SPECIAL EXHIBITION

The fascination for analog photography is experiencing a new revival. While digital photography dominates the field of documentary and everyday photography, analog photography is increasingly asserting itself as an artistic medium and regaining significance in society. The special exhibition showed the range of contemporary developments in analog photography through unique works, series and photographic installations. With a total of 24 artists from the German-speaking countries, different nuances of this medium was illuminated in four thematic groups. The exhibition showed a clear focus on materiality and experimentats in dealing with light, chemistry, and technology.

In the chapter "Camera-less Photography" we showed contemporary interpretations of photograms, chemigrams or lumen prints. By using these techniques, the artists quote and reinterpret the beginnings of photography. In "Photographic Time Travel" it became clear that the photographic medium offers the possibility to travel through time: Images from today's world as silver daguerreotypes or ambrotypes trigger a sense of anachronism. In this room artists and photographers approach, appropriate or analyze old photographic techniques from the 19th and 20th centuries through their own photographic work. In the chapter "Light and Process" we found different forms of photography taken with or without cameras. Examples are photographic paper converted as a pinhole camera and exposed directly, experimental and playful cameras as well as other forms of exposure. The focus was on the performative, the interaction between man and camera or between man and photography. In the last part of the exhibition "Analog meets Digital" the main theme was the encounter between analog and digital photography. The encounter can take many forms: an interaction with an AI (artificial intelligence), the collaboration with a digital machine, or even the translation of digital images into analog.

The exhibition PHOTOBOOKS. Art Page by Page took place at the same time.

Curator: Silvia Gaetti

Artists:
Sylvia Ballhause, Eun Sun Cho, Günter Derleth, Jana Dillo, Tine Edel, Alexander Gehring, Spiros Hadjidjanos, Alexander Kadow, Georgia Krawiec, Martin Kreitl, Antje Kröger, Ute Lindner, Lilly Lulay, Harald Mairböck, Florian Merkel, Falk Messerschmidt, Elisabeth Moritz, Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs, Helena Petersen, René Schäffer, Karoline Schneider, Regina Stiegeler, Claus Stolz, Ria Wank