Exhibitions

“How can integration succeed?” is the question behind the photo series “I become German” by German Iranian artist Maziar Moradi. His pictures restage the experiences of people who have left their native country to start a new life in Germany or who were born here as children to immigrant families. In opulent scenes, Moradi visualizes moments of their “becoming German” and thus shows the adversities and milestones of a long process no one knows exactly when it will be completed.

In addition, Moradi photographed the various buildings in which refugees are housed after their arrival—often isolated and makeshift places that represent a kind of buffer zone between old and new life. They are synonymous with an exceptional existential situation that precedes the process of integration and inevitably has an impact on it.

Image © Maziar Moradi

Stadthaus Ulm, February 24 – June 16, 2024

Press Coverage

Großartige Fotokunst von Maziar Moradi zur Migrationsdebatte, SWR, February 21, 2024

Ich werde deutsch im Stadthaus, Neu-Ulmer Zeitung, February 22, 2024

Wie es sich anfühlt, deutsch zu werden, Südwest Presse, February 24, 2024

Where does the masquerade end, where does the self begin? Featuring Suzanne Jongmans and Jason Gardner, Costume and Masquerade presents two photographic positions dealing with the human endeavor to escape the limits of one's own skin in very different ways.

Image © Jason Gardner

Stadthaus Ulm, November 11, 2023 – February 18, 2024

Press Coverage

Die Kunst der Verwandlung, Südwest Presse, November 10, 2023

A clown in the midst of an armed conflict or even a fully veiled girl juggling clubs: When crisis turns into normality, moments of lightness develop a very unique magic, as the long-term project Like a Bird by Johanna Maria Fritz impressively demonstrates. The scenes that the photographer captured in Afghanistan, Dagestan, the Gaza Strip, India, Indonesia, Iran and Senegal appear surreal and dreamlike. Fritz discovered a circus culture in these Muslim-influenced countries, which, in the midst of the most difficult living conditions, create important spaces for self-expression and convey the longing for peace and freedom.

Image © Johanna-Maria Fritz

Stadthaus Ulm, Mai 12 – August 13, 2023

Press Coverage

Zirkus in Krisengebieten, SWR, May 5, 2023

Mit Burka und Jonglierkeulen, Kontext: Wochenzeitung, Ausgabe 636, June 7, 2023

Ein Stück Freiheit, Schwäbische Zeitung, May 14, 2023

About 30 years ago, the Alb-Donau-Kreis began to regularly show exhibitions in the Haus des Landkreises in Ulm and to continuously expand an already existing small stock of artworks. Today, the collection of the district authority comprises over 190 artists, primarily from southern Germany, and around 600 works—including outstanding works by key figures of classical modernism such as Adolf Hölzel, Oskar Schlemmer, Willi Baumeister and Max Ackermann, as well as important protagonists of contemporary art history.

The Freedom of Form exemplifies how art—starting with the invention of photography and accelerated by the traumatic experiences of the First and Second World Wars—increasingly broke away from the realistic image and produced representations that use color and form with unprecedented freedom.

Landratsamt Alb-Donau-Kreis, September 18 – November 13, 2022

Apples for Sale sheds light on the lives of Indonesian housemaids living under precarious circumstances as migrant workers in Hong Kong. In a multi-layered multimedia narrative consisting of documentary photography, social media excerpts, and texts, photographer Rebecca Sampson portrays this marginalized group. With very little free time, the domestic workers have shifted much of their social life to the virtual world of Facebook. In this space, no limits are placed on the individual expression of their personalities. In an exclusively female social environment, many of these women construct a parallel identity in a type of role play in which the male roles are taken over by tomboys and lovingly trimmed dolls replace the missing children.

Image © Rebecca Sampson

Stadthaus Ulm, March 25 – June 6, 2022

Press coverage

Emanzipation ohne Happy End, Südwest Presse, March 28, 2022

Welcome to Camp America: Inside Guantánamo Bay features photographs by American artist Debi Cornwall and explores one of the most notorious places in recent American history: the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. In her conceptual documentary images, Cornwall explores the personal experience of Guantánamo from a variety of perspectives, combining empathy with systemic critique.

Image © Debi Cornwall

Stadthaus Ulm, December 12, 2021 – March, 13, 2022

Press coverage

Lebenslang verurteilt, Südwest Presse, January 22, 2022

Guantánamos Gesichter, Kontext: Wochenzeitung, Ausgabe 565, January 26, 2022

Wir träumen allein (We dream alone) is a site-specific multimedia installation by artist Alina Simmelbauer. Shown for the first time at Kunstverein Dresden, a combination of photographs, moving images, and sound elements creates a multi-layered, immersive space that confronts the viewers with Simmelbauer's personal past and, beyond that, with a piece of little-known GDR history.

Image © Alina Simmelbauer

Kunstverein Dresden, May 28 – July 17, 2021

Press coverage

“Ich wurde für ihn unsichtbar”, Die Zeit – Zeit im Osten, Nr. 26/2021, June 24, 2021

“Das Schicksal der Einen und der Vielen”, Dresdner Neuste Nachrichten, July 9, 2021

Then and Now: Life and Dreams Revisited extends The Walther Collection's ongoing survey of Chinese photography since 2017. In this second iteration, Then and Now presents early 20th century travel photography of China together with groundbreaking works by 31 internationally renowned artists such as Ai Weiwei, Song Dong, Rong Rong, Yang Fudong, and Zhang Huan, as well as artworks by a younger generation of artists, such as Lu Yang and Lin Zhipeng. Juxtaposing historical and contemporary Chinese photography, the exhibition illustrates the epochal changes that have not only transformed China's rural and urban habitats in recent decades, but also essential aspects of social relationships and everyday life.

Co-curated with Simon Baker and Christopher Phillips

Image © Lin Zhipeng

The Walther Collection, May 5 – October 27, 2019

Life and Dreams: Contemporary Chinese Photography and Media Art was the first extensive exhibition of works by Chinese artists represented in The Walther Collection. Showing visually inventive and emotionally compelling artworks, the exhibition demonstrates the remarkable speed with which photography and media art have occupied important positions within the field of experimental Chinese art since the early 1990s. Throughout Life and Dreams, photographic works register artists' responses to the sweeping social and economic changes that have fundamentally altered the face of China's cities and transformed the fabric of everyday life. Featured selections of media art often evoke an ambiguous world of technological fantasy, suggesting where these changes may be leading the country and its inhabitants.

Co-curated with Christopher Phillips

Image © Rong Rong. Courtesy The Walther Collection

The Walther Collection, May 13 – November 18, 2018

Structures of Identity examines how photographers across a range of cultures and historical periods have used portraiture to affirm or challenge social stereotypes constructed around notions of race, gender, class, and nationality. This exhibition includes series and sequences made by artists from Europe, the United States, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. These efforts reflect a precise and widespread practice of using portraiture within a larger classificatory grid, whose images document the ways that visual forms and archival structures inform social attitudes.

Structures of Identity is a traveling exhibition representing an expansive cross-section of The Walther Collection. It originated in 2017 for a presentation at AIPAD and is tailored to each additional venue, maintaining the same curatorial framework.

Co-curated with Brian Wallis

Image © J.D. 'Okhai Ojeikere. Courtesy Galerie MAGNIN-A, Paris and The Walther Collection

The Photography Show presented by AIPAD, New York, USA, March 30 – April 2, 2017

Museo Amparo, Puebla, Mexico, October 21, 2017 – February 5, 2018

Museo MARCO, Monterrey, Mexico, February 22 – June 6, 2018

Foam Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, June 29 – August 29, 2018

Fundació Foto Colectania, Barcelona, Spain, November 14, 2018 – March 10, 2019

Recent Histories: Contemporary African Photography and Video Art features the work of fourteen contemporary African artists, born in the 1970s and later. Their varied bodies of work investigate personal experiences, questions of identity and belonging, and an array of sociopolitical concerns—including migration, lineage, and the legacies of colonialism. In these approaches, Recent Histories reveals the dialogues taking place amongst the current generation of lens-based image-makers, providing multiple points of entry to engage critically with current practices in Africa.

Co-curated with Joshua Chuang and Oluremi C. Onabanjo

Image © Courtesy the artist, Tiwani Contemporary, and The Walther Collection

The Walther Collection, May 5 – 12 November, 2017

Les Rencontres de Bamako. Biennale Africaine de la Photographie, Mali, December 12, 2017 – January 31, 2018

Huis Marseille. Museum for Photography, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, December 8, 2018 – March 3, 2019

Albrecht Tübke – Portraits focuses on the "Ulm Portraits," a series of images taken in 2010, 2011 and 2015 during the exhibition openings at The Walther Collection in Neu-Ulm, when Tübke photographed the guests at these events.

Reversing the familiar relationship between viewer and object, Tübke turns the museum visitors into models. Comparable to August Sander's well-known series of portraits “Antlitz der Zeit" (Face of Our Time), the photographer introduces various types of opening guests: neighboring villagers, relatives and family of the collector, prominent figures of the Ulm cultural scene, and guests from the international art world. Examining questions of identity, individuality, and the role of the individual within society, Albrecht Tübke uses photography as a means of documentation to capture a multi-faceted image of his fellow human beings in a distant yet sensitive manner.

Image © Albrecht Tübke and The Walther Collection

The Walther Collection, May 28 – August 20, 2016