German Photo Museum

German Photo Museum (July 2019)

The German Photo Museum in agra-Park ( Leipzig / Markkleeberg ) is a camera and photo museum .

In terms of its stock of photographs (70,000) in Germany, the museum is only comparable to the Munich Photo Museum , but in contrast to this, it also contains around 3,000 camera models from three centuries, beginning with the beginnings of photography around 1850.

history

Camera and Photo Museum Leipzig / Mölkau (2012)

The photographer Peter Langner (1947–1994) collected old cameras for decades, often with historical photos in the “by-catch”. This resulted in a private collection during the GDR era , which was opened to visitors from 1989 in a poorly renovated half-timbered house in Mölkau in the east of Leipzig. Due to the regulations in the GDR, a private collection was not allowed to be called a museum, which is why Langner called his museum a “cabinet”. After the fall of the Berlin Wall , the private cabinet was renamed the Camera and Photo Museum Leipzig . After Langner's death, his widow Kerstin Langner and his friend Andreas J. Mueller continued to run the museum - the focus shifted from cameras to historical photographs and, in some cases, to artistic contemporary photo representations. There were 90 special exhibitions by changing artists until 2013. Over time, the small museum in Leipzig-Mölkau achieved national recognition.

Dozens of photos and around 150 cameras were shown on an exhibition space of just 160 m². In 2013, the museum moved to the larger building in terms of area, initially 1,300 m² (built in 1997) in agra-Park, where it was opened on August 27, 2013. On November 15, 2014, the museum was expanded to include the new rooms for the special exhibitions, increasing the area to around 1,500 m².

Since the move and reopening in August 2013, the museum has been visited by around 20,000 people interested in photography every year.

profile

Repro camera from Leipzig camera manufacturer Hoh & Hahne from 1895

The German Photo Museum is located in the Leipzig area at the cradle of the German photo industry, and the first German chair for photography was also in Leipzig. The inventory of historical cameras is correspondingly large (approx. 3,000). The eye-catcher of the photo museum in the foyer is the wooden 2.50 meter repro camera from the Leipzig camera manufacturer Hoh & Hahne from the end of the 19th century. A smaller focus is on the associated processes of photography, from physics and optics to chemistry to photo papers and exposure processes in order to be able to produce photos from scenes. This is also shown in the German Photo Museum - together with the cameras, especially in the context of the permanent exhibition “Photo Fascination”. In this permanent exhibition, approx. 800 exhibits are shown on an area of approx. 1,500 m², including around 500 photographs (including the two special exhibitions) and approx. 300 cameras.

A special focus are the photos taken, of which the museum owns more than 70,000, hence the name Fotomuseum. Photos are both documentation of their respective time and evidence of artistic work. The early photographers in particular not only took pictures of the people and scenes of their time, but also saw themselves as artists similar to painters or draftsmen. We were happy to a. Depicted erotic scenes and created portraits of people or photos of buildings. The historical dimension can be recognized again and again when you compare cause and effect with photos. For example, when you see ruins destroyed by war - and at the same time see what they looked like before the war. Photos seem like an outsourced memory of generations. All of this is presented in the Photo Museum, both in the permanent exhibition and in new special exhibitions. Not only historical, but also contemporary photos are shown.

building

The building consists of a large rotunda with three floors, which is reminiscent of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City , because of the stairways . The rotunda has an outer diameter of approx. 30 meters and is approx. 15 meters high up to the top of the dome. The two upper floors can be reached barrier-free via spiral ramps. The roof structure is supported by eight large pillars and there is an octagonal window in the roof, which provides sufficient light in the building.

Spiral ramps as stairs to the two upper floors
Entrance area on the ground floor, above the two upper floors
Photo studio around 1900 (1st floor)
20th century camera technology (2nd floor)
large octagonal skylight

Exhibitions

Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre
1837

The permanent exhibition "Photo Fascination" presents the development of photography in a total of 15 departments. The photographs are mainly shown on the spiral staircases, while the photo technology is shown on the individual levels of the floors. The permanent exhibition begins on the ground floor with the four sections: "Laterna Magica, 1800 - 1850" (the forerunners of photography), "The invention of photography, 1839 - 1850", "Travel photography, 1850 - 1900" (with all the equipment of a travel photographer ) and "Stereo photography - the third dimension, 1850 - 1900". The photography museum dates the birth of photography to August 19, 1839, the day on which the photographic technique developed by Louis Daguerre and Joseph Nicéphore Niépce was first presented to the public in Paris. On the way up to the first floor, photographs from the second half of the 19th century are shown in the “photography timeline”. The permanent exhibition continues on the first floor with the following four sections: "Development of camera technology, 1850 - 1900", "Photo salon 1900", "Development of color photography, 1900 - 1936" and "Historical darkroom, 1850 - 1950" (among others with technical equipment, accessories and chemicals). On the way up to the second floor, the history of photography a. a. on the subjects of “Discovery of Everyday Life” and “Post-War Photography in East and West”. The permanent exhibition is completed on the second floor with another five sections: “Modern 35mm Cameras, 1920-2000”, “Analog and Digital Photography, 1970-2000”, “Photography from the GDR” (Peter Langner, from the series “Forbidden Photos”) , Leipzig 1976), “Photography after the Wende” (Wolfgang Zeyen, Leipzig 1994) and “Photography of the Present” (with photos by Thomas Karsten and Olaf Martens).

From 1989 to 2019, a total of 150 special exhibitions on topics of contemporary and historical photography were shown in the Fotomuseum. For example, on the occasion of the 180-year history of photography and the 30th birthday of the German Photo Museum, a special exhibition "The most beautiful posters" was shown.

Photographs

Some of the images shown here differ in detail and toning from the photos exhibited in the German Photo Museum. They do, however, provide an impression of the multitude of historical photographs in the museum, around 400 of which can be seen in the permanent exhibition. Approx. 50 photographs are shown in each of the two special exhibitions.

André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri
Emperor Napoleon III. , Paris 1859
Emil Rabending, Empress Elisabeth of Austria (Sissi) , Vienna 1867
Emil Rabending, Clara Schumann
Frankfurt am Main, around 1880
Giorgio Sommer
letter writer with his street stall, Naples 1886
Wilhelm von Gloeden
Glaukus, Taomina around 1895
Nicola Perscheid - Max Klinger , Leipzig 1899

Cameras

In the permanent exhibition "Photo Fascination" around 300 cameras are presented on three floors. The combination of the history of photography and the historical development of camera technology in a photo museum is unique in Germany.

Travel camera around the end of the 19th century (ground floor)
Studio cameras, New Görlitz Camera Factory, 1900 - 1920 (1st floor)
Contax III with telescope ( Zeiss Ikon , Dresden 1936) (2nd floor)
"Beplasca" stereo camera , VEB Belca factory , Dresden 1953 (ground floor)
" Praktisix " reflex camera VEB Kamerawerke Niedersedlitz , Dresden 1956 (2nd floor)