Biennial for contemporary photography

Event poster for the Biennale for Contemporary Photography 2020, title: "The Lives and Loves of Images"

The Biennale for Contemporary Photography has been held every two years in the Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region since 2005 . It is Germany's largest curated photo festival and has established itself as a highly regarded international photo biennial. The connection between different exhibition houses in the three cities of Mannheim, Ludwigshafen and Heidelberg is unique.

history

The festival emerged from the Herten Photo Days , which were organized six times from 1991 to 2001 by the BildForum eV in Herten . From June 16 to July 10, 2005, the festival took place for the first time in the Rhine-Neckar region as the 7th International Photo Days Mannheim / Ludwigshafen . Numerous exhibitions on the subject of "Contemporary American Photography" and "The Art of Being German" were shown in Mannheim, Ludwigshafen, Heidelberg, Speyer, Viernheim, Worms and Freinsheim. The exhibition venues included the Kunsthalle Mannheim , the Wilhelm Hack Museum , art associations and galleries. Among the exhibited photographers were well-known artists such as Isolde Ohlbaum , Larry Fink , Gerhard Vormwald , Horst Hamann , Klaus Staeck and Alex Webb . The exhibitions were flanked by lectures, symposia, seminars and a film program.

Establishment

Exhibition room of the Heidelberger Kunstverein at the 2011 Photo Festival

From 2007 to 2016 the Biennale Fotofestival Mannheim Ludwigshafen Heidelberg was called. Constant exhibition venues have been established since 2007, such as the Kunsthalle Mannheim , the Zephyr , the Wilhelm Hack Museum and the Kunstverein Ludwigshafen , as well as the Heidelberger Kunstverein . 2013 was also exhibited for the first time in the Stadtgalerie Mannheim , whose successor gallery Port25 will host an exhibition from 2015. Installations in public spaces can also be seen again and again, for example on Mannheim's old measuring station . In 2013 the internationally renowned photo agency Magnum Photos was won as a cooperation partner. Positions of Magnum photographers, who deal with geographical, political, economic and private territories in the physical and metaphorical sense, were a real magnet for visitors. In 2013 the festival had 43,000 visitors, compared to 27,000 in 2011.

In 2015, Urs Stahel, founder of the Fotomuseum Winterthur and known as the curator of MAST , curated the 6th Mannheim-Ludwigshafen-Heidelberg Photo Festival. Under the motto "7 Places, 7 Precarious Fields", the topics "High-Tech, Logistics & Migration", "Violence and Destruction", "Urbanism & Real Estate", "Money and Greed" were presented in a mixture of documentary and artistic works , "Knowledge, order, power", "I-fix & self-stress" as well as "Communication and control" are examined and shown in murals, projections, installations, showcase works, films and videos as precarious fields of our society today. The sixth edition of the festival drew 36,000 visitors.

In 2017 the Biennale for Current Photography presented current photography works by more than 90 international artists under the title "Farewell Photography". A collective of curators - Florian Ebner , Fabian Knierim, Boaz Levin, Kerstin Meincke, Christin Müller and Kathrin Schönegg - was responsible for the exhibition concept . In the exhibitions in the Wilhelm Hack Museum , Heidelberger Kunstverein, Kunstverein Ludwigshafen, Port25 - Room for Contemporary Art, Zephyr - Room for Photography in the Reiss-Engelhorn Museums , in the Prinzhorn Collection and in the Mannheim Water Tower , the curators examined how The understanding of photography is changing in the face of the upheavals from analog to digital, which images should be overlooked or viewed anew, and how the diverse farewells to classic photography shape social, journalistic and artistic practices. The Biennale reached around 41,000 people with eight exhibitions in seven participating exhibition halls and an extensive supporting and educational program. The biennale connects overarching cultural institutions in 3 cities that belong to 2 federal states, the realization is made possible by a network of sponsors, supporters and partners.

Guiding principle

2005 "Contemporary American Photography" and "The Art of Being German"
2007 "Reality Crossings"
2009 "Images Recalled Images on Demand"
2011 "The Eye is a lonely Hunter: Images of Humankind"
2013 “Crossing borders. Magnum: Trans Territories "
2015 "7 places, 7 precarious fields"
2017 "Farewell Photography"
2020 "The Lives and Loves of Images"

Biennale 2020

The 2020 Biennale was curated by the English author and curator David Campany. It should take place from February 29 to April 26, 2020. In six exhibition houses in Mannheim, Ludwigshafen and Heidelberg, works by over 70 international photographers were shown. In addition to the exhibitions, an extensive supporting program was planned with guided tours, artist talks, workshops and special events such as the “Long Night of Photography” on April 18th. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic , all exhibition halls were closed in March 2020 and a virtual tour was set up instead.