The Walther Collection

05/08/2021

Anlässlich des Internationalen Museumstages blickt The Walther Collection am 16.05.2021 auf ihre Publikationsgeschichte. Mit einem Story-Quiz, das wir an diesem Tag auf unserem Instagram-Account posten, bieten wir Ihnen die Möglichkeit, unsere Publikationen zu gewinnen.

Über einen Zeitraum von mehr als zehn Jahren ist in Zusammenarbeit mit KünstlerInnen und WissenschaftlerInnen eine Serie preisgekrönter Kataloge und Fotobücher entstanden, die sich mitunter mit afrikanischer und asiatischer Fotografie und Videokunst sowie mit Gebrauchsfotografie auseinandersetzt. Der Internationale Museumstag bietet Ihnen die Gelegenheit mehr über unsere Ausstellungs- und Publikationstätigkeiten zu erfahren.

Die Teilnahmebedingungen sowie weitere Informationen verraten wir Ihnen in der kommenden Woche hier und auf unserem Instagram-Account @walthercollect .

Image: S.J. Moodley, [Three men dancing in a line], 1975. Courtesy The Walther Collection.

#MuseenEntdecken #internationalermuseumstag #walthercollection
#internationalermuseumstag2021 #digamus #IMT2021 #IMD2021 #digitalmuseum #photobooks

Anlässlich des Internationalen Museumstages blickt The Walther Collection am 16.05.2021 auf ihre Publikationsgeschichte. Mit einem Story-Quiz, das wir an diesem Tag auf unserem Instagram-Account posten, bieten wir Ihnen die Möglichkeit, unsere Publikationen zu gewinnen.

Über einen Zeitraum von mehr als zehn Jahren ist in Zusammenarbeit mit KünstlerInnen und WissenschaftlerInnen eine Serie preisgekrönter Kataloge und Fotobücher entstanden, die sich mitunter mit afrikanischer und asiatischer Fotografie und Videokunst sowie mit Gebrauchsfotografie auseinandersetzt. Der Internationale Museumstag bietet Ihnen die Gelegenheit mehr über unsere Ausstellungs- und Publikationstätigkeiten zu erfahren.

Die Teilnahmebedingungen sowie weitere Informationen verraten wir Ihnen in der kommenden Woche hier und auf unserem Instagram-Account @walthercollect .

Image: S.J. Moodley, [Three men dancing in a line], 1975. Courtesy The Walther Collection.

#MuseenEntdecken #internationalermuseumstag #walthercollection
#internationalermuseumstag2021 #digamus #IMT2021 #IMD2021 #digitalmuseum #photobooks

04/30/2021

Jo Ractliffe: “Sometime in the mid-1980s a friend sent me a vintage Diana camera from America. It was made of plastic with a fixed lens, took medium- format film, and had no exposure controls save ‘sunny’ or ‘cloudy’. I ran a roll of film through it and discovered its sombre tones, vignetted edges and light leaks, then I put it away with my collection of Leaders, Envoys, Banners, Bull’s Eyes, Aces, Fiestas and Brownies. I didn’t think about it again until a burglary in 1990, in which all my other photographic equipment was taken. (...) I began to photograph with the Diana camera – initially for no other reason than to keep working. It took a while before I had my way with it, but I began to appreciate the tones and textures of the images, their atmospheric qualities.”

— Excerpted from the essay “reshooting Diana, 1990 – 1995” in Jo Ractliffe’s “Photographs 1980s – now,” published by Steidl and The Walther Collection.

Images: © The artist. Courtesy the artist, The Walther Collection, and Stevenson gallery.

#joractliffe #steidl #thewalthercollection #diana #africanphotography #photobook @steidlverlag @stevenson_za

04/16/2021

Ten years ago, The Walther Collection opened the Project Space in New York with the exhibition “Jo Ractliffe: As Terras do Fim do Mundo.” As the first U.S. solo exhibition of South African photographer Jo Ractliffe, "As Terras do Fim do Mundo" (The Lands of the End of the World) showcased nearly 60 black-and-white landscapes, presenting haunting images that reflect past tragedies in the sweeping landscapes of Angola.

A retrospective of Jo Ractliffe’s work, “Drives,” is currently on view at the Art Institute of Chicago until August 2021.

Images: Courtesy of The Walther Collection

#joractliffe #newyork #africanphotography #thewalthercollection #artinstituteofchicago #retrospective @artinstitutechi @brendanembser

04/16/2021

Ten years ago, The Walther Collection opened the Project Space in New York with the exhibition “Jo Ractliffe: As Terras do Fim do Mundo.” As the first U.S. solo exhibition of South African photographer Jo Ractliffe, "As Terras do Fim do Mundo" (The Lands of the End of the World) showcased nearly 60 black-and-white landscapes, presenting haunting images that reflect past tragedies in the sweeping landscapes of Angola.

A retrospective of Jo Ractliffe’s work, “Drives,” is currently on view at the Art Institute of Chicago until August 2021.

Images: Courtesy of The Walther Collection

#joractliffe #newyork #africanphotography #thewalthercollection #artinstituteofchicago #retrospective @artinstitutechi @brendanembser

04/14/2021

“In the beginning I didn’t think about dogs, although funnily enough they were always around, getting themselves into my pictures. I then began to seek them out. I photographed domestic dogs at play, went to animal shelters and followed feral dogs roaming the streets. I attended police-dog training sessions, had the trainers set their dogs on me so I could photograph up close. One day in 1986, when photographing in Crossroads, my eyes met those of a white dog slinking around a pile of discarded boxes and rubbish. Soon after that encounter, I came across Ryszard Kapuściński’s book “Another Day of Life” (1976), about the events leading up to Angola’s independence and subsequent civil war. I was very struck by that book, the ways it resonated with what was happening in South Africa – in particular, a passage about the dogs in Luanda, abandoned when the Portuguese fled. And when I read Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker, the journey of the dogs in Nadir started unfolding.“

— Jo Ractliffe, from “Nadir, 1986 – 1988”

Published by Steidl and The Walther Collection

Images: © The artist. Courtesy the artist and Stevenson gallery.

#joractliffe #steidl #thewalthercollection #nadir #africanphotography #photobook @steidlverlag @stevenson_za

04/07/2021

Jo Ractliffe’s “Photographs 1980s – now,” brings together several essays by the artist Jo Ractliffe, Okwui Enwezor, Emmanuel Iduma, Matthew S. Witkovsky, a conversation between the artist and Artur Walther, and selected essays and reviews.

In the first pages of the publication, we are greeted with Jo Ractliffe’s words in the form of a personal essay about how her sense of seeing was informed by road trips with her father:

“My father used to manage a brickworks up the West Coast (at what is now the site of Cape Town’s large municipal dump, Vissershok). As a child I accompanied him to work on weekends and holidays. We would leave early in the morning and drive back late at night in the dark. I remember the grasses at the side of the road illuminated in the headlights, and the ever-burning flame at the refinery as we came back into the city. My first pictures were a return to that landscape – long, solitary drives up the West Coast. I’m not sure I knew what I was looking for exactly, but photography and driving felt connected – inseparable even. Something about time and distance seemed necessary when entering the spaces I was photographing. But more than that, I think my very sense of seeing was formed during those early trips with my father, the measure of things framed by the car window as we drove through the countryside.

Published by Steidl and The Walther Collection

Images: Courtesy of Steidl Verlag

#joractliffe #okwuienwezor #emmanueliduma #matthewwitkovsky #thewalthercollection #steidlverlag #africanphotography #photobook @steidlverlag @stevenson_za

03/31/2021

The Walther Collection is excited to announce our newest publication, "Jo Ractliffe: Photographs: 1980s – now," the first comprehensive survey of the work of South African photographer Jo Ractliffe. Looking back over the past 35 years, this publication brings together images from major photo-essays, as well as early works that have not been seen before. Described by Okwui Enwezor as “one of the most accomplished and under-rated photographers of her generation,” Ractliffe started working in the early 1980s, and her photographs continue to reflect her preoccupation with the South African landscape and the ways in which it figures in the country’s imaginary—particularly the violent legacies of apartheid.

Since 1985 Ractliffe has taught within formal and informal contexts including Wits University, Johannesburg, the Market Photo Workshop, and the Salzburg Summer Academy and has also co-founded public projects that engage photography to reflect on history and memory in South Africa, including "The Joubert Part Project" (2000) and "Johannesburg Circa Now" (2004).

Her work has been exhibited widely both in South Africa and abroad. Her portfolio of platinum prints, As Terras do Fim do Mundo, was the inaugural exhibition at the Walther Collection Project Space in New York in 2011. Other solo exhibitions have been held at Fotohof Gallery, Salzburg (2012), Museet for Fotokunst, Odense (2013), Peabody Essex Museum, Salem (2014), Fondation A Stichting, Brussels (2015) and Centro Fotografico Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Oaxaca (2018). In 2015 her exhibition, "The Aftermath of Conflict: Jo Ractliffe’s Photographs of Angola and South Africa" was mounted at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York – the first of a South African photographer to be held at the museum. A retrospective of her work, “Drives," is currently on view at the Art Institute of Chicago until August 2021.

Published by Steidl and The Walther Collection

Image: Jo Ractliffe, “End of Time,” 1996/99. Courtesy the artist and Stevenson Gallery.

#joractliffe #thewalthercollection #steidlverlag #africanphotography #photobook @steidlverlag @stevenson_za

03/08/2021

Today we celebrate International Women’s Day.

Miriam Makeba (1932 - 2008), also known as “Mama Africa,” was a South African singer and songwriter, civil rights activist, and a prominent advocate against apartheid in South Africa. Makeba popularized African music to a Western audience, and used her music as a form of protest against systems of oppression.

Sue Williamson (b.1941) emigrated from the United Kingdom to South Africa with her family in 1948. In the 1980s, Williamson created the series “A Few South Africans” to honor women who were engaged in the fight against oppression, and in the struggle for freedom.

Image: Sue Williamson, “Miriam Makeba,” 1987. From the series “A Few South Africans,” 1980s.

#internationalwomensday #MiriamMakeba #MamaAfrica #SueWilliamson #thewalthercollection @suewilliamsonartist

Today we celebrate International Women’s Day.

Miriam Makeba (1932 - 2008), also known as “Mama Africa,” was a South African singer and songwriter, civil rights activist, and a prominent advocate against apartheid in South Africa. Makeba popularized African music to a Western audience, and used her music as a form of protest against systems of oppression.

Sue Williamson (b.1941) emigrated from the United Kingdom to South Africa with her family in 1948. In the 1980s, Williamson created the series “A Few South Africans” to honor women who were engaged in the fight against oppression, and in the struggle for freedom.

Image: Sue Williamson, “Miriam Makeba,” 1987. From the series “A Few South Africans,” 1980s.

#internationalwomensday #MiriamMakeba #MamaAfrica #SueWilliamson #thewalthercollection @suewilliamsonartist

02/04/2021

The Walther Collection‘s inaugural exhibition "Events of the Self: Portraiture and Social Identity” (2010): Nontsikelelo “Lolo” Veleko

South African photographer Nontsikelelo "Lolo" Veleko is known for her command of color and gesture, and her engagement with the fashion of post-apartheid street- and subcultures. "Lolo" Veleko is among a vibrant generation of artists who worked to proliferate hybrid identities, postures, positions, and constructions post-apartheid.

Images: © The artist. Courtesy of the artist and Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg.

#thewalthercollection #exhibitionhistory #africanphotography #portraiture #TWCanniversary #throwback #tbt #throwbackthursday #eventsoftheself #loloveleko #museumfromhome

01/28/2021

We are pleased to announce Dr. Sophie-Charlotte Opitz ( @photogra__phi ) as the new Director of Exhibitions and Collections at The Walther Collection.

Sophie is a curator, writer and transdisciplinary scholar of media, arts, and cultures. In the last years, she worked as a curatorial fellow of the @kruppstiftung in various museums such as Fotomuseum Winterthur and Museum Folkwang as well as an art coordinator at Akademie Schloss Solitude. She just relocated from London, where she has been involved in the development of the new Photography Centre at the Victoria & Albert Museum. And more recently, she co-curated “Decode Dress Code: Photographie, mode et genre” with @dariadebona and @katharina.tae at @goetheinstitut_paris. She has published texts for exhibition catalogues, artist books, and scholarly volumes. Her book Bilderregungen: Die Produktionsmechanismen zeitgenössischer Kriegsfotografie (Jonas Verlag, 2020) is an intensive investigation on images of war and conflict and their memory and sociopolitical dynamics. Sophie holds a PhD in visual culture studies from Goethe University Frankfurt. 

Sophie is based in the museum campus in Neu-Ulm. She is responsible for the collection management which includes collecting, preserving and researching photography. Moreover, she oversees and curates international exhibitions and expands the publishing program to provide new insights into The Walther Collection.

Sophie will manage our next exhibition which is expected to open in June 2021. It brings together two of the most important artists of South African photography — Santu Mofokeng and David Goldblatt — in which new synergies emerge between their documentary styles and claims to truth-telling. 

@foto_museum @museum_folkwang @akademiesolitude @vamuseum

We are pleased to announce Dr. Sophie-Charlotte Opitz ( @photogra__phi ) as the new Director of Exhibitions and Collections at The Walther Collection.

Sophie is a curator, writer and transdisciplinary scholar of media, arts, and cultures. In the last years, she worked as a curatorial fellow of the @kruppstiftung in various museums such as Fotomuseum Winterthur and Museum Folkwang as well as an art coordinator at Akademie Schloss Solitude. She just relocated from London, where she has been involved in the development of the new Photography Centre at the Victoria & Albert Museum. And more recently, she co-curated “Decode Dress Code: Photographie, mode et genre” with @dariadebona and @katharina.tae at @goetheinstitut_paris. She has published texts for exhibition catalogues, artist books, and scholarly volumes. Her book Bilderregungen: Die Produktionsmechanismen zeitgenössischer Kriegsfotografie (Jonas Verlag, 2020) is an intensive investigation on images of war and conflict and their memory and sociopolitical dynamics. Sophie holds a PhD in visual culture studies from Goethe University Frankfurt. 

Sophie is based in the museum campus in Neu-Ulm. She is responsible for the collection management which includes collecting, preserving and researching photography. Moreover, she oversees and curates international exhibitions and expands the publishing program to provide new insights into The Walther Collection.

Sophie will manage our next exhibition which is expected to open in June 2021. It brings together two of the most important artists of South African photography — Santu Mofokeng and David Goldblatt — in which new synergies emerge between their documentary styles and claims to truth-telling. 

@foto_museum @museum_folkwang @akademiesolitude @vamuseum

01/15/2021

The Walther Collection’s inaugural exhibition “Events of the Self: Portraiture and Social Identity” (2010): Hentie van der Merwe

Broadly engaged with the issues of masculinity, identity, and representation, Hentie van der Merwe’s photography condenses these themes in a number of works focusing on militarism and the fetishization of the male body. The series “Trappings” (2002–2003) focus on clothing rather than the nude body. Returning to an archival source, van der Merwe photographed nineteenth- and twentieth-century military uniforms in the collection of the South African National Museum of Military History. Drastically blurred through the use of a hand-held camera and extended exposure times, the garments, fitted to headless mannequins and tightly centered within the frame, refuse the legibility explicit in uniform and military decoration.

Images: © The artist. Courtesy the artist.

#thewalthercollection #exhibitionhistory #africanphotography #portraiture #TWCanniversary #throwback #fbf #flashbackfriday #eventsoftheself #hentievandermerwe #museumfromhome