AI WEIWEI, THOMAS STRUTH et al.

Trace – Formations of Likeness: Photography and Video from The Walther Collection (group show)
Haus der Kunst, Munich
14 April – 23 July 2023

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Installation view, Trace – Formations of Likeness: Photography and Video from The Walther Collection, Haus der Kunst, Munich, 2023, photo: Maximilian Reuter
Installation view, Trace – Formations of Likeness: Photography and Video from The Walther Collection, Haus der Kunst, Munich, 2023, photo: Maximilian Reuter

Works by Ai Weiwei and Thomas Struth are on view at Haus der Kunst, Munich, in Trace - Formations of Likeness. The major survey is in collaboration with The Walther Collection and presents more than 1000 works by a diverse group of artists from different cultural backgrounds, offering a global context to reflect on the divergent trajectories of photography today. Collectively, they showcase the medium’s capacity as both an instrument for empowerment and formation of the self, as well as its complex uses as a tool for control and subjugation.

Haus der Kunst

Installation view, Trace – Formations of Likeness: Photography and Video from The Walther Collection, Haus der Kunst, Munich, 2023, photo: Maximilian Reuter
Installation view, Trace – Formations of Likeness: Photography and Video from The Walther Collection, Haus der Kunst, Munich, 2023, photo: Maximilian Reuter

Additional:

THOMAS STRUTH et al.

In Abwesenheit (group show)
Philara Collection, Düsseldorf
3 March – 8 September 2024

Installation view: Philara Collection, Düsseldorf © the artist and Philara Collection, Düsseldorf, photo: Kai Werner Schmidt
Installation view: Philara Collection, Düsseldorf © the artist and Philara Collection, Düsseldorf, photo: Kai Werner Schmidt

Works by Thomas Struth are on view in the group exhibition In Abwesenheit at Sammlung Philara, Düsseldorf. Spanning a period of almost a century, In Abwesenheit starts from the beginnings of surrealist photography in the 1920s and moves forward by way of the black and white photographs of the 1960s and 1970s through to contemporary photography. The presented works are united in their engagement with questions of absence and void. They pose a wide range of questions, interrogating the physical qualities of photography and its technical requirements, as well as broader aspects such as speculative fiction, belonging, nostalgia and ambiguity.

Sammlung Philara

Installation view: Philara Collection, Düsseldorf © the artist and Philara Collection, Düsseldorf, photo: Kai Werner Schmidt
Installation view: Philara Collection, Düsseldorf © the artist and Philara Collection, Düsseldorf, photo: Kai Werner Schmidt

AI WEIWEI

In Search of Humanity (solo show)
Kunsthal Rotterdam
30 September 2023 – 3 March 2024

Installation view: Kunsthal Rotterdam, 2023, photo: Marco de Swart and Kunsthal Rotterdam
Installation view: Kunsthal Rotterdam, 2023, photo: Marco de Swart and Kunsthal Rotterdam

Kunsthal Rotterdam presents In Search of Humanity, Ai Weiwei’s most comprehensive retrospective to date. Including paintings, cultural ready-mades, LEGO brick works, sculptures, installations, photography and video art, the exhibition offers an impressive overview of the artist’s over-four-decades-long career, featuring key works from all his creative periods.

Kunsthal Rotterdam

Installation view: Kunsthal Rotterdam, 2023, photo: Marco de Swart and Kunsthal Rotterdam
Installation view: Kunsthal Rotterdam, 2023, photo: Marco de Swart and Kunsthal Rotterdam

THOMAS STRUTH et al.

Inspiring People (group show)
National Portrait Gallery, London
From 22 June 2023

Thomas Struth, Queen Elizabeth II and The Duke of Edinburgh, Windsor Castle 2011, 2011, © Thomas Struth
Thomas Struth, Queen Elizabeth II and The Duke of Edinburgh, Windsor Castle 2011, 2011, © Thomas Struth

Thomas Struth’s photograph Queen Elizabeth II and The Duke of Edinburgh, Windsor Castle 2011, 2011, will be on view as part of the exhibition Inspiring People. Transforming the National Portrait Gallery, the Inspiring People project comprises a complete re-presentation of the Collection, combined with a significant refurbishment of the building, the creation of public spaces, a more welcoming visitor entrance and public forecourt, and a new Learning centre. The Gallery reopens to the public on 22 June 2023.

National Portrait Gallery

Thomas Struth, Queen Elizabeth II and The Duke of Edinburgh, Windsor Castle 2011, 2011, © Thomas Struth
Thomas Struth, Queen Elizabeth II and The Duke of Edinburgh, Windsor Castle 2011, 2011, © Thomas Struth

THOMAS STRUTH et al.

The Lives of Documents, Photography as Project (group show)
Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal
2 May 2023 – 3 March 2024

Photo: © Thomas Struth
Photo: © Thomas Struth

Thomas Struth’s early album of photographs of New York will be included in an exhibition at the CCA, Montreal. As part of a series of exhibitions investigating photography as an artistic and documentative medium, The Lives of Documents will invite visitors to consider photography’s relationship to architecture.

Canadian Centre for Architecture

Photo: © Thomas Struth
Photo: © Thomas Struth

AI WEIWEI

Ai Weiwei receives the Praemium Imperiale Prize

Photo: Ai Weiwei, image courtesy of Ai Weiwei Studio
Photo: Ai Weiwei, image courtesy of Ai Weiwei Studio

We congratulate Ai Weiwei on being awarded the Praemium Imperiale Prize 2022 by the Japan Art Association.

Praemium Imperiale Prize

Photo: Ai Weiwei, image courtesy of Ai Weiwei Studio
Photo: Ai Weiwei, image courtesy of Ai Weiwei Studio

THOMAS STRUTH

Archive Matrix Assembly: The Photography of Thomas Struth 1978–2018 (publication)

Photo: Kris Graves
Photo: Kris Graves

Archive Matrix Assembly: The Photography of Thomas Struth 1978–2018 presents the first comprehensive, systematic theory of Thomas Struth’s main body of photographic work from its beginnings in the late 1970s until his most recent work in 2018. The book presents a unique, evolutionary understanding of the work, proposing that it has established three stages of production: archive, matrix, and assembly. Together the three stages form a developmental system that characterizes the individual photographs, their relation to their subject matter, and how they form larger, significant collections of images. The book project accomplishes three main goals: it develops a comprehensive critical reading of the work, it serves as a monograph of the artist, and it provides an extensive analysis of the photographs at all stages, including the less discussed, more recent photography, which is placed on par with the earlier work for which Struth first became internationally renowned.

Order a copy here.

Photo: Kris Graves
Photo: Kris Graves