Word of Welcome to Internationale Photoszene Köln

MAKK
Internationale Photoszene Köln Museum Angewandte Kunst Köln

Cologne City Councillor for Cultural Affairs

Susanne Laugwitz-Aulbach Internationale Photoszene Köln MAKK Rautenstrauch-Joest

Dear readers,

Through a unique and new joint project with Cologne’s renowned photographic archives and collections, Internationale Photoszene Köln is drawing attention to the wealth and diversity of photography in this city. During the Photoszene Festival 2018, six international artists followed the invitation of Photoszene Köln and the respective establishments to dive into their stocks and collections and exercise full artistic freedom in devising an exhibition for Photoszene Festival 2019 out of their finds.

So, what do our archives have in store for us? Internationale Photoszene Köln

Dutch artist Erik Kessels was thrilled by the previously unpublished template collection at the Museum of Applied Arts Cologne – a historical Pinterest of good taste, based on which the bourgeoisie of the city of Cologne could furnish their houses and lives. Finnish artist Ola Kolehmainen examines the Rheinisches Bildarchiv with selected historical glass negatives that depict motifs of Cologne. Internationale Photoszene Köln
Israeli artist Ronit Porat headed off into the Graphics Collection at the Cologne City Museum. At Museum Ludwig, Indonesian-Dutch artist Fiona Tan stumbled upon a batch of banana crates, in which she found a real treasure trove: an archive from the Agfa advertising department, in which tens of thousands of photographs, slides and negatives are stored. With an art-critical gaze, Belgian artist Antje Van Wichelen devoted herself to the structures of colonial image archives that she found in the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum. Frenchwoman Roselyne Titaud associates her own photographic works with excerpts from the stocks of the Photographische Sammlung der SK Stiftung Kultur and places them in mutual references in the exhibition space. Internationale Photoszene K

I am delighted that the abovementioned establishments are collaborating on this Photoszene Köln project for the first time under the multi-signifying and connecting label of photography. Looking at this city’s photographic archives, this is a project that deserves to be perpetuated! Flanked by the numerous photographic exhibitions of the Photoszene Festival throughout the urban area, Cologne is once more living up to its reputation as an important landmark for examining photography.

I wish all visitors inspiring and knowledge-packed exhibition visits!

Click on the poppy below for the magazine’s Introduction