Exhibition cooperations
In addition to the exhibition schedule at The Cube, which includes works that are part of the Collection as well as works from promoted projects – such as the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize or the Foam Talent programme – the Foundation makes an ongoing effort to develop further collaborations with cultural institutions both within and outside of Germany. In 2014, the Art Collection exhibition “Human Nature” was on display at the NRW Forum Düsseldorf as part of the Düsseldorf Photo Weekend. Since the first edition of RAY Fotografieprojekte Frankfurt/Rhein Main in 2012, the Art Collection has also been an important partner of this new photo triennial and participates in RAY both with works on loan and as an exhibition venue. As the Collection’s curator, Anne-Marie Beckman is also a member of the Ray curator team. In cooperation with the MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt, the special exhibition for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize was shown as part of the RAY photo triennial at the museum’s exhibition space MMK in 2015 and 2017. It was again showcased at MMK and as part of RAY 2018 in 2018.
As a main goal, the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation seeks to continue to bring important photography exhibitions to Frankfurt and to make the Art Collection accessible to a broad audience outside of the exhibition space at the company’s headquarters.
Current collaborations
Photography Festival „Les rencontres de la photographie d’Arles“ in Arles, France
Exhibition: 4 July to 24 September 2023
Every summer, the city of Arles hosts the largest international photography festival, „Les Recontres de la photographie d'Arles“. Visitors can see works by famous photographers as well as newcomers at various indoor and outdoor exhibition venues spread throughout the city. We are taking part in the renowned festival for the fourth time in cooperation with the Fotohaus ParisBerlin at the Fondation Manuel Rivera-Ortiz. This year we will be presenting works from the series "surrounded" by German-Angolan artist Verdiana Albano.
In her series “surrounded”, Albano focuses on the Chinese metropolis of Chongqing. The dimensions of this city are gigantic - its area now equals that of the whole of Austria. In this rapidly growing metropolis, home to over 30 million inhabitants and with hardly a building older than 40 years, an extreme idea of progress meets a special phenomenon of nature - a dense fog that often envelops the city tightly. It is this interaction that Albano studies in her series. In addition to the gigantic skyscrapers, bridges and roads, the astonishingly deserted images also show the mouth of the Yangtze and Jialing Jiang rivers. Both play a central role in the development of the Chinese economy and the city of Chongqing as important trade routes, but are also suspected by many residents to be the cause of the dense haze. For others, the permanent clouding of the air is rather smog, which is due to the unchecked growth of the city. It is most likely a combination of the two. Using her camera, Verdiana Albano charts Chongqing’s strange atmosphere that, haloed by this diffuse light, reveals aspects that are both mystical and dystopian.
Details about the Arles Photo Festival and the exhibition can be found here.
Image Capital
Exhibition, Museum Folkwang Essen
We are a cooperation partner to the exhibition "Image Capital" at the Folkwang Museum Essen. The show illustrates the history and present of the medium of photography as an information technology and is based on an interdisciplinary research project by photography historian Estelle Blaschke and artist Armin Linke.
Photographs of any kind are often edited, exchanged, stored and sold, many also deleted and forgotten. All of these actions shape how we interact with them. While the history of digital image practices is still emerging, today the incessant accumulation of photographs in search engines, social media or in the memories of our smartphones stands out. The exhibition features photographs, video works, texts, archival images, and interviews from research, academia, and industry, posing questions such as. How are value systems created? How are the ever-growing volumes of images managed, used, and monetized in digital and analog concepts?
After the opening in Essen, the presentation will be shown in different variations at the Fondazione MAST/ Bologna and at the Centre Pompidou/Paris as well as in our premises in Eschborn. You can find more information here.
Past collaborations
Daniel Castro Garcia - I Peri N’Tera
Exhibition: 4 July to 25 September 2022
Once again we cooperated with the "Fotohaus ParisBerlin" and presented the exhibition “I Peri N’Tera” by Daniel Castro Garcia at the Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation as part of the festival "Les Rencontres de la photographie".
As a non-profit foundation we support young artists dealing with the medium of photography through awards, grants and exhibitions, often in cooperation with other institutions. Since 2017, we are funding the internationally renowned Foam Talent program, which is hosted by the Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam Foam and honors every two years 20 artists under 40 years. Part of this collaboration is the acquisition of selected works by one of the "Talents" for the Art Collection Deutsche Börse. In 2021 we added a selection of images from the Series “I Peri N’Tera” by Foam Talent Daniel Castro Garcia to their collection of contemporary photography.
In “I Peri N’Tera”, Castro Garcia explores the multi-faceted impact of migration into Italy, from Africa through Libya across the Mediterranean Sea. The individuals that survive this journey experience multiple incidents of trauma, to later discover that life in Italy and wider Europe consists of ghettoisation, xenophobia, unemployment, exploitative labour and a long and difficult process to receive documentation. In June 2017 he started working at a reception centre for unaccompanied minors in Sicily, until its closure in mid-2019. The centre, located in the rural hills in the province of Enna, was home to 12 Sub-Saharan boys that had been rescued in the Mediterranean Sea alone, without their families. The issues faced by migration into Europe are not black and white, and by reducing the narrative to polarised binary structures, valuable information is being ignored. This body of work seeks to challenge the historical and cultural patterns conventionally used to cover migration/refugee issues.
Jochen Lempert
Exhibition: 12.3. to 5.6.2022
From March 2022, the Portikus Frankfurt, part of the renowned Städelschule (college of fine arts), showed an exhibition of the work of the photographer Jochen Lempert (*1958), which was first solo exhibition in Frankfurt.
As part of our diverse support programme, we support this presentation. In his black-and-white photographs and diverse installations, the artist deals in detail with phenomena from the animal and plant world and how we encounter them in different contexts. Lempert's work is characterized by the fact that he combines a biological with a photographic perspective, thereby creating new perspectives. Jochen Lempert will develop a new group of works for the Portikus that deals with the flora and fauna of the Maininsel and the area around the Old Bridge.
Jochen Lempert was already a finalist for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize in 2014. His project, which was selected for the prize at the time, can be found here.
Zanele Muholi
Exhibition and Panel: 26.11.2021 to 13.3.2022
As part of our exhibition cooperation, we were supporting the presentation "Zanele Muholi" at the Gropius Bau in Berlin and the accompanying programme "Forms of Insistence, Tenderness and Refuge". This was the first major exhibition of the South African photographer in Germany.
Zanele Muholi (*1972, South Africa), a visual activist, came to prominence in the early 2000s with photographs that tell stories of Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and intersex lives in South Africa and beyond. Presenting the full breadth of Muholi’s career, the Gropius Bau survey brings together over 200 photographs: from their very first body of work, “Only Half the Picture”, to their on-going series “Somnyama Ngonyama”. Muholi’s work addresses sexual politics, racial violence, communal resistance and self-assertion and is a gesture of visibility, empowerment and social activism. It challenges dominant stereotypes and the heteronormative gaze while speaking to various forms of social, communal and artistic self-empowerment.
The public programme “Forms of Insistence, Tenderness and Refuge” accompanied the exhibition and included conversations, movie screenings, special tours and a poetry convening. It was held from November 2021 until March 2022. As part of the Zanele Muholi exhibition’s closing weekend, Tina Campt, Black feminist theorist of visual culture and contemporary art, delivered a keynote titled “Gazing While Black: Black Bodies, White Cube Spaces”. This was followed by a keynote of Renée Mussai, curator and scholar of photography and lens-based media, titled “Other/Wise – Notes on Curatorial Care, Visual Activism, and Seeing with Different Eyes”. After a welcome by Anne-Marie Beckmann (Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation), the event was moderated by curator Natasha Ginwala. You can find more about the event here.
Zanele Muholi’s work "Faces and Phases" is part of the Art Collection Deutsche Börse. In 2015 Muholi was a finalist of the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize.
RAY 2021 Ideologies
Exhibition and Festival: 3.6. – 12.9.2021
The great promise of globalization – to bring more prosperity to people worldwide – is giving way to increasing scepticism. Human-made climate change, exploitation of nature, the power and dependence of societies on large tech corporations, and the steady accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few are leading not only to worldwide migration movements, but also to more and more frustration, resulting in an increasing polarization of public debates. Democratic structures are being called into question, and current models of autocratic governance in the East and the West are increasingly finding supporters. Flanked by targeted communication strategies, associated ideologies and ideological attitudes are disseminated as justification of ideas, convictions and values of a person, a group or state entities, whether through the spoken or written word, and even more so through images.
The international photography triennial RAY 2021 presented contemporary photography and related media under the theme of IDEOLOGIES. Critically reflexive art, which questions its own foundations of creation and the very act of its presentation as well, will be presented. The association of the viewer with the artwork is determined by a disturbance, friction, exaggeration and by the production of something new, unsettling the manipulative fusion of the image with the viewer. The works challenge us to look at images critically, to analyze and understand them. Surrounded by an ever-increasing number of images, this ability is more important than ever. The fourth edition of the RAY Triennial took place at over 11 exhibition venues in the Frankfurt/Rhine-Main region.
In the RAY Exhibitions of Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, DZ BANK Kunstsammlung, Fotografie Forum Frankfurt, Museum Angewandte Kunst and MUSEUM MMK FÜR MODERNE KUNST, the curatorial team focused on diverse perspectives based on contributions and new productions by international artists such as Akinbode Akinbiyi, Máté Bartha, Johanna Diehl, Eddo Hartmann, Paula Markert, Qiana Mestrich, Yves Sambu, Adrian Sauer and Salvatore Vitale. RAY 2021 IDEOLOGIES was co-curated by Anne-Marie Beckmann (Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation), Christina Leber (DZ BANK Kunstsammlung), Alexandra Lechner (Freelance Curator), Celina Lunsford (Fotografie Forum Frankfurt), Susanne Pfeffer and Anna Sailer (MUSEUM MMK FÜR MODERNE KUNST) as well as Matthias Wagner K (Museum Angewandte Kunst).
RAY Festival and Masterclass, 1 to 3 September 2021
As part of the 4th International Photography Triennial RAY 2021 IDEOLOGIES, the RAY Festival took place with lectures and talks from 1 to 3 September. On three festival days, international artists, curators and experts discussed diverse perspectives and photographic positions on the topic of IDEOLOGIES. The festival venue of RAY 2021 was the Museum Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt am Main. The results of the RAY MASTER CLASS, which took place under the supervision of RAY artist Johanna Diehl, were also presented here from 1 to 12 September. The RAY Festival was made possible by the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation.
Keynotes, discussions and artist talks were held partly in German and partly in English. Further information can be found on the website via: https://ray2021.de/en/ray-festival/.
"Les Rencontres de la photographie", Arles - Fotohaus ParisBerlin
4 July to 26 September 2021
For the second time, the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation cooperated with the "Fotohaus ParisBerlin" and presented the exhibition "Philip Montgomery - American Mirror" at the Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation as part of the festival "Les Rencontres de la photographie".
Philip Montgomery’s “American Mirror” is a portrait of American volatility—a view of a nation in flux, torn between its future and its past. The Ferguson unrest, in 2014, served as a flashpoint not only for the photographer’s understanding of his home country but for America itself. The sense of optimism and progress that had been reflected in the election of the first black president had given way to something else—a fractured, churning, conflicted state. The subjects of Montgomery’s images are everyday Americans caught between moments of grief, crisis, anger, euphoria, fear, and relief. While working in the tradition of documentary photography, Montgomery’s approach is markedly more cinematic, capturing in sharp relief a nation frozen like a film still—a tragedy unfolding without end.
Exhibition and film series
"Viewfinder – Photography and Film in Dialogue"
„Hidden Views – Voyeurism in Film", 1 November 2019 to 12 January 2020
"Through the eyes of Magnum", 3 November 2020 to 13 June 2021
The series "Viewfinder – Fotografie und Film im Dialog" (Photography and Film in Dialogue) marks the beginning of a new cooperation project of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation and the DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum. The proximity of photography and film is evident in their similar technology, but above all, it is reflected in their reciprocal influence. A closer look at the history of the two media shows that photography is an ever-present theme in the most diverse film genres and also frequently uses cinematic language.
Part of this cooperation is a DFF film series, which is accompanied by an exhibition of works from the Art Collection Deutsche Börse, also at the DFF. The first part of the series "Hidden Views – Voyeurism in Film” opened in November 2019. The exhibition presented photographs of Nobuyoshi Araki, Stefan Exler, Paul Fusco, Arnold Odermatt and Beat Streuli and as well as the film series of the DFF, dealt with the phenomenon of voyeurism and the sometimes associated crossing of borders.
In the following year, 2020, we showed the exciting works of photographers from the Magnum Paris photo agency from our Collection under the title “Through the Eyes of Magnum”. The connection between Magnum photographers and film is almost as old as the Magnum Photos agency itself. They have not only accompanied countless filming shoots on the set, but have also recorded the imagery of the cinema in their work and sometimes even shaped it. An exhibition with works from the Art Collection Deutsche Börse, among others by Philipp Jones Griffiths, Harry Gruyaert, Thomas Hoepker and Alec Soth.
"Les Rencontres de la photographie", Arles - Fotohaus ParisBerlin
1 July to 31 July 2019
During the international photography festival "Les Rencontres de la photographie" in Arles, we have shown works by three young photographers from our collection at the "Fotohaus ParisBerlin": Florian Albrecht-Schoeck, Jana Bissdorf and Malte Sänger. Under the theme "Mur(s)/Mauer(n)" (Wall(s)), 15 institutions have presented over works of 50 photographers in the Fotohaus.
Changing Views - 20 Years of Art Collection Deutsche Börse
Exhibition, 3 May to 7 July 2019
In light of the 20-year anniversary of the Art Collection Deutsche Börse, Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam presented "Changing Views – 20 Years of Art Collection Deutsche Börse", an extensive range of works from the Collection. The exhibition period consisted of four back-to-back presentations that recorded positions on some key themes of the collection, with works from different photographers. This concept celebrated the variety and comprehensive quality of the Art Collection Deutsche Börse. The show included works from iconic names such as Diane Arbus, Walker Evans, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Rineke Dijkstra, Dana Lixenberg and from younger photographers like Tobias Zielony and Mike Brodie, and hidden gems like Gerd Danigel or Gabriele and Helmut Nothhelfer.
The four succesive chapters were:
Germany (3 – 19 May)
Icons (21 May – 4 June)
Traces of Disorder (6 June – 23 June)
Youth Culture (25 June – 7 July)
More details about the different chapters here.
RAY 2018. EXTREME
Exhibition and Festival
25 May to 21 September 2018
Every three years the entire Rhine-Main region focuses with the triennial RAY on photography, devoting itself to a different topic with an extensive exhibition and event programme. From 24 May until 9 September 2018 the motto of RAY was "EXTREME": various contemporary photography positions reflecting the topic are displayed at over ten locations. For the first time, RAY 2018 opened with a four-day festival kick-off in May 2018 at the MMK 3 Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt/Main. The international festival programme embraced lectures, discussions with artists, guided tours, and workshops on this year's main theme.
Alongside "EXTREME. TERRITORIES", one of the main exhibitions in Eschborn, the Photography Foundation also played an active role in the RAY photography triennial in other respects. You can find more about RAY 2018 here.
Photographs become Pictures. The Becher Class.
Exhibition at the Städel Museum Frankfurt am Main
27 April to 13 August 2017
From 27 April 2017 the Städel Museum in Frankfurt showed the exhibition "Photographs become Pictures. The Becher Class". The Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation supported this exhibition with 25 loans. The show featured works by Bernd and Hilla Becher, Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, Axel Hütte, Thomas Ruff, Jörg Sasse and Thomas Struth from the Art Collection.
With its some 200 photographs by internationally renowned artists the exhibition explored, among other things, the question as to what influence Bernd and Hilla Becher had on their students at the art academy Düsseldorf.
More information about the exhibition here.
Claudia Andujar. Tomorrow must not be like yesterday
Exhibition at MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main
18 February to 25 June 2017
This exhibition was the first in Europe to provide extensive insights into the œuvre of the photographer Claudia Andujar (b. in Neuchâtel, Switzerland in 1931), a resident of Brazil. In the early 1980s, in connection with her activist involvement in efforts to protect and preserve the Yanomami, the largest indigenous ethnic group in the Amazon region, she produced "Marcado" (The Marked Ones). The portraits launched Andujar's in-depth exploration of the Yanomami culture and have come to be considered her single most important series.
The exhibition has been made possible with a funding by Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation.
