Founded in 2010
Forensic Architecture is a research agency, based at Goldsmiths, University of London, that undertakes architectural and media research on behalf of international prosecutors, human rights organisations and political justice groups. It’s team of investigators includes architects, scholars, artists, filmmakers, coders, investigative journalists, archaeologists, lawyers, and scientists. The research into the attack of the MSF Supported Hospital was conducted by Eyal Weizman and Christina Varvia.
*1985 in Venice (US), lives in New York (US)
In her videos and performances, Trisha Baga combines painting, sculpture, film, music, and photography into multi-disciplinary compositions. In the process, she invokes the languages of comedy and fiction. By overlapping various media and their narrative structures, she considers the acts of seeing and perceiving as well as the gaps between them.
*1972 in Agrigent (IT), lives in Berlin (DE)
Rosa Barba’s video works and cinematographic sculptures focus on the filmic image, the materials and linguistic characteristics associated with it, as well as the relationship between documentary and fiction.
*1827 in Kidderminster (GB), †1889 in Lenton (GB)
Cuthbert Bede was the pseudonym of the English author Edward Bradley. In 1855, he published the first book of cartoons about photography, Photographic Pleasures: Popularly Portrayed with Pen and Pencil. It addresses photography’s impact on life in the 19th century and on the competing medium of painting.
*1867 in Kohlstädt (GER), † after 1929
Behle was a farmer and laborer and, on several occasions, a patient in the Detmold psychiatric hospital. According to his medical records, he was only artistically active when he was experiencing a manic episode.
*1962 in New York City (US), lives in New York City (US)
Bookchin’s recent video installations and film works consider the fracturing of the self in our age of constant connectivity. The individual chapters of the series Testament unite video diaries from social media platforms with a chorus of individuals. Altogether, the work reflects the relationship between intimacy and anonymity, isolation and community.
*1958 in Eeklo (BE), lives in Ghent (BE)
Dirk Braeckman’s works question photographic conventions and expose the boundaries of the medium. His photographs waver between suggesting and obscuring motifs, for example when they recede into blackness, blurriness, or the reflection of a camera flash on the surface of the image.
*1931 in Saarbrücken (GER), †2011 in Hamburg (GER)
Beginning in the 1950s, Breier worked as an artist and educator focused on photography’s basic elements, such as chemistry, light, and processing. In his creased luminograms, he created nuanced forms through minimal alterations to the paper. Many of his chemig-raphs feature unfixed oxydation processes and continue to change over time.
*1924 in Brüssel (BE), †1976 in Cologne (GER)
At the limits of Pop, Minimalism, and Conceptual art, Marcel Broodthaers developed a unique artistic practice combining entertainment and critical reflection. His play with objects from daily life was at once poetic and subversive, and he availed himself of both words and images while shifting between media. Along the way, he founded his own museum: the Musée d’Art Moderne, Départment des Aigles.
*1971 in Berlin (GER), lives in Berlin (GER)
In combining photography, video, sound collages, performance, and assemblages, Peggy Buth creates multi-faceted room-filling installations as well as fragmentary narrative structures. She uses these to question systems of representation within art, literature, politics, history, and science.
*1952 in Tavannes (CH), lives in Biel (CH) /
*1950 in Biel (CH), lives in Biel (CH)
The work of artist duo F & D Cartier is centered around photo processes, light, and sensitive materials. For their installation Wait and See, they make recourse to unexposed black-and-white photo paper from 1890–1980, which will change from colourful to dark over the course of the exhibition. This forgotten material stands as a relic of the past.
*1985 in Vancouver (CA), lives in Brooklyn (US)
Cwynar traces the shift in meaning occurring as photos from daily life become ubiquitous. Her series Darkroom Manuals takes motifs from photography manuals, which she used a scanner to digitize. The imperfect scans produced by the machine come to stand as a temporal procedure in shimmering colours.
*1850 in Douai (FR), †1917 in Paris (FR) /
*1830 in Beaune (FR), †1904 in Paris (FR)
In 1882, Marey and his assistant Demenÿ used chronophotography to develop a technique for producing exposures that would capture any movements that occurred during the process. Whether too fast, too complex, or too slow, these movements would have otherwise remained invisible to the human eye.
*1855 in Krems at the Donau (AT), †1944 in Kitzbühel (AT)
Austrian photochemist Joseph Maria Eder wrote several books on the history of photography. In 1887, he published the first almanac for photography and reproduction procedures, illustrated by way of reproductions, thereby achieving an international platform for technical innovations in the field of photography.
*1967 in Copenhagen (DK), lives in Berlin (DE) and Copenhagen (DK)
Eliasson’s multimedia works engage perception, movement, and both bodily and self-experience. The light installation Your Uncertain Shadow (Black and White) translates exhibition visitors’ moving bodies into a play of shadows in various shades of gray.
1944 in Neutitschein (present-day CZ), †2014 near to Berlin (GER)
Harun Farocki was a filmmaker and artist. His works deal rigorously with the processes of image production and with images themselves.
*1941 in Düsseldorf (GER), lives in Düsseldorf (GER)
Feldmann’s conceptual investigation of photography began in the 1960s. His book Nur für Privat (Private Only) offers a look into a collection of over 1,000 photographs from the 1970s and 1980s swinger scene. Mostly responses to classified ads in the newspaper, the images were sent by post with the intention of initiating sexual encounters. Many of the photos carry an indication on the reverse, from which the work derives its title.
*1984 in Wellington (NZ), lives in Berlin (GER)
In 2016 he was a participant in the Berlin Program for Artists. Today he is a guest mentor. Recent exhibitions include This Time of Useful Consciousness, Dowse Art Museum, Wellington, NZ. Production: Made in Germany, Kunstverein Hannover; Living Cities 2011-, Adam Art Gallery, Wellington, NZ, 2015.
*1982 in Braddock (US)
Frazier is an American artist and associate professor of photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2015 she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. Informed by documentary practices from the turn of the 20th century, Frazier works in photography, video and performance to build visual archives that addresses industrialism, health-care inequality, environmental justice and communal history.
*1964 in Dornbirn (AT), lives in Paris (FR)
Arno Gisinger’s most recent work deals with the photographic memory of Kunsthalle Mannheim. In a montage of images from the historical glass plate collection, he investigates the complex transformation processes of art history via a photographic history of art. He presents this archaelogy of a conflict over images of modernity in the form of panoramic projections located inside the Mannheim Water Tower.
*1978 in Cologne (GER), lives in Cologne (GER)
In his conceptual artworks, Goldbach considers the ways in which our daily lives have been transformed by media. The series KVz ostensibly shows cross-connect boxes covered with graffiti; however, Goldbach treated the images with coloured illuminants in the darkroom. The resulting traces of colour appear to viewers as part of the image.
*1983 in Nordhausen (GER) lives in Mönchengladbach (GER)
Gösel’s multimedia works address the role that photography plays in everyday life and in art. New Photographic Pleasures takes the form of drawings. Coulissen (Curtains) gives a new sculptural form to the cardboard packaging that served as a background in standardized images from family albums in the 19th century.
*1879 Magdeburg (GER), †1940 euthanasia facility Grafeneck (GER)
Grebing was a trained merchant and was admitted multiple times at various psychiatric hospitals. Between 1906 and 1908, he self-published the pamphlet Justizverbrechen (Judicial Crime) and subsequently authored several other visionary, utopian works.
*1981 in Pitermaritzburg (ZA), lives in Johannesburg (ZA)
Through filmic and photographic works, Simon Gush addresses various ways in which art can be percevied by society at large.
*1924 in Stuttgart (GER), †2013 in Mannheim (GER)
Robert Häusser’s work in photography is informed by his interest in modern formal languages, as seen in his photographs of architecture and diverse objects. It is also visible in his documentation of the Ludwigshafen-based company BASF’s global sites of production, a commission that he received from the corporation in the 1960s and 1970s.
*1891, Berlin (GER), †1968 in Berlin (GER)
John Heartfield was a member of the Berlin Dadaists and one of the pioneers of political photomontage. In 1929 Heartfield began his collaboration with the Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung (AIZ: Workers' Illustrated Newspaper), which regularly published full-page photomontages by the artist. Heartfield would continuing creating work for AIZ, and later the Volks-Illustrierte (Peoples' Illustrated Magazine), while in exile. After the war, he returned to East Germany, where he continued to work, designing scenery and posters for the Berliner Ensemble and Deutsches Theater.
*1944, †1917 in Leipzig (GER)
Herzberg began to paint, write, and compose while in his mid 60s. In addition to seemingly naïve genre scenes, he produced numerous portraits. He was a patient at psychiatric clinics in Leipzig and Vienna.
*1944 in Eberswalde (GER), lives in Cologne (GER)
The typically large-format photographic works of Candida Höfer, a former student of the Bechers, most often depict public or semi-public buildings or spaces, such as libraries, museums, or botanical gardens.
*1976 in Bergen on Rügen (GER), lives in Berlin (GER)
Sven Johne’s works take as a point of departure recent upheavals within German and European history, the current state of politics and the social hatefulness of the continent. His photographs, text-and-image works, and videos never simply take stock of the situation. They are motivated by a desire to comment, critique, and bring about change. They blur the boundaries between documentary and fiction, though not without a sense of irony and sarcasm. Johne is fully aware of the fact that a media-rich society of the spectacle demands forms of articulation and intervention that are new and different—not distanced perspectives.
*1982 in Kiew (UA)
Kadan is a member of R.E.P. (Revolutionary Experimental Space) artists group since 2004, and was awarded the PinchukArtCentre Prize in 2011. In his work Limits of Responsibility Kadan documents the recent protests in Kiev’s Maidan square, while resisting the typical photojournalistic mode of representation. Kadan’s slideshow depicts a collection of unassuming urban vegetable gardens, planted by the protesters on the grounds of their encampment.
*1973 in Clermont-Ferrand (FR), lives in Paris (FR)
Katia Kameli is French-Algerian artist. In her work, she explores intercultural spaces, identity politics and historical narratives through video, photography, installation and drawing.
1862 in Würben near Schweidnitz (GER), †1831 psychiatric hospital Hubertusburg near Wermsdorf (GER)
Klose was a machinist and engine driver as well as a patient at various psychiatric hospitals. He referred to himself as a "secret detective and guardian of his Imperial Highness".
*1936 in Chicago (US), lives in Chicago (US)
Barbara Kasten’s image compositions are based on spatial constructions made of plexiglass, mirrors, metal plates, square timber, and cables. She introduces light and models them into picture frames. In this way, she creates photographic works, which oscillate between graphic surfaces and geometric sculptures as well as between abstraction and referentiality.
*1885, †1982
The coachman Kockartz was a longterm patient of mental institutions. His entire body was covered with ornamental tattoos which he proudly exhibited before a camera.
*1943 in Cochem (GER), lives in Cologne (GER)
In his photographic performances, Jürgen Klauke uses his body as a medium. At once humorous, grotesque, and provocative, his performances center around conventional gender roles, spiritual and corporeal identities, or everyday ups and downs. Their settings are minimal and surreal, and they never fail to survey the basic conditions of human existence.
*1967 in Plön (GER), lives in Berlin (GER)
Kröger is a Berlin-based filmmaker and writer. She is the author of four novels, co-director at the Professional Media Master Class in Halle (Saale), and teaches project development. She runs the production platform pong alongside Philip Scheffner, Alex Gerbaulet, and Caroline Kirberg.
Schaukat Kassem (*1932 in Mandeli (IQ), †2006 in Heidelberg (GER)) traveled to Mannheim on a scholarship in 1958. His wife and children followed half a year later. Today, Kassem’s photographic archive rests in the hands of his daughter Cholud Kassem (*1958 in Baghdad (IQ)), who is an artist and lives in Heidelberg.
Serafettin Keskin (*1937 in Vişneli (TR), †1994 in Heidelberg (GER)) came to Southern Germany as a so-called guest worker in 1961. He soon found footing in the drink industry. His family followed in 1964. His daughter Gülay Keskin (*1961 in Kemalpasa (TR)) is a photographer and lives in Heidelberg.
*1981 in Basel (CH), lives in Wien (AT) and Basel (CH)
Stefan Karrer works in the fields of video installation and performance and also as a songwriter, live musician, and producer. His desktop video takes images of clouds and waves that he found on the Internet and sets them within a narrative. The rhythmic voiceover also incorporates the original comments from the users who uploaded the images.
*1928 in Nizza (FR), †1962 in Paris (FR)
Klein was a painter, sculptor, and performance artist. He is best known for his monochrome compositions as well as for the ultramarine blue that he developed, International Klein Blue (IKB). Following his interest in Zen philosophy, the void became a central theme in his work.
*1984 in Düsseldorf (DE), lives in Düsseldorf (DE)
The images on the front pages of newspapers and newsfeeds that penetrate deep into our collective memory conceal many others that fell by the wayside during the selection process. Newsroom-Editeure addresses the filtration process that masses of image are subject to by photo editors – the deciding voices in the chain of image treatment – within image agencies and the editorial boards of international media outlets.
*1942 Lakeview, Oregon (US), lives in San Diego (US)
Has taught Photography at the University of California, San Diego. His works have been exhibited in art institutions and community spaces including the Whitney Museum of American Art; the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; the San Diego/Imperial Counties Labor Council; and the Amalgamated Clothing & Textile Workers, Los Angeles, among many others.
*1871 in Straßburg (FR), †1956 in Zürich (CH)
Helmar Lerski’s portraits were influenced by his work as a cameraman, lighting technician, and special effects supervisor on numerous silent movies, such as Metropolis by Fritz Lang. He lit the figures in his images in ways that are at once theatrical, expressive, and multi-variant. In doing so, rather than empha-sizing their personalities, he pointed up the mutability of the face and of every person.
*1958 in Moers (GER), lives in Hamburg (GER)
Having studied biology, Jochen Lempert went on to combine art, scientific research, documentation, and conceptualism in his work. The serpentine tracks visible in Luminogramm Glühwürmchen (Bewegung auf 35 mm Film) [Glowworm (Movement on 35 mm Film)] were produced by the insect mentioned in the title. It exposed the film as it crawled around.
*1969 in Knutwil (CH), lives in Eglisau (CH)
Since 1999, through network-oriented, often interactive installations and performances, Lee has considered with the social, economic, and political implications of digitalization within contemporary culture. Bundestagswahl (German Federal Election), a work commissioned for this biennial, connects up-to-the-minute Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram posts to a live TV show, thus giving form to the campaigns on social media.
*1955 in Bad Pyrmont (GER), †2016 in Munic (GER) /
*1952 in Bremen (GER), lives in Cologne (GER)
In 1983, photographers Horlitz and Matz founded Fotonetz, a magazine for contemporary photography with an altogether new format. By compressing photographs into postcard-size microfiches, they were able to include not just images the size of a magazine’s double spread, but much larger images or even full series. It also made distribution easy. Before it was discontinued, Fotonetz had sent out a total of 60 primarily monographic issues to subscribers.
*1964 in Schöpfheim (GER), lives in Berlin (GER)
In the early 1990s, Messmer began documenting the changes undergone by Berlin through photos of the city. Since 2006, he has focused on image collections in archives that have lost their original documentary function. He has produced expansive exhibitions and publications about East Berlin in the 1950s, about the first years of the Wall, and about state security archives—often in collaboration with the author Annett Gröschner.
*1938 in Osaka (J), lives in Tokyo (JP)
Daido Moriyama is a central figure in Japanese photography. He first became known in the 1960s through his observations of life on the street. His grainy black-and-white photos, oftentimes high contrast and with a horizon line that tilts to one side, are an attempt to find an adequate photographic language to reflect the fragility of post-war life.
*1976 in Brescia (IT), live in New York City (US)
Artists Eva & Franco Mattes, who have worked together since 1995, are among the pioneers of Net art. In their subversive actions and installations, they interweave physical space and the virtual space of the World Wide Web.
*1969 in London (GB), lives in Dhaka (BD) and New York (US)
Mohaiemen is a historian and visual artist working in Dhaka and New York. He uses photography and film to explore histories of the international left and failed utopias. Since 2006, he has worked on The Young Man Was, a history of 1970s Bangladesh, parts of which have been shown at Kunsthalle Gwangju and the Sharjah Biennial. His work Live True Life or Die Trying (2009) meditates upon the ways by which his camera, "soaked in bias and sympathy", might alter his documentation of two different protest rallies, which took place in on the same day in Dhaka in early 2009.
*1951 Popayán (CO), lives in Cali (CO)
Inspired by the photographic processes of the 19th and 20th centuries, Oscar Muñoz explores the instability of photographic fixing and the processes of memory that go along with it. His work makes use of ephemeral media – such as a person’s breath, dust, and liquids – as a means to give form to the precarity of human life.
*1978 in Burlington (US), lives in Cologne and Düsseldorf (GER)
Miller’s works deal with magic and the internal logic of analogue photography: Lighting (Selfportrait, Braid) and the composition of colours (Grainbow) are as much a subject of his work as the developing process (The Letter). For the work Paper Trays, he submerged a sheet of barite paper in a developing bath and another in a fixing bath. He left a third sheet untreated. Miller then used these to form sculptures, which are based on the shapes of developing trays.
*1983 in Arnheim (NL), lives in New York City (US)
Menkman deals with disruptions in analogue and digital media, both in theoretical and practical ways. Her video work Dear Mr Compression focuses on artifacts of coding that are no longer visible following successful data transfers.
*1972 in Umlazi, Durban (ZA), lives in Johannesburg (ZA)
Zanele Muholi considers herself a visual activist. In response to on-going discrimination and violence toward homosexuals and the transgender scene, she has spent more than a decade portraying contemporary life in South Africa’s LGBT community.
*1937 in Remscheid (GER), lives in Kassel (GER) and Berlin (GER)
Since the 1960s, Neusüss has worked with photograms and camera-less photography. 1965’s Dance consists of a full-body photogram of several people, who appear to be upright and moving. In fact, Neusüss had them lay down atop the paper in order to produce the print.
1831 in Bordeaux (FR), †1896 in Paris (FR) / 1820 in Grasse (FR), †1880 in Grasse (FR)
In 1864, following a commission from the Duke of Luynes, Vignes was one of the first people to take photographs in the East. Nègre transferred the resulting negatives to albumin, retouched them, and printed them as heliogravures. In 1874, they appeared in an atlas.
*1964 in Munic (GER), lives in New York (US)
Through her Exposures, Barbara Probst deconstructs the moment in which a photograph is taken. She does so by photographing a given situation from various angles simultaneously and then bringing these concurrent perspectives together in a multi-part tableau.
Dushan Panevski (*1930 in Skopje (MK), †2005 in Schifferstadt (GER)) came to Mannheim in 1961 and shortly thereafter began work as a carpenter. He later ran a bar in Speyer. In 1969, his wife Slobodanka Panevska arrived with their two kids. His son Angel Panevski (*1956 in Skopje (MK)) is a painter and graphic designer and lives in Mannheim.
*1937 in Omaha (US), lives in Los Angeles (US)
Ed Ruscha’s artist’s books, collages, paintings, drawings, and films are inspired by the idiosyncratic symbols that represent life in America. For example, he has reproduced the Hollywood sign, gas stations, shop signs, and archetypal landscapes.
Lisa Bergmann, *1979 in Nuremberg (GER), lives in Karlsruhe (GER) /
Estelle Blaschke, *1976 in Munic (GER), lives in Berlin (GER) and Lausanne (CH) /
Paula Bulling, *1986 in Berlin (GER), lives in Berlin (GER) /
Elisa Calore, *1982 in Venice (IT), lives in Venice (IT) /
Mohamed & Haitham El-Seht, *1986 in Cairo (EG), live in Cairo (EG) /
Emilie Josso, *1990 (FR), lives in Bologna (IT) /
Leon Kahane, *1985 in Berlin (GER), lives in Berlin (GER) and Tel Aviv (IL) /
Anne König, *1971 in Erfurt (GER), lives in Leipzig (GER) /
Ina Kwon, *1980 in Hamburg (GER), lives in Berlin (GER) /
Andreas Langfeld, *1984 in Düsseldorf (GER), lives in Düsseldorf (GER) /
Armin Linke, *1966 in Mailand (IT), lives in Berlin (GER) /
Valeria Malito, *1984 in Verona (IT), lives in Mailand (IT) /
Karolina Sobel, *1987 in Tychy (PL), lives in Karlsruhe (GER) /
Helmut Völter, *1978 in Berlin (GER), lives in Berlin (GER) /
Jan Wenzel, *1972 in Bautzen (GER), lives in Leipzig (GER)
In 2010, Armin Linke and his students from the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design made a trip to the island of Lampedusa. Then, while going through the image material they had collected, they decided to found a collective—of artists, photographers, authors, and designers—in connection with the Leipzig-based publisher Spector Books. The purpose of the group is to study the images and representations of migration that circulate in the media as well as to provide testimony from outside the mass media. They work to contextualize the ways in which this imagery functions. In October 2017, they published a compre-hensive book supported by the Federal Cultural Foundation’s TURN fund.
Aurélie Pétrel 1980 in Lyon (F), lives in Paris (F) and Geneva (CH) /
Vincent Roumagnac 1973 in Biarritz (F), lives in Paris (F) and Helsinki (FI)
Aurélie Pétrel and Vincent Roumagnac have worked together since 2012. In their work as a duo, they interlace their individual artistic practices: Pétrel’s interrogation of the photographic image and photographic materials on the one hand and Roumagnac’s engagement with theater’s dispositives on the other.
*1969 Beverwijk (NL), lives in Berlin (GER)
He is currently Professor of Fine Art at the Städelschule, Frankfurt a. M. and Guest Advisor at the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam. Recent solo exhibitions include: Entitled (2016), MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt a. M., The Impassioned No (2015), Le Con-sortium, Dijon.
*1976 in Berlin (GER), lives in Leipzig (GER)
Sauer’s research focuses on transformations within photography. His pairs of images of clouds are digital calculations, which recall the positive and negative forms of the analogue recoding process, though without become wrapped up in its logic. 16.777.216 Farben (16,777,216 Colours) depicts all the possible 8-bit RGB colours arranged in random order, thus commen-ting on the limitations of digital colour design.
*1983 in Czarnkow (PL), lives in Berlin (GER)
Andrzej Steinbach’s photographs raise essential questions about the conventions of potraits and how they are interpreted. He often works with very reduced settings, thus focusing his attention on the ambivalence of facial expressions, gestures, and constellations of figures.
*1984 in Mayen (GER), lives and works in Cologne (GER)
The subject of Arne Schmitt’s work is a critical analysis of German 20th century architecture, with a special focus on the post-war period of West Germany and the field of neoliberalism.
lives in Amsterdam (NL)
sağ is a videomaker working in Amsterdam and Turkey. She recently finished a residency with the International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP). Her video background is rooted in alternative video-activism and collective practices in Ankara and Istanbul, where she co-initiated projects such as VideA, Karahaber and bak.ma.
*1932 in Jerusalem (IL), †2009 in Tel Aviv (IL)
With a sense of humor, Buky Schwartz’s video installations explore the interplay between visual elements and the physical presence of sculptural objects in three-dimensional space.
*1955 in Balingen (GER), lives in Berlin (GER)
Following his motto from 1987, Keine neuen Fotos, bis die alten aufgebraucht sind (No new photos until the old ones have been used up), Schmid has worked with 'found photography' since the 1980p. Other People’s Photographs brings together photos from 2008–11, mostly from Flickr, and orders them according to categories in 96 separate books. The result is an encyclopedia of the themes and conventions of contemporary daily photography.
*1952 in London (GB), lives in London (GB)
Often set in contemporary everyday situations, John Smith’s films operate on the border between documentation and fiction as well as representation and abstraction. Smith questions the langu-age of film and plays with viewer expectations as well as our perception, which is influenced by our preconceptions.
*1938 in Pulsnitz (GER), lives in Heidelberg (GER)
Renowned for his political posters, Staeck, a lawyer and publisher, has been president of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin since 2006.
*1977, lives in Berlin (GER)
Soo’s works often investigate social history and subjective experience through complex photo-based languages. Central to this is a consideration of the culturally and technologically determined role of the spectator.
The contribution of Mark Soo is supported by the Canadian Embassy.
*1966 in Homburg an der Saar (GER), lives in Berlin (GER)
Philip Scheffner lives in Berlin, where he works as an artist and filmmaker. He runs the production platform pong alongside Merle Kröger, Alex Gerbaulet, and Caroline Kirberg.
Raci Sirma (*1940 in Samsun, Schwarzmeerküste (TR)), the son of a tailor, came to Hockenheim as a 'guest worker' in 1965. He later moved to Viernheim. In addition to working as a mechanic and delivering furniture, he also took part in the construction of the Mannheim TV Tower.
*1980 in Würzburg (GER), lives in Leipzig (GER)
Sebastian Stumpf’s work is characterized by the interplay of performance, photography, and their installation in exhibition spaces. With his photographic works and video projects, he explores the relationship between body and space as well as the conditions of urban design and landscape design.
*1843 in Paris (FR), †1899 in Paris (FR)
The French chemist, meteorologist, and aeronaut Tissandier published numerous books about photography, including one about the creation of images using air. Les Merveilles de la Photographie, containing delicate drawings illustrating its concepts, is a classic tract on photography and addresses both its historical developments and its techniques.
*1964 in Bubenreuth (GER), lives in London (GB)
Since the 1980s, Teller has worked at the border between commercial photography and art. His portraits and photo series often juxtapose daily life and glamour, the profane and the exceptional. His raw style has had a profound influence on fashion and magazine photography of the past two decades.
*1977 in Boston (US)
Toukan is an artist and Clarendon Scholar at the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford. She is visiting tutor at the Ruskin School of Art and the International Academy of Fine Arts in Ramallah, Palestine. Recent exhibitions include the Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Qalandia International, the Asia Pacific Triennial, and the 11th Istanbul Biennale.
Franco Troncone (*1942 in Neapel (IT)) moved to Mannheim in 1962, where he later met his wife Traude. Together, they opened their first jewelry business in the center of Mannheim in 1962. It still belongs to the family and is run by their son Claudio.
*1968 in Remscheid (GER), lives in Berlin (GER) and London (GB)
In Tillmans’s work, which variously explores politics, sexuality, astronomy, and abstraction, the bodies of those portrayed stand in intimate relation to the corporeality of the image. His series ESO also questions its own status as an object in two senses: The photos, which were taken in the European Southern Observatory, deal equally with our limited ability to view outer space and with the fact that Tillmans is giving it form as a photograph.
*1989 in Buenos Aires (AR), lives in Los Angeles (US)
Ulman’s performative artistic practice deals with forms of self-representation in the current age of digitalization and connectivity. Her Instagram performance Excellences & Perfections, for which she developed a semi-fictional persona, questioned the value judgments, body conventions, and gender roles for women that are reproduced via social media.
*1834 in Dobrilugk (GER), †1898 in Berlin (GER)
A photochemist, Vogel made a name for himself through, among other things, his work on the colour sensitivity of photographic emulsions. His publications and textbooks on photography, which were first available in print in 1870, often contained original photographs illustrating the chemical and technical information.
*1983 in Hong Kong (CN), lives in Los Angeles (US)
Wilson’s multimedia artistic practice is focused on digital culture and technology within a capitalist market economy. Taking the Google Books project as a case study, Workers Leaving the Googleplex and ScanOps question the way work is structured in an information society.
*1980 (CAN), lives in Montréal (CAN)
Hajra Waheed’s multimedia works challenge both official and personal narratives familiar from the field of colonialism and relating to the asymmetrical balance of power in the world.
*1937 in Hamburg (GER), lives in Höhr-Grenzhausen (GER)
Marianne Wex gained attention at the end of the 1970s for her visual analysis of men’s and women’s body language and the way that it is embedded within society. Toward the end of the 1980s, she stopped working in art and has been a healer since that time.
*1863 in Heidelberg (GER), †1932 in Heidelberg (GER)
Wolf was a German astronomer and a pioneer of astrophotography. He was one of the first to use the medium to detect planetoids. Between 1900 and 1916, he worked with his Austrian colleague Johann Palisa (1848–1925) on the Palisa-Wolf-Sternkarten (Palise–Wolf Star Charts). Via 210 reproductions, the atlas documented the night’s sky as seen from Central Europe.
Franz Zippel (*1931 in Covaci (RO), †2010 Mannheim (GER)) and his wife Anna arrived in Mannheim as so-called late repatriates in 1964. They came with their family from the Romanian city of Covaci, where Franz had worked as a machinist at the company Vögele. After her husband’s death, Anna Zippel moved to Berlin, where she continues to live, as does her second son Edgar, a photographer.