© goldpix / www.fotolia.de
The Fotografie Forum Frankfurt plays a major part of RAY 2015 Fotografieprojekte Frankfurt/RheinMain. In its second edition the international photography triennial RAY 2015 presents outstanding positions of contemporary photography. This unique collaboration highlights the collections and institutions in the field of photography in Frankfurt am Main and the region.
From June 20 until September 20, 2015, the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt, the Museum Angewandte Kunst and the MMK 1 Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main are collectively showing the central exhibition of RAY 2015 “IMAGINE REALITY”. Six curators of different institutions and collections have created this exhibition with 28 artists, who use fragments of reality to their source in order to create imaginary and visionary worlds.
The photographic means that are used by the exhibited artists in “IMAGINE REALITY” are as multifarious as the history of photography and reflect the transformation of the medium: traditional photographic processes and new processes, due to possibilities incurred by technological developments, are used in contemporary photography. Thus John Stezaker (*1949) and Abelardo Morell (*1948) apply analog practice using collage techniques or the camera obscura. The works of artists such as Lucas Foglia (*1983) or Cristina De Middel (*1975) aesthetically follow a documentary approach, revealing however a shift in reality upon closer look.
Photographers such as Viviane Sassen (*1972) and Barbara Kasten (*1936) create abstract motifs, playing with light, shadow and perspective. Three-dimensional perspectives merge, resulting in new and often unexpected correlations. The expansion of photography through scientific and digital processes led artists such as Beate Gütschow (*1970) to a debate with transformation based upon singular elements of reality that combine utopian as well as the dystopian visionary worlds.
With the various processes and possibilities of photography, this exhibition shows what these artists have in common: their images are rooted in the transformation of environments into worlds where reality and fiction, facts and illusion are inseparably woven together. The artists of RAY 2015 use photography to create new realities in addition to capturing them.
At the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt the artists works focus on images of subjective and staged realities. Included here are Sophie Calle, Klaus Elle, Lucas Foglia, Cinthia Marcelle, Maix Mayer, Sanaz Mazinani, Hans Op de Beeck and Anoek Steketee. Additionally Berlin based artist Kathrin Sonntag, will create a new artistic production which is a combination of photographs made onsight with an installation. For more information on the artists see the exhibition guide by the press material download.