© Thomas Wrede Nach der Flut 2012
Following the great success of the first two Duesseldorf Photo Weekends 2012 and 2013, this event will now take place again for the third time from January 31 to February 2 2014. Numerous galleries, museums and institutions from the Duesseldorf art and photography scene will open their doors for an entire weekend and show exhibitions and hold events on the theme of photography.
The launch of the Duesseldorf Photo Weekend 2014 will be the opening on Thursday evening (30.1.2014) in the NRW Forum with the exhibition under the theme “Heimat” (The Fatherland) from the DZ Bank Frankfurt, which will be showing extracts from its collection. The DZ bank owns one of the most important collections of photography in Germany. A small catalogue will accompany the exhibition.
In the north wing of the NRW Forum the exhibition of the U.S. master photographer Duane Michals (born 1932) will be opened at the same time. Michals became especially renowned for his sequence photography, which he completes with handwritten texts. The exhibition shows photographs since the late 50s and finishes with his newest works, the so called Tintypes. These are old photographic plates which Michals has painted over. Parallel to the exhibition a new film will be shown about Michals: “The Man Who Invented Himself”, directed by Camille Guichard (approx. 100 min).
© Chema Madoz, Untitled, 1990, 24 x 30 cm, gelatine silver print
© Jürgen Staack
Up until now more than 24 galleries and institutions with photography exhibitions and institutions have contacted Clara Sels, the organiser of the event. The Polish Institute are dedicating a retrospective on the classical Polish photographer Jerzy Lewczynski under the title of “The Memory of the Picture”. In a solo exhibition the collection Philara Werke will show work of the artist Natalie Czech. The Malkasten Duesseldorf will present, under the title “ANTIFOTO”, the work of the British partnership MacDonaldStrand.
The exhibition programme will be complemented by a series of events. On Friday January 31 at 22:00 these will kick off with a party with the legendary British DJ Rusty Egan. On Saturday February 1 the Portfolio Review will take place from 12:00-20:00 in the NRW Forum where national and international photography magazines may be viewed in the Magazine Salon The programme for the Duesseldorf Photo Weekend 2014 is available on our webpage: http://www.duesseldorfphotoweekend.de
The Photo Weekend has, just as last year, invited European curators to come and gain an overall impression of the current photography scene in the Duesseldorf galleries and institutions taking part. Amongst those that will visiting Duesseeldorf will be curators from the Victoria and Albert Museum London, the Huis Marseille, Amsterdam, the MACBA, Barcelona and the Photography Museum, Antwerp. To get things moving the sponsors Audi and Air Berlin have made great contributions. The company Audi, strong supporters of the arts will ensure, once again, that the invited guests will be shuttled from one exhibition space to the next. Air Berlin has also recently made the generous decision to fly the artist Duane Michals from New York to Düsseldorf. The Kunst-und Kulturstiftung der Stadtsparkasse Düsseldorf (The Stadtsparkasse Düsseldorf Arts and Culture Foundation) supports the Portfolio in this year also. ARTE, who livestreamed the event last year, has contributed this year most generously to the arts prize.
The Duesseldorf Photo Weekend could not take place without the support of the contributing galleries and cultural institutions as well as the support of the city of Duesseldorf and numerous sponsors. Duesseldorf will show, once again, that this city is a metropolis for modern photography.