This Is Me, This Is You

The exhibition This Is Me, This Is You provides the public with a first glimpse into an internationally significant photo collection that has grown over four decades. The generous donation of the Eva Felten Photography Collection enlarges the holdings of Museum Brandhorst by 429 works by more than 140 artists from the 1930s to the present day.

This Is Me, This Is You brings together renowned positions in the history of photography from Robert Frank, Evelyn Hofer, Gordon Parks to Isaac Julien, Sherrie Levine, Richard Prince, Zoe Leonard, Arthur Jafa and LaToya Ruby Frazier. In a selection of some 140 works, it addresses the complex relations of the gaze in photography, reflecting on questions of intimacy and desire as well as on power relations and structural inequalities inscribed in the medium. The exhibition title is lent from Roni Horn’s eponymous work. With This Is Me, This Is You (1997–2002), the American artist created a key work that raises questions about the fleetingness of identity as well as the presence of photographers within their works.

With her striking statement “Where you look from is always half the picture,” American artist Zoe Leonard (b. 1961) got to the heart of how central the historical, social and physical perspective of the photographer and the viewer is for the making as well as for interpretation of art. Based on this observation, the exhibition This Is Me, This Is You is dedicated to various pictorial strategies of photography in seven thematic chapters.

One chapter of the exhibition refers to the famous series “People of the 20th Century,” which August Sander conceived in 1925. Although there are no works by the photographer himself, there are numerous works by international artists such as Diane Arbus, Jitka Hanzlová, Rineke Dijkstra and Issei Suda, who were either directly influenced by Sander’s strategy of depicting individuals in the context of their society, or who have taken the idea further. Another chapter is devoted to street photography, with positions ranging from Robert Frank to Gordon Parks, Vivian Maier, and Helga Paris. In contrast to these works, which sought their subject matter on forays through the city, there are works by artists who choose deliberate staging as a pictorial strategy, such as Philip-Lorca diCorcia and Tracey Moffatt. A separate room in the exhibition is dedicated to the intimacy that often arises between photographers and those photographed, and which is palpable in the photographs. These include works by Diane Arbus, Walter Pfeiffer, and Deana Lawson. In the chapter on Appropriation Art, historical positions of the movement, represented by Richard Prince and Sherrie Levine, are placed in dialog with works by Nobuyoshi Araki and Arthur Jafa, which add a new dimension to the practice of appropriating images. The largest chapter of the exhibition explores photography as a social and political space. Works by LaToya Ruby Frazier, Isaac Julien, Carrie Mae Weems and Anthony Hernandez reflect the sociopolitical relevance inherent in the medium.

The presentation reflects the international scope of the Eva Felten Photography Collection and is dedicated to narrative strategies of photography, ranging from poetic documentary casualness to carefully staged compositions. Photographs play an active role in our understanding of the past, present, and future, whether as document, metaphor, or fiction. They are a performative means for the formation of identity, an appellative instrument for political and social change, and a subversive strategy of visibility and remembrance.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog with 380 color illustrations that gives a vivid impression of the extensive holdings of the Eva Felten Photography Collection and reflects on them in selected chapters.

Curated by Monika Bayer-Wermuth.

The exhibition is supported by
PIN. Freunde der Pinakothek der Moderne e.V.
Allianz, Partner of PIN. Freunde der Pinakothek der Moderne e.V.
Pictet

Media partner
ARTE