When the Pinakothek der Moderne was founded in 2002, a department for photography and time-based media was established, consequently incorporating the medium of photography actively in the collections. Permanent loans from the corporate collections of Siemens (2003) and Allianz (2004) that focussed on photography from the 1970s onwards, provided a magnificent start that has been steadily built on ever since. In 2010, the collection was extensively enhanced and expanded: the gallery owners and collectors Ann and Jürgen Wilde’s photographic collection, with its emphasis on the modernist period, became affiliated to the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen as a foundation together with the Karl Blossfeldt and Albert Renger-Patzsch artist archives. The combined holdings of both of these collections form a comprehensive body totalling some 10,000 works, allowing visitors to experience artistic photography of the highest quality with an international focus. 

New Objectivity photography in the Ann and Jürgen Wilde Foundation and the documentary conceptual photography of Bernd and Hilla Becher and their students in the Collection of Photography and Time-Based Media constitute the focal points of the respective divisions and form an introductory opening to the exhibition with their comparable concepts. Other themes presented include the detail, the landscape and wide expanses, fragments and space, the body and identity, as well as the street and society, followed by pictorial concepts which deal with life experiences that are not visible or are difficult to capture. The dialogical and often surprising encounters spanning different ages render the medium of photography visible as an art form that decisively influences our visual perception and the current discourse.

For the first time, the Collection of Photography and Time-Based Media and the Ann and Jürgen Wilde Foundation are jointly presenting milestones of artistic photography from their holdings of works from the 20^th and 21^st centuries in one exhibition. From renowned key works to recent acquisitions never exhibited before, the exhibition is an invitation to encounter familiar works once again and to make new discoveries.

Artits in the exhibition:
Ilit Azoulay, John Baldessari, Lewis Baltz, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Laurenz Berges, Aenne Biermann, Viktoria Binschtok, Karl Blossfeldt, Joachim Brohm, Thomas Demand, Ludwig Dressler, Juan Pablo Echeverri, Alfred Ehrhardt, Arno Fischer, Lee Friedlander, Jochen Gerz, Ralph Gibson, Claus Goedicke, Jan Groover, Andreas Gursky, Florence Henri, Candida Höfer, Axel Hütte, Astrid Jahnsen, Sven Johne, Birgit Jürgenssen, Wolf Kahlen, Jens Klein, Germaine Krull, Marie Jo Lafontaine, Louise Lawler, Zoe Leonard, Duane Michals, Tracey Moffatt, Christopher Muller, Mame-Diarra Niang, Simone Nieweg, Nicholas Nixon, Gabriele & Helmut Nothhelfer, Walter Pfeiffer, Adrian Piper, Barbara Probst, Walid Raad, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Marcia Resnick, Werner Rohde, Ed Ruscha, Thomas Ruff, August Sander, Michael Schmidt, Eva-Maria Schön, Friedrich Seidenstücker, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Stephen Shore, Beat Streuli, Thomas Struth, Vibeke Tandberg, Sam Taylor-Johnson, Wolfgang Tillmans, Lidwien van de Ven, Jeff Wall, Weegee, Gillian Wearing, Petra Wunderlich

Curated by
Simone Förster, Chief Curator Ann and Jürgen Wilde Foundation
Franziska Kunze, Chief Curator of Photography and Time-Based Media