How are cultural and historical processes of transformation reflected in the medium of photography? With more than 500 photographic works from Africa, its diaspora, and Europe, the exhibition Shifting Dialogues: Photography from The Walther Collection traces the development of photography as a history of transnational parallels and contradictions: showcasing the beginnings of ethnographic images during the colonial era, self-determined studio photography—and politics of self-fashioning—from the 1940s onwards, and the potent visual activism practiced by a constituency of contemporary artists in the present. The photographic and lens-based media artworks assembled here systematically reveal the ambivalent—and shifting—relationship between image and self-image, portraiture and social identity, representation and performance.
Cur. Maria Müller-Schareck, Vivien Trommer
