilet guard Werner Berlin, the writer Rafik Schami, the actor Michael Gwisdek, the social pedagogue Petra Peterich have all something in common: They work, even though they have reached the retirement age already long ago.

Their motivation is very different. Petra Peterich wants to give something back to society: “Why do I do it all? Because it is a social task – and because I can do it! “, Werner Berlin finances with his job the joint holidays with his wife, while the photographer Walter Schels simply says:” Life is too short to stop working.”

The number of older working people in Germany is increasing rapidly. The labor force participation of 60- to 64-year-olds has almost tripled in the last ten years. At the same time, fewer and fewer people will be available to the labor market in the coming years. A retirement age of 69 is currently being discussed.

For more than seven years Lübeck-based photographer Arne Wesenberg has been portraying the reality of life of those who –  voluntarily or out of economic necessity – have been working in their old age. Im [Un]Ruhestand provides in more than 200 portraits individual answers to questions about demographic aging, a functioning pension system and the importance of working in our society.

Photo: © Arne Wesenberg from the series Im [Un]Ruhestand

“Where do you come from?” Some of us answer this everyday question simply  – without any ulterior motives, while this question perplexes others. There are many possible answers: „from the bakery“, „from the hairdresser – can´t you see that?”, „from the supermarket“ „from Harz“ and „from Hamburg”. Sometimes the answer leaves the questioner unsatisfied: “No, I do not mean THAT, I mean, where do you originally come from?”

“Where do you come from?” opens up the vast field of our definition of identity and how we classify affiliations. When the question is directed to one of the 19.5 million people with a migrant background living in Germany, it is usually meant as an attempt, to place the subject in familiar categories in order to better relate to them. But instead of getting to know them, the question often blurs individualities and stigmatizes the person as „the other“.

Ident•i•gration investigates how identity is formed in our globalized world. The photographers Schmoo Theune and Susann Tischendorf present us sixteen people from different generations and with very different life stories with hybrid narrative forms including photography, texts and archival material. Through these stories they try to answer what identity and homeland can be in our globalized world.

The exhibition takes place as part of the XB-Lab project. Supported by Modellprogramm „Utopolis – Soziokultur im Quartier“ im Rahmen der ressortübergreifenden Strategie Soziale Stadt „Nachbarschaften stärken, Miteinander im Quartier“ des Bundesministeriums des Innern, für Bau und Heimat und der Beauftragten für Kultur und Medien.

Photo © Susann Tischendorf from the series Ident.i.gration

CRAZY – Living with mental illness with works by Laia Abril (Spain), Sibylle Fendt (Germany), Nora Klein (Germany), Louis Quail (UK) and Melissa Spitz (USA).

More than one in four adults in Germany suffers from a mental disorder during their lifetime. The most common symptoms are anxiety, depression and addiction. For the almost 18 million people affected and their social environment, this often results in massive restrictions in all areas of their lives.

Although mental illnesses affect a large part of the population, they are often stigmatized and tabooed. There are unclear ideas about living with mental illnesses in their various manifestations; individual clinical pictures unsettle outsiders. Thus it is hardly possible to get close to those affected in their world.

The exhibition CRAZY – Living with mental illness presents works by five internationally renowned photographers. They have dealt with the subject for very personal reasons.

The Spanish photographer Laia Abril tells the story of the Robinson family in her internationally acclaimed series The Epilogue. The Robinsons lost their youngest daughter due to bulimia.

In Gärtners Reise (Gärtner’s Voyage), the Berlin based OSTKREUZ photographer Sibylle Fendt documents the last journey of the couple Lothar and Elke Gärtner. Two years before the journey, Elke Gärtner had been diagnosed with dementia.

The photographer Nora Klein from Erfurt tried together with people affected by the disease to translate depression in pictures. Her first illustrated book Mal gut, mehr schlecht. (Sometimes good, mostly bad.) has been published by Hatje Cantz Verlag.

The Brit Louis Quail shows in his intimate photographic approach Big Brother his brother’s life with schizophrenia.

New York-based photographer Melissa Spitz dedicates her work You Have Nothing to Worry About to the emotional life of her seriously mentally ill mother.

With kind support of the Deutschen Gesellschaft für Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie, Psychosomatik und Nervenheilkunde e. V. (DGPPN; German Association for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics).

Photo: © Louis Quail from the series Big Brother.

#womenphotographer Vol. I with works by Berenice Abbott, Merry Alpern, Diane Arbus, Elinor Carucci, Nan Goldin, Germaine Krull, Dorothea Lange, Vivian Maier, Inge Morath, Ruth Orkin, Rosemarie Pierer, Dayanita Singh, Annette von Keudell and Karin Székessy.

Women conquered the new medium of photography in the 19th century. As pioneers, they contributed essentially to its development and the emergence of new photographic ways of seeing. The Cyanotype Photograms by Anna Atkins are among the first photographs published as scientific illustrations.

Photography enabled women to realize their idea of a self-determined, creative life, to travel and to earn their own living. In addition to portrait, fashion, and architectural photography, female photographers also excelled in photojournalism from the 1920s onwards. Often they focused on the everyday, on the living conditions of women and children, documented social marginal groups and examined the female body relentlessly with the camera.

Did they choose themes that are off the beaten track of world politics, as they have always been attributed to them by society? Or because they can gain intimate access to their subjects, which is denied to their male counterparts? Or does it finally exist, the female gaze?

The exhibition #womenphotographer Vol. I wants to provide insights into the diverse work of female photographers and to initiate a deeper study of their view of the world.

Photo: © Ruth Orkin Photo Archive.

The acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersexual people (LGBTI) has increased significantly in recent decades. However, people whose sexual orientation and gender identity do not conform to the norm are still being prosecuted in 72 countries of the world. The brutality is shocking: fines, imprisonment, torture – in some cases also the death penalty – are on the agenda of daily oppression.

For several years, the internationally acclaimed photographer Robin Hammond – a member of the Amsterdam agency NOOR – travelled through countries where LGBTI people are persecuted and threatened. This resulted in hundreds of portraits of people who – openly or secretly – have to defend their identity anew every day, often at risk to life and limb.

Robin Hammond took his impressive portraits on Polaroid film, which gives them their own, almost surreal and dreamlike visual aesthetics. Through the shooting technique, the careful approach to its protagonists and the use of the available light, Where Love Is Illegal is not only an invaluable document of our time, but also demonstrates the photographer’s extraordinary ability for artistic expression.

In  cooperation with: Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung.
With kind support: Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Hannchen-Mehrzweck-Stiftung.

In his long-term study Eric*, Dutch photographer Jasper Groen tells the story of Eric, a woman-to-man transsexual. The intensive portraits that Jasper Groen has taken in close contact with Eric since 2012 focus on showing the emotions of his protagonist in a subtle visual language; they favour quiet, barely perceptible tones. Jasper Groen (1974, Nieuwkoop) is one of the most important up-and-coming Dutch photographers of his generation. His works have been shown at the FOAM Amsterdam, the Netherlands Photo Museum, the Fotofestival Naarden and the Melkweg Gallery.

The new series AM by Andreas Herzau uses Angela Merkel as an example to examine the relationship between politics and the public as well as the representation of female power. Andreas Herzau accompanied the CDU chairman and German Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel for years at public performances for his photographic investigation. AM shows the theatre, the absurdities and realities of political life, the loneliness, the struggle, the power and the injuries that politics brings with it as a profession. For his work, Herzau makes use of the collective knowledge of one of the most photographed persons on the political stage: he deconstructs rituals of public self-presentation with excerpts and sometimes enigmatically encrypted images, thereby making unexpected details speak for themselves. Andreas Herzau’s black and white photographs counter the inflationary level of Angela Merkel’s images with an attempt to visually do justice to one of the most influential personalities of our time.

An exhibition in the framework of the European Month of Photography Berlin (EMOP).

Do tax havens really look like this? The large number of articles and reports on this topic are usually illustrated with pictures of tropical beaches. They conceal the fact that today more than half of world trade is conducted through these places.

Paolo Woods and Gabriele Galimberti travelled for several years through the world’s tax havens. From the British Virgin Islands to the City of London, from the Cayman Islands to Luxembourg and the Netherlands: The Heavens – Annual Report takes us on a journey into a rarely seen, mysterious world of the rich and super-rich.

Around 32 trillion US dollars are hidden in tax havens worldwide. This corresponds to about ten times the GDP of Germany. Individuals and companies circumvent financial requirements and reduce their tax payments – often completely legally. They deprive the general public of funds for education, health care or public safety.

With The Heavens – Annual Report, Paolo Woods and Gabriele Galimberti succeed in translating this elusive theme into haunting photographs. They show not only what tax havens are, but also what they mean for all of us.

“What did my parents experience when they were as old as my son is today? What made them what they are today?” These are the questions the photographer Frederike Helwig and the author Anne Waak examine in her project, Kriegskinder.

People born in the late 1930s and early 1940s, who grew up during World War II, are now in their eighth decade of life. Here, they look back and talk — some of them for the first time ever — about what marked them: bombs, flight, fear, hunger, illness, missing fathers, overwhelmed mothers, and the silence of the post-war era, when it was thought that memories of the war and its intergenerational consequences should be forgotten.

“The people portrayed had the courage to stand before the camera and tell their stories. Most of their recollections are anecdotal, with varying degrees of selfreflection. Trauma or transgenerational consequences are rarely addressed, and hence reflect the usual silence that continues to this day. Readers are therefore required to read between the lines, to reflect upon their own family histories, and to begin discussing the worst chapter in German history.” writes the author Alexandra Senfft in the foreword of the book Kriegskinder.

The project shows forty-four analogue portrait photos of a generation whose memories will soon vanish. Juxtaposing numerous childhood recollections with the portraits of the witnesses results in a complex image of the generations during the Nazi era.

An exhibition in cooperation with Hatje Cantz Verlag.

In 2013 Mihaela Noroc decided to quit her job and to dedicate herself exclusively to photography and travel. She called The Atlas of Beauty into life. At first only a personal photo project The Atlas of Beauty quickly became a global undertaking. Traveling only with her backpack and her camera equipment, the photographer since then has been portraying more than 2,000 women from over 50 countries: from Germany to North Korea, from Myanmar to Iceland.

The result is a kaleidoscope of women’s portraits, which could not be more different. „For me, beauty is diversity. It is much more than what we often see today in mass media”, says the photographer about her project.

In a time of ubiquitous beauty ideals, standardized bodies and body optimization, The Atlas of Beauty shows photographs that encourage women worldwide to go their own path and to discover their own beauty, beyond marketing campaigns and social constraints.

The upcoming, modern photography of photographers from Turkey is hardly known inside and outside their own country. Faced with wars and unrest in the Middle East as well as with the national developments, a generation of independent photographers has developed. They closely observe social developments in their homeland.

Aesthetically and thematically, these young photographers mark a leap in Turkey’s history of photography. One of the outstanding characteristics of their generation is the multifaceted nature of their forms of expression and their ability to develop, in addition to visual and narrative strategies of photojournalism, their own conceptual visual languages.

Photographers: Kemal Aslan, Emine Akbaba, Göksu Baysal, Kürşat Bayhan, Barbaros Kayan, Emin Özmen, Ceren Saner and the collective NARphotos.

Curated by: Attila Durak (Artistic Director FotoIstanbul), Gisela Kayser (Artistic Director Freundeskreis Willy-Brandt-Haus) and Katharina Mouratidi (Artistic Director GfHF).

SNEAK PREVIEW
Tuesday, 5 September 2017, 7 pm
with Attila Durak, Artistic Director FotoIstanbul and Emin Özmen, MAGNUM photographer.

THEME NIGHT
Friday, 15 September 2017, 7 pm
Introduction: Dr. Sergey Lagodinsky, Head of Department EU/North America, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung.
Talk: Kristian Brakel, Office Director Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Istanbul, Photographer Emine Akbaba and Mehmet Kaçmaz, Photographer NARphotos.

A project in cooperation with Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung.

With kind support by: Rudolf-Augstein-Stiftung, HALBE-Rahmen, d´mage.net.

 

 

 

Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung and f³ – freiraum für fotografie show a selection of works by the collective NARphotos.

NARphotos is a collective established in 2003 by photographers for whom documentary photography is a visual tool of  “understanding and expressing” the world. The aim is to show the various conditions in human life. For the members the way of realizing their projects has an importance as well as the final result. In times where producing together, sharing the knowledge, support and collectivism become less, they belive that the function of the images has a priority over their plastic and esthetic values. Members of NARphotos do not accept what is given as the way it is. Instead of staying satisfied with the given answers, they prefer to ask more questions. They produce photo reportages with the idea of trying to change the situation instead of admitting and protecting the existing circumstances.

Curated by: Attila Durak (Artistic Director FotoIstanbul), Gisela Kayser (Artistic Director Freundeskreis Willy-Brandt-Haus) and Katharina Mouratidi (Artistic Director GfHF).

The exhibition is to be seen at Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, Schumannstr. 8, 10117 Berlin.

With kind support by: Rudolf-Augstein-Stiftung, HALBE-Rahmen, d´mage.net.