Counterpart. Portraits from August Sander to Rineke Dijkstra

As one of the oldest motifs in art, the human figure also plays a major role in photography. In this medium in particular, the image owes as much to the unblinking, seemingly objective eye of the camera as it does to the subjective gaze of the photographer. In this presentation from the collection’s holdings, the breadth of the spectrum of photographic portraiture over the past 100 years becomes clear through works by selected artists. The starting point is August Sander, who, as a pioneer of objective conceptual photography, sought to typologically collect photographs of people from the most diverse social strata and occupational groups. However, younger generations of photographers are approaching a different reality. Rineke Dijkstra and Wolfgang Tillmans, for example, are both concerned with capturing an individual’s attitude to life in their portraits. Also on display are works by Sybille Bergemann, Ian Wallace, Judith Joy Ross, Michael Schmidt, Marie-Jo Lafontaine, and many others.