June 20 - September 20, 2015
Beate Gütschow
Imagine Reality
Fotografie Forum Frankfurt, Museum Angewandte Kunst, MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main
This summer, the Photography Triennial RAY 2015 once again presents outstanding examples of contemporary photography at 12 venues in Frankfurt and the Rhine/Main region. From June 20 until September 20, the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt, the Museum Angewandte Kunst and the MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main are collectively presenting the RAY 2015 exhibition IMAGINE REALITY. 28 contemporary artists have taken fragments of reality as sources to create imaginary and visionary worlds. In doing this, they move between documentary, applied and artistic photography. The featured works as well as the new productions commissioned for RAY 2015 will focus on the transitions between documentary, photo-journalistic, applied and art photography.
Today’s unlimited possibilities for producing and manipulating images have opened a multifaceted spectrum for capturing and interpreting these scenarios of transformation. Visual worlds have emerged that testify our present day and point to our future at the same time. How can we or how would we like to see the world today? How does the abstraction or the deconstruction of everyday realities generate new perspectives both through and in photography? How do the artists use visual languages to go beyond the documentary? In what ways do they reflect upon the philosophical and existential aspects of the human and material condition of our time? The exhibition introduces artistic propositions that free themselves from the claims of authenticity and question the flood of private and public images. Real and virtual space, documentation and staging penetrate their expressions and lead to an expansion of reality.
With all of the various processes and possibilities of the medium, this exhibition shows what these artists have in common. Their images transform the environment into a world in which reality and fiction, facts and illusion are inseparably woven together.
Next to the exhibition IMAGINE REALITY, RAY 2015 supports 12 artists’ new productions and nine further partner projects in Frankfurt and the Rhine/Main region.
Opening: Friday, 19 June, 7 pm at MMK 1 of the MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main
8.30 pm Announcement of the winner of the Eagle Eye Photo Contest. Landscapes of Surveillance, initiated by Trevor Paglen in context of his exhibition at the Frankfurter Kunstverein
9 pm Opening Party at Museum Angewandte Kunst with DJ Michael Satter and food by Kitchen Surfers
ARTISTS
Sonja Braas (*1968 DE/US), Barbara Breitenfellner (*1969 AT), Sophie Calle (*1953 FR),
David Claerbout (*1969 BE), Jonas Dahlberg (*1970 SE), Hans Op de Beeck (*1969 BE),
Cristina De Middel (*1975 ES), Klaus Elle (*1954 DE), Jan Paul Evers (*1982 DE),
Lucas Foglia (*1983 US), Joan Fontcuberta (*1954 ES), João Maria Gusmão & Pedro Paiva (*1979/*1977 PT), Beate Gütschow (*1970 DE), Barbara Kasten (*1936 US), Annette Kelm (*1975 DE), Cinthia Marcelle (*1974 BR), Maix Mayer (*1960 DE), Sanaz Mazinani (*1978 IR/CA), Abelardo Morell (*1948 CU/US), Yamini Nayar (*1975 US), Miguel Rio Branco (*1946 BR), Viviane Sassen (*1972 NL), Kathrin Sonntag (*1981 DE), Simon Starling (*1967 GB), Anoek Steketee (*1974 NL), John Stezaker (*1949 GB), Jan Tichy (*1974 CZ/US), Wolfgang Zurborn (*1956 DE).
Image: BEATE GÜTSCHOW, S #14, 2005, LightJet print (C-Print), Mounted on aluminiumdibond
with white margin in wooden frame and acrylic glass, 149 x 237 cm (image), 180 x 267 cm (framed), Edition 5 + 1 AP