“Typologien: Pictures in Twentieth-century Germany,” curated by Susanne Pfeffer, artwork historian and director of the MUSEUM MMK FÜR MODERNE KUNST in Frankfurt, presents an intensive overview of Twentieth-century German images. The exhibition mission makes an attempt to use the idea of ‘typology,’ which was derived from the botanical research of the seventeenth and 18th centuries and explored by images because the starting of the Twentieth century. The curatorial technique applies this precept to the photographic work of German artists of various generations. As Pfeffer notes, “Nowhere else in images have so many typologies and their playful and political antipodes been created as in Germany within the Twentieth century. They allow a readability of their very own, which permits similarities and variations to emerge. The systematic strategy concentrates our imaginative and prescient and considering, enabling us to see different particulars and acknowledge bigger contexts.”
The exhibition presents over 600 pictures taken between 1906 and 2000s by 25 artists whose work is united by the need to categorise actuality utilizing a scientific and serial criterion. It options photographic works of Bernd and Hilla Becher, Sibylle Bergemann, Karl Blossfeldt, Ursula Böhmer, Christian Borchert, Margit Emmrich, Hans- Peter Feldmann, Isa Genzken, Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, Lotte Jacobi, Jochen Lempert, Simone Nieweg, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Heinrich Riebesehl, Thomas Ruff, August Sander, Ursula Schulz-Dornburg, Thomas Struth, Wolfgang Tillmans, Rosemarie Trockel, Umbo (Otto Umbehr), and Marianne Wex. The mission highlights the distinctiveness of every creative apply whereas establishing surprising hyperlinks between completely different approaches to the language of images.
Because the curator states, “Solely by means of juxtaposition and direct comparability is it doable to seek out out what’s particular person and what’s common, what’s normative or actual. Variations are proof of the abundance of nature and the creativeness of people: the fern, the cow, the human being, the ear; the bus cease, the water tower, the stereo system, the museum. The typological comparability permits variations and similarities to emerge and the specifics to be grasped. Unknown or beforehand unperceived issues about nature, the animal, or the article, about place and time develop into seen and recognizable.”
In images, the typological strategy implies the equivalence of photographs and the elimination of any hierarchy between the themes represented and the sources from which the pictures originate. Nevertheless, typology is a posh idea that operates in a state of duality: on the one hand, it’s based mostly on the imposition of maximum objectivity; on the opposite, it results in particular person and artistic alternative.
The notion that images performs a elementary function in defining particular phenomena, but in addition in organizing and cataloguing a large number of seen manifestations, stays a central theme in modern creative apply that explores the complexity of our social and cultural realities. With the pervasiveness of digital photographs and applied sciences, the idea of typology continues to be questioned and redefined by modern photographers and artists. As Pfeffer highlights, “The distinctive, the person, appears to have been absorbed into a worldwide mass, the universality of issues is omnipresent.
The Web permits typologies to be created in a matter of seconds. On this very exact second—it appears much more essential to observe the artists’ gaze and look carefully.”
at Fondazione Prada, Milan
till July 14, 2025
