For the first time, the Berlin Museum of Photography is opening its doors primarily to children. The show focuses on the concrete-sensual materiality of original photographs and complements them with a selection of prints, drawings and sculptures as well as films. The colourful mix of around 240 works illustrates the uses, forms and expressions of photography from its beginnings to the present day.
Image above: “Christa kommt im Flugzeug”, postcard, 1935, © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kunstbibliothek
Ten associatively grouped chapters offer a wealth of images and photographic stories. They include episodes about finding, collecting and telling pictures; about reading numbers, letters or clouds as well as about discoveries in everyday life, at school and on journeys.
Photographs of animals and nature can be found in it, memories of families and friendship, but also portraits of automata and photographic games of colour, light, mirror and material. The exhibition spans the spectrum from the snapshot to the classic advertising shot from the professional studio and the socially committed photo reportage to artistic forms of design and concepts. These include pictorialism around 1900, the New Vision of the 1920s or photographic art, mail art and positions of staged photography.
The exhibits come from the rich collections of the Art Library, supplemented by loans from the National Museums in Berlin as well as from artists and private collections, and present a “school of seeing”. In addition, a reading island with photographically illustrated picture books creates space to immerse oneself in new worlds. This media diversity not only holds exciting discoveries in store for a young audience. Rather, it conveys how differently people look at life, making the exhibition an experience for young and old alike.
An extensive accompanying programme invites you to discover, participate and try things out. It is always about the messages behind the pictures and what happens in the darkness of the camera or in the lab. But above all, it gets practical. Finally, interdisciplinary events, performances and artist talks open up a view of the close interweaving of the history of photography with the realities of life, questions and practices from everyday life.
The exhibition catalogue published by Snoeck, Cologne, is aimed at young people and their families. As a volume of stories about images, the history of photography and the history of the collection, it is equally a treasure trove for museum educators, teachers, photographers and artists as well as for everyone who enjoys photography.
WHEN?
Exhibition dates: Sunday, 9 October 2022, – Sunday, 19 February 2023,
WHERE?
Museum für Fotografie Vogelschau und Froschperspektive -Stauffenbergstraße 41 10785 Berlin
