8th Festival for Photography f/stop Leipzig: Broken Bonds
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Press release, April 2018
8th Festival for Photography f/stop Leipzig: Broken Bonds
23 June – 1 July 2018, Opening: 22 June 2018, 7 pm
Leipzig, Baumwollspinnerei and other locations
Curated by Anne König and Jan Wenzel
Ludovic Balland [CH], Christian Borchert [DE], Paula Bulling [DE], Forensic Architecture
[UK], Christian Gesellmann [DE], Nicolas Giraud [FR], Ayşe Güleç [DE], Jonathan Horowitz
[US], Susanne Kriemann [DE], Alexander Kluge [DE], Ludwig Kuffer [DE], Ferdinand Kriwet
[DE], Andreas Langfeld [DE], Ute Mahler [DE], Elisabeth Neudörfl [DE], Ana Teixeira Pinto
[DE], Anastasia Potemkina [RU], Timm Rautert [DE], Elske Rosenfeld [DE], Miklós Klaus
Rózsa [CH], Andreas Rost [DE], Andrzej Steinbach [DE], Bertrand Stofleth [FR], a.o.
More and more often elections and referendums lead to a result that is little more than a
stalemate: from the Brexit to the presidential election in the US to the slow and tedious for-
mation of a coalition government in Germany. The positions held by the competing political
groups are often so entrenched that mediation seems virtually impossible: Broken Bonds.
New forms of digital communication and increasing social segregation lead to life in a kind of
“personal bubble”. Algorithms serve to reinforce one’s own views, as they show and suggest
items in tune with things one has already “liked”. Something essential to any modern society
is lost: diversity—and the necessity of continual communicative exchange.
How can photography draw our attention to general societal dynamics that are not always
easy to come to terms with? In what ways can it now be a medium of democracy and socie-
tal communication? How can mediation and communication processes be documented by
means of photography? These are the questions that the 8th Festival for Photography f/stop
addresses with a range of exhibitions at the Baumwollspinnerei and other venues in Leipzig.
With a project that examines the year 1990 we show how photography can serve as a means
8. to revisit and remember historical periods and to initiate and advance a process of societal
Festival
für dialogue. The festival places equal emphasis on the medium of drawing. As a counterpart
Fotografie and corrective to photography drawing is now again assuming increasing importance.
Leipzig
23. June The main exhibition in Halle 12 shows works by international artists that examine long-term
–1. July 2018
societal developments that affect everyday life. One example is the work “La Vallée” (2013 –
2016) by Nicolas Giraud and Bertrand Stofleth, a long-term photographic project that docu-
ments the decline of the oldest industrial region in France—the area between the cities of
Lyon and Saint-Étienne. In a similar manner Susanne Kriemann explores the landscape
of the Erzgebirge on the border between Germany and the Czech Republic after uranium
mining operations there came to an end. William Faulkner’s adage “The past is never dead.
It’s not even past,” suggests that what we call history is in reality the radiological discharges
of society. Many lines of past conflict thus appear to be especially active, radiating into the
present, with enough energy to last far into the future.
In exploring the high frequency communication of ideas and the continual disruption of this
communication now typical of the mass media, many works in the exhibition focus on the
“afterlife” of momentary events and their long-term effects. For his work “American Readers
at Home” the Swiss photographer, book designer, and photographer Ludovic Balland tra-
velled through the United States leading up to the election in 2016 and asked citizens what
they recall from the news items of the previous day.
f/stop In Situ looks back at the year 1990. In comparing the years 1989 and 1990 it is remar-
kable that they have been recorded so differently in the collective memory. Virtually everyone
in Germany can recall the events of the fall of 1989, while the year 1990—the lines of deve-
lopment of which were continually being disrupted—often remains unintelligible and incom-
municable. Like children who can remember nothing before their third birthday, for many
East Germans 1990 seems to be buried. Yet just as the first years of life shape a person’s
emotional character, the experiences of 1990—all the hopes, fears, promises of happiness
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and disappointments–have left their mark on people’s deepest feelings and attitudes. On
Wilhelm Leuschner Square an image-text display will be installed with photographs by An-
dreas Rost, private pictures, product photographs, pages from newspapers and the obser-
vations of Christian Borchert and Elske Rosenfeld. f/stop In Situ will open on 19 July 2018.
At the centre of f/stop Print is the publication released in 2018 by Spector Books Im
Krankenhaus [In Hospital] with photographs by Ludwig Kuffer, Andreas Langfeld and
Elisabeth Neudörfl. The book allows us to imagine how an institution is “shaped” in a literal
sense—the co-existence of a great number of individuals, their shared everyday lives, their
different positions and roles, their conflicts, and compromises. The publication makes refe-
rence to the book of the same name published in 1993 by Timm Rautert, which will also be
exhibited.
The 2018 f/stop Film Programme will be curated by Leif Magne Tangen [NO] and Sarah
Schipschack [DE]. Krisztina Hunya [HU] is organizing the f/stop Symposium, for which
artists, researchers, and the public will be invited to engage in discussion and debate.
f/stop Accomplices and f/stop Satellites will complement the festival with their own exhi-
bitions and presentations. These include KV Leipzig, the book store MZIN, the art space
PING∙PONG, G2 Kunsthalle, the galleries ASPN, Eigen + Art, and many others.
A festival catalogue will be published by Spector Books.
Contact
Sabine Weier, Media and Public Relations
M: +49 (0)163 36 46 387
presse@f-stop-leipzig.de
8.
Festival
für
Fotografie
Leipzig
23. June
–1. July 2018
gefördert durch
mit freundlicher
unterstützung
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1–2 Nicolas Giraud, Bertrand Stofleth La Vallée 2013–2017
3 Alexander Kluge Die Patriotin 1978
8.
Festival
für
Fotografie
Leipzig
23. June
–1. July 2018
4 Andreas Rost 3. Oktober 1990 1990
5 Ludovic Balland New York, NY aus der Serie:
American Readers at Home 2016
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6–8 Elisabeth Neudörfl from the book Im Krankenhaus 2017
8.
Festival
für
Fotografie
Leipzig
23. June 9 Susanne Kriemann Gessenwiese, Kanigsberg 2018
–1. July 2018
10–12 Andrzej Steinbach from Gesellschaft beginnt mit drei 2017
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