PHOTO – ART – PHOTO
From Julia Margaret Cameron to Thomas Ruff
Clemens Sels Museum Neuss
10/27/2024 – 02/23/2025
Julia Margaret Cameron. Florence, 1872. Sammlung Siegert © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024
The invention of photography revolutionised visual culture in the 19th century. From the very beginning, there were well-known protagonists who saw it as a new art form rather than just a technical tool. For example, Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879), who is still one of the most innovative and important artists in the history of photography today, proclaimed: ‘It is my endeavour to ennoble photography, and to secure to it the character and utility of high art, by combining the real and the ideal, and sacrificing nothing of truth, by devoting myself entirely to poetry and beauty. ‘ Rejecting the rigid conventions of Victorian photography, Cameron's oeuvre is characterised above all by a great love of experimentation: Scratches, stains or even fingerprints on the prints reveal the working process of the artist, who was in a lively exchange with the Pre-Raphaelite circle. She was one of the first to consciously use blurring as a stylistic device.
This became the hallmark of Pictorialism. In the fin de siècle, it was the first international movement in art photography to shape a poetic visual language that still resonates in our visual culture today. Alongside the art of Art Nouveau, Japonism and Impressionism, Symbolism also provided important impulses. The American Edward Steichen (1879-1973), for example, was inspired by the writings of the important Symbolist Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949) and by the paintings of Eugène Carrière (1849-1906). He also had a lifelong friendship with Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), from whom he also received photographic commissions.
Alfred Stieglitz. Die Netzflickerin, 1894. Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg
Edward Steichen. Selbstporträt, 1901. Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024
With ‘PHOTO - ART - PHOTO’, the Clemens Sels Museum Neuss invites visitors for the first time in Germany to trace the significant influences of Symbolist and Pre-Raphaelite art on the history of photography. At the same time, contemporary positions open up a view of painterly tendencies in photography today. The exhibition was developed by Anita Hachmann and Ralph Goertz.
Around 100 works, including works by Julia Margaret Cameron, Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Gertrude Käsebier, Thomas Ruff, Elger Esser and Eleanor Antin, offer a surprising and fresh look at the history of (art) photography.
‘Sensational exhibition!’
Dieter Nuhr
‘A pearl in the presentation of old and new photography!’
Dr. Ulrike Lehman
‘From picture to picture, Foto-Kunst-Foto pays homage to slowness. It counteracts the flood of images in social media with self-confidence. [...] In praise of slowness. Praise to the curators for this courage.’
Peter E. Rytz, DFJ
‘A worthwhile exhibition that, despite its penchant for aesthetically charged nostalgia, proves that photography has also been practised as an art form from the very beginning.’
Michael Georg Müller, Westdeutsche Zeitung
WDR broadcast: When photography became art
WDR, Helge Drafz
Thomas Ruff. neg◊artists_01, 2014. Leihgabe des Künstlers © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024
Elger Esser. Lac de Cahnttecoq III, 2017. Courtesy Van der Grinten Galerie, Köln © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024
Tom Hunter. "Der Weg nach Hause (aus der Serie "Leben und Tod in Hackney"), 2000 © Tom Hunter
Curators of the exhibition:
Anita Hachmann, M.A., Clemens Sels Museum
Ralph Goertz, M.A.S., IKS Photo, Düsseldorf (co-curator)
Participating photographers:
With historical works by James Craig Annan, Friedrich Behrens-Rogasen, Anne Brigman,, Julia Margaret Cameron, Alvin Langdon Coburn, James Page Croft, Robert Demachy, Minya Diez-Dührkoop, Eugène Druet, Pierre Dubreuil, Rudolph Dührkoop, Frank Eugene, Leopold von Glasersfeld, Wilhelm von Gloeden, Hugo Henneberg, Oscar und Theodor Hofmeister, Dudley J. Johnston, Gertrude Käsebier, Heinrich Kühn, Adolphe de Meyer, Gerard Middendorp, Léonard Misonne, Paul Pichier, N. T. Porter, Charles Émile Joachim Constant Puyo, Franz Schensky, M. Curt Schmidt, Edward Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz, Bernhard Troch, Clarence Hudson White und David Wilkie Wynfield including contemporary works by Eleanor Antin, Céline Bodin, Dorje de Burgh, Elger Esser, Dunja Evers, Tom Hunter, Freya Najade, Yan Wang Preston, Thomas Ruff, Alessandro Ruzzier, Arpita Shah, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Thomas Wrede.
Installation shots:
Catalogue
The exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue published by Wienand Verlag.
