Friday, October 20, 2017

Werkbundarchiv – Museum der Dinge / FOTO | ALBUM

FOTO | ALBUM
Private and Anonymous Photography from the Collection of Werkbundarchiv – Museum der Dinge

Friday, 20. October 2017 to Monday, 26. February 2018

Opening: October 19, 2017, 7 pm

The tattered passport photo carried along in a wallet, the leafing through grandmother's photo album or orchestrated everyday snapshots with monotonous parades of universal poses and subjects – we get a glimpse of strangers' personal histories and recognise ourselves at the same time. Entirely individual and biographical, these moments are at the same time often captured in a highly ritualised and formulaic visualisation. It is this very ambivalence and strange beauty, along with a trace of voyeuristic curiosity and a great deal of humour, that contribute to the enormous appeal of private photographs and albums.

In the special exhibition FOTO | ALBUM, the Werkbundarchiv – Museum der Dinge is presenting its otherwise invisible collection of private and anonymous photographs and photo albums, spanning an entire century, on a larger scale for the first time. Divided into three sections, the first part of the exhibition features hundreds of single photographs, grouped according to recurring motifs and visual conventions. The second part displays numerous photo albums, seeking to identify a typology and exploring their particular narrative forms. By reference to photos with evidently objectual qualities, the final section approaches photography as a material culture, looking beyond image content alone, and as a personal memory culture. Along with artistic perspectives, the exhibition also reflects on the medium's current change of meaning in the age of mass-produced digital images, and the shifting of the boundaries between public and private.

The photo album – at once a cultural technique and an organizing principle – constitutes (family) history and thus identity through the sense-producing process of selecting and arranging pictures in combination with text and oral narrative. The cultural practice of creating albums is determined both by what is selected – based on an anticipated memorial value – and by what is concealed.

Today, simultaneously with the demise of material photography, we are experiencing a renaissance of analogue aesthetic and practice in popular culture, frequently born of nostalgia, as well as an increased interest in the subject in the arts and humanities. To amplify the scope of these approaches, the Werkbundarchiv – Museum der Dinge is showing a manifestly cultural-historical exhibition on the social and visual practices of the medium. This also relates to the overarching question of how, as an institution, the museum identifies criteria for collecting, ordering and curating the photographs and how it deals with personal picture archives that are now reduced to anonymity. This also applies to the status and value accorded to the countless – yet nonetheless unique – material testimonies to this everyday practice.

A programme of presentations, discussion evenings and guided tours will accompany the special exhibition FOTO | ALBUM. Workshops for children, teenagers and families are being held in cooperation with Jugend im Museum e.V.(only available in German). Detailed information on the accompanying programme will shortly be published on our website under the Events & Education section.

Anonymous © Werkbundarchiv – Museum der Dinge, Photo: Armin Herrmann

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Friday, October 20, 2017


Collection of private and anonymous photography on view at Werkbundarchiv - Museum der Dinge


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BERLIN.- Quirky however conventional, familiar yet enigmatic: The gaze of uncounted nameless snapshooters is reflected in the collection of private and anonymous photography of Werkbundarchiv – Museum der Dinge. This rich, but largely unknown collection is displayed in the special exhibition FOTO \| ALBUM. In three chapters, hundreds of photographs, photo albums and tangible photo-objects are presented, highlighting poses and motifs, distinctive narrative structures and social functions. The first chapter of the exhibition features hundreds of single photographs, grouped into visual clusters according to recurring motifs and conventions of private image practice. Whether formulaically staged images of important life events or snapshots ranging from the ordinary to the absurd, consciously or not, the same motifs are being reproduced over and over again and have become part of our collective memory. We recognise ourselves in the private pictures of strangers showing us possible versions of our own family gatherings, holidays and everyday scenes. The second chapter displays numerous photo albums as a means of preserving, organising and presenting. These arrangements of glued-in photographs, often alongside written texts and ephemera, condese into narratives charged with symbolic meaning. Creating a photo album is shown here as a sense-producing cultural technique serving crucial social functions ranging from genealogical representation to the intimate portrayal of individual biographies. What is deemed worth narrating and remembering is as fascinating as what is deliberately left out: leaps in time and gaps within the otherwise linear family narrative indicate potentially unpleasant topics and taboos. A particular focus lies on an extensive lot of the Berg estate, a family of cabaret and vaudeville artists from Berlin. Their photo albums bear witness to an eventful family history which will become alive again through their narration in a film and a sound installation. Photographs are more than just images – they are also part of material culture as three-dimensional objects that are used, collected and treasured. Chapter three of the exhibition is shedding light on the many forms this can take, such as miniaturisation, repairing, archiving into boxes or commenting. The equally close and ambivalent connection between photography and memory – an important aspect of theoretical discourse as well as very concrete practice – is reflected in these photoobjects. A picture inside a locket for example can be an attempt to cope with impermanence and the absence of a dear person. Photo albums have nowadays been replaced by digital feeds, streams, the cloud and social media, establishing new visual conventions and social practices like hashtags, sharing and commenting as well as a shift of boundaries between public and private. Simultaneously with the demise of material photography, however, we are experiencing a renaissance of analogue aesthetics and practices, frequently born of nostalgia. Partly expressed through short-lived fashions or simulations, partly indicative of a timeless longing for something “tangible”, something “real”. The subjects raised in the exhibition also touch upon questions for the museum: how, as an institution, does it deal with this material heritage? Which value does it ascribe to personal pictures that are, unlike works of art, commonplace, widely available yet meaningful for the individual? Which criteria can be identified for collecting, ordering and curating this potentially infinite cosmos of everyday imagery? A programme of presentations, discussion evenings and guided tours will accompany the special exhibition FOTO \| ALBUM. Workshops for children, teenagers and families are being held in cooperation with Jugend im Museum e.V. (only available in German). Detailed information on the accompanying programme will shortly be published on our website under the Events & Education section.