Open House: September 15, 2024
Who We Are
Portraits and Vernacular Photography
Curated by Brian Wallis, Daniela Yvonne Baumann, and Melek Baylas
The Walther Collection in Neu-Ulm, Germany
Who We Are:
Portraits and Vernacular Photography
The Walther Collection
Reichenauerstr. 21
89233 Neu-Ulm, Germany
The Walther Collection is pleased to present Who We Are: Portraits and Vernacular Photography, at our Museum Campus in Neu-Ulm. Who We Are is the first part in a two-year exhibition survey dedicated to vernacular photography, the broad category of everyday images that shape and define our lives and that one might see on a passport, in an old family photo album, in a magazine, or even online. This exhibition, curated by Brian Wallis, Daniela Yvonne Baumann, and Melek Baylas, aims to examine vernacular photography with the same critical attention generally devoted to contemporary fine-art photography, and to consider these familiar but often overlooked photographic practices within specific social and cultural histories.
The exhibition is divided into five thematic sections—“Against Portraiture,” “Decolonized: Changing Visions of African Identity,” “Ways of Seeing Gender Identity,” “Photo Albums: Archiving Everyday Life,” and “The Photographic Object.” These installations are displayed in various buildings throughout The Walther Collection’s Museum Campus. While not comprehensive, these focused case studies offer new ways of seeing familiar images and original perspectives on everyday visual culture.
Who We Are: Portraits and Vernacular Photography is the culmination of the Collection’s exploration of vernacular photography through the exhibition series “Imagining Everyday Life: Aspects of Vernacular Photography” at the Collection’s former Project Space in New York from 2017 to 2019, curated by Brian Wallis; a two-day international symposium at Columbia University in 2018; and a major scholarly catalogue, awarded the Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation prize for Photography Catalogue of the Year in 2020.
Opening Hours:
On view till March 30, 2025
Thursday to Sunday, 2 – 5pm
And by appointment.
Free admission, no wheelchair accessibility.
