Dear Aby Warburg, What Are We Doing with Pictures?

The art of photography, and more specifically, the individual photo, has undergone radical changes in recent decades as a result of its mass dissemination through the media and Internet. Younger generations of artists often regard photography as the “quarry” of their artistic work; they tend to “mine” photographic material of their own and others and combine it various materials and media in collages, assemblages, sculptural displays and room installations. The exhibition Dear Aby Warburg, What Are We Doing with Pictures? examined these recent trends in the fine arts and presented 30 artists whose works exhibit an experimental approach toward photography. In addition to collages (Abigail Reynolds) and montages (Walid Raad), the exhibition also presented examples of works which combine photography with sculptures (Katalin Deer), room installations (Robert Estermann) and paintings (Simon Wachsmuth). The organizers also produced an accompanying programme and a publication which investigated the historic and art-theoretical aspects of photography in more depth.

Artistic director: Eva Schmidt, Artists: Özlem Altin, Tobias Buche, Mariana Castillo Deball, Marianna Christofides, Koenraad Dedobbeleer, Katalin Deér, Thea Djordjadze, Hervé Garcia, Cécile Hummel, Franziska Kabisch, Ulrike Kuschel, Alexandra Leykauf, Elke Marhöfer, Katrin Mayer, Lia Perjovschi, Manfred Pernice, Abigail Reynolds, Paula Roush, Ines Schaber & Stefan Pente, Eske Schlüters, Batia Suter, Simon Wachsmuth, Haegue Yang