Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie 2017 – Farewell Photography

9 September 2017 – 5 November 2017

After six successful editions of the Fotofestival in Mannheim, Ludwigshafen and Heidelberg, the great upheavals of contemporary pictorial culture are at the focus of the First Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie, which is being shown under the title Farewell Photography. Since its invention, photography has been in a state of permanent metamorphosis. The past 25 years, however, seem to be characterised more than ever before by a moment of acceleration and the juxtaposition of a wide range of visual cultures. We have been living for many years in the age of networked images in which algorithms and programmes greatly impact appearance, places and dissemination of photographs and the relationship between photographer and the photographed, the viewer and society is being renegotiated. Encompassing seven thematic fields, the Biennale examines material and constitution, forms of use and appearance as well photography’s popular and societal potential. A chapter of the exhibition in the Wilhelm-Hack-Museum questions the material and ideal refractions that are at stake with the shift from analogue to digital media. As a counterpart, the second chapter addresses the opening and expansion of photographic practices, of pictorial space, formats and their accompanying altered forms of reading.

Opening: 8 September 2017 in Port25, Mannheim
Curators: Florian Ebner, Christin Müller, Fabian Knierim, Boaz Levin, Kerstin Meincke, Kathrin Schönegg