The Walther Collection is a private

non-profit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

dedicated to researching, collecting, exhibiting, and publishing modern and contemporary

photography Photography is the visual arts, art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is empl ...

and

video art Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting. V ...

. The collection has two exhibition spaces: the Walther Collection in

Neu-Ulm Neu-Ulm (, ; Swabian: ''Nej-Ulm'') is the seat of the Neu-Ulm district and a town in Swabia, Bavaria. Neighbouring towns include Ulm, Senden, Pfaffenhofen an der Roth, Holzheim, Nersingen and Elchingen. The population is 58,978 (31 Decembe ...

/Burlafingen, in Germany, and the Walther Collection Project Space in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

Background and architecture

Established by German-American art collector

Artur Walther Artur Walther (born October 9, 1948) is a German-American art collector focused on exhibiting and publishing contemporary photography and video art. A graduate of Harvard Business School, Walther was a General Partner at Goldman Sachs until his ...

, the Walther Collection opened in June 2010 in

/Burlafingen, Germany. The Walther Collection Project Space opened in New York City in April 2011. The Walther Collection incorporates works across regions, periods, and artistic sensibilities, particularly those by artists and photographers working in Asia and Africa. The Walther Collection's main exhibition venue is a four-building museum compound in Neu Ulm/Burlafingen, Germany. The principal buildings – the White Box, Green House, and Black House – provide gallery space for the annual exhibition program. A fourth building on the campus accommodates administrative offices and a

library A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...

. Designed by the Ulm-based architectural firm Braunger Wörtz, the White Box is a light-filled, three-story minimalist structure that houses the Walther Collection's main galleries, and hosts thematic exhibitions and commissioned projects. The Green House, a former residential home, is used for small-format works. The Black House, a

bungalow A bungalow is a small house or cottage that is typically single or one and a half storey, if a smaller upper storey exists it is frequently set in the roof and Roof window, windows that come out from the roof, and may be surrounded by wide ve ...

-style structure, presents serial, performance, and conceptual-style photography.

Exhibitions

The Walther Collection's inaugural exhibition, ''Events of the Self: Portraiture and Social Identity'', opened in June 2010. Curated by

Okwui Enwezor Okwui Enwezor (23 October 1963 – 15 March 2019) was a Nigerian curator, art critic, writer, poet, and educator, specializing in art history. Enwezor served as artistic director of several major exhibitions, including Documenta11 (2002) and th ...

, the exhibition integrated the work of three generations of African artists and photographers with selections of modern and contemporary German photography. ''Events of the Self'' featured works by Sammy Baloji,

Yto Barrada Yto Barrada (born 1971) is a Franco-Moroccan multimedia visual artist living and working in Tangier, Morocco and New York City. Barrada cofounded the Cinémathèque de Tanger in 2006, leading a group of artists and filmmakers. Barrada also work ...

Bernd and Hilla Becher Bernhard "Bernd" Becher (; 20 August 1931 – 22 June 2007), and Hilla Becher, née Wobeser (2 September 1934 – 10 October 2015), were German conceptual artists and photographers working as a collaborative duo. They are best known for their e ...

Candice Breitz Candice Breitz (born 1972) is a South African artist who works primarily in video and photography.

, Allan deSouza,

Rotimi Fani-Kayode Rotimi Fani-Kayode (20 April 1955 – 21 December 1989), born Oluwarotimi Adebiyi Wahab Fani-Kayode, was a Nigerian photographer who at the age of 11 moved with his family to England, fleeing from the Biafran War. A seminal figure in British con ...

Samuel Fosso Samuel Fosso (born July 17, 1962) is a Cameroonian-born Nigerian photographer who has worked for most of his career in the Central African Republic. His work includes using self-portraits adopting a series of personas, often commenting on the hi ...

David Goldblatt David Goldblatt HonFRPS (29 November 1930 – 25 June 2018) was a South African documentary Photographer noted for his dedicated portrayal of the South African peoples within the political landscape of the apartheid era.Weinberg, Paul.David ...

Romuald Hazoumé Romuald (; 951 – traditionally 19 June, c. 1025/27 AD) was the founder of the Camaldolese order and a major figure in the eleventh-century "Renaissance of eremitical asceticism".John Howe, "The Awesome Hermit: The Symbolic Significance of ...

Pieter Hugo Pieter Hugo (born 1976) is a South African photographer who primarily works in portraiture. He lives in Cape Town.Leah Ollman (9 February 2007)Photography that goes only skin deep''Los Angeles Times''. Hugo has had four monographs published. H ...

, Seydou Keïta,

Santu Mofokeng Santu Mofokeng (October 19, 1956 – January 26, 2020) was a South African news and documentary photographer who worked under the alias ''Mofokengâ''. Mofokeng was a member of the Afrapix collective and won a Prince Claus Award.Prince Claus Fun ...

Zwelethu Mthethwa Zwelethu Mthethwa (born 1960) is a South African painter and photographer. He was convicted of murder in 2017, and is currently incarcerated at Pollsmoor Prison. Biography Mthethwa, a native of Durban, graduated from the Michaelis School of F ...

Zanele Muholi Zanele Muholi (born 1972) is a South African artist and visual activist working in photography, video, and installation. Muholi's work focuses on race, gender and sexuality with a body of work that dates back to the early 2000s, documenting and ...

, Ingrid Mwangi, Jo Ratcliffe,

August Sander August Sander (17 November 1876 – 20 April 1964) was a German portrait photography, portrait and Documentary photography, documentary photographer. His first book ''Face of our Time'' (German: ''Antlitz der Zeit'') was published in 1929. Sande ...

, Berni Searle,

Malick Sidibé Malick Sidibé (1935 – 14 April 2016) was a Malian photographer from a Fulani ( Fula) village in Soloba, who was noted for his black-and-white studies of popular culture in the 1960s in Bamako, Mali. Sidibé had a long and fruitful career as ...

Mikhael Subotzky Mikhael Subotzky (born Cape Town, South Africa, 1981) is a South African artist based in Johannesburg. His installation, film, video and photographic work have been exhibited widely in museums and galleries, and received awards including the KLM ...

, and

Guy Tillim Guy Tillim (born 1962) is a South African photographer known for his work focusing on troubled regions of Sub-Saharan Africa. A member of the country's white minority, Tillim was born in Johannesburg in 1962. Poplak 2011. He graduated from the ...

. Chris Dercon, director of

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery in London, housing the United Kingdom's national collection of international Modern art, modern and contemporary art (created from or after 1900). It forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Live ...

, chose ''Events of the Self'' as one of the 10 best exhibitions of 2010 for ''Artforum'' magazine. Highlights from ''Events of the Self'' appeared in

Paris Photo Paris Photo is an annual international art fair dedicated to photography. It was founded in 1997, and is held in November at the Grand Palais exhibition hall and museum complex, located at the Champs-Élysées in the 8th arrondissement in Pari ...

2011. The second annual exhibition of the Walther Collection, ''Appropriated Landscapes'', opened on June 16, 2011. Curated by Corinne Diserens, ''Appropriated Landscapes'' brought together photography and video exploring the effects of war, migration, energy, architecture, and memory on the landscapes of Southern Africa, featuring works by

Mitch Epstein Mitchell Epstein (born 1952) is an American photographer. His books include ''Vietnam: A Book of Changes'' (1997); ''Family Business'' (2003), which won the 2004 Kraszna-Krausz Photography Book Award; ''Recreation: American Photographs 1973–1988 ...

, David Goldblatt, Zanele Muholi, Jo Ratcliffe, Penny Siopis,

Patrick Waterhouse Patrick Waterhouse (born 13 August 1981) is a British artist. His work involves photography, drawing and graphic design. He has published books of his work and been exhibited internationally. Since 2011 he has been editor-in-chief of ''Colors'' ma ...

, Mikhael Subotzky and Guy Tillim. The third exhibition of the Walther Collection's multi-year investigation of African photography, ''Distance and Desire: Encounters with the African Archive'', opened on June 8, 2013. ''Distance and Desire'', curated by Tamar Garb, was the first major exhibition to address the dialogue between ethnographic visions of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century African photography and engagements with the archive by contemporary African artists. The exhibition included portraits, figure studies, ''cartes de visite'', postcards, books, and album pages from southern and eastern Africa, featuring images made from the 1860s to 1940s by A. M. Duggan-Cronin and numerous unidentified and unknown photographers. The historical works were presented together with photography, video, and archive projects by contemporary artists including

Carrie Mae Weems Carrie Mae Weems (born April 20, 1953) is an American artist working in text, fabric, audio, digital images and Video installation, installation video, and is best known for her photography. She achieved prominence through her early 1990s photog ...

, Santu Mofokeng,

Sue Williamson Sue Williamson (born 1941) is an artist and writer based in Cape Town, South Africa. Life Sue Williamson was born in Lichfield, England in 1941. In 1948 she immigrated with her family to South Africa. Between 1963 and 1965 she studied at t ...

, Sammy Baloji, Guy Tillim, David Goldblatt, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Zanele Muholi, and Jo Ratcliffe. ''Distance and Desire'' was the culmination of this three-part exhibition series in 2011 and 2012 at the Walther Collection Project Space and the international symposium ''Encounters with the African Archive'', which took place in November 2012 at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

. In May 2015, The Walther Collection opened ''The Order of Things: Photography from The Walther Collection''. The exhibition, organized by Brian Wallis, examined how the formal tools of classification, particularly archives, typologies, and time-based series, have opened critical challenges to the synthetic conventions of photographic realism. (A previous version was presented at Les

Rencontres d'Arles The Rencontres d'Arles (formerly called ''Rencontres internationales de la photographie d'Arles'') is an annual summer photography festival founded in 1970 by the Arles photographer Lucien Clergue, the writer Michel Tournier and the historian ...

in Arles, France, from July–September 2014.) ''The Order of Things'' included photographs and installations by

Karl Blossfeldt Karl Blossfeldt (13 June 18659 December 1932) was a German photographer and sculptor. He is best known for his close-up photographs of plants and living things, published in 1929 as ''Urformen der Kunst''. He was inspired, as was his father, by n ...

, Bernd and Hilla Becher, J. D. 'Okhai Ojeikere,

Richard Avedon Richard Avedon (May 15, 1923 – October 1, 2004) was an American fashion and portrait photographer. He worked for ''Harper's Bazaar'', '' Vogue'' and '' Elle'' specializing in capturing movement in still pictures of fashion, theater and ...

Stephen Shore Stephen Shore (born October 8, 1947) is an American photographer known for his images of scenes and objects of the banal, and for his pioneering use of color in art photography. His books include ''Uncommon Places'' (1982) and ''American Surfaces ...

, Guy Tillim, Zanele Muholi,

Ai Weiwei Ai Weiwei ( ; , IPA: ; born 28 August 1957) is a Chinese contemporary artist, documentarian, and activist. Ai grew up in the far northwest of China, where he lived under harsh conditions due to his father's exile. As an activist, he has been ...

Zhang Huan Zhang Huan (; born 1965) is a Chinese artist based in Shanghai and New York City. He began his career as a painter and then transitioned to performance art before making a comeback to painting. He is primarily known for his performance work, but ...

Song Dong Song Dong (, born 1966) is a Chinese contemporary artist, active in sculpture, Installation art, installations, performance, photography and video. He has been involved in many solo and group exhibitions around the world, covering a range of them ...

Thomas Ruff Thomas Ruff (born 10 February 1958) is a German photographer who lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany. He has been described as "a master of edited and reimagined images". Ruff shares a studio on Düsseldorf's Hansaallee, with fellow German ...

Thomas Struth Thomas Struth (born 11 October 1954) is a German photographer who is best known for his ''Museum Photographs'' series, black and white photographs of the streets of Düsseldorf and New York taken in the 1970s, and his family photographs series. ...

Ed Ruscha Edward Joseph Ruscha IV (, ''roo-SHAY''; born December 16, 1937) is an American artist associated with the anti- pop art movement. He has worked in the media of painting, printmaking, drawing, photography, and film. He is also noted for creating s ...

, Dieter Appelt,

Eadweard Muybridge Eadweard Muybridge ( ; 9 April 1830 – 8 May 1904, born Edward James Muggeridge) was an English photographer known for his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion, and early work in motion-picture Movie projector, projection. He ...

Kohei Yoshiyuki was a Japanese photographer whose work included "Kōen" (, Park), photographs of people at night in sexual activities in parks in Tokyo. Prints from ''The Park (photo series), The Park'' are held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and ...

, and

Nobuyoshi Araki , professionally known by the mononym , is a Japanese photographer and contemporary artist. Known primarily for photography that blends eroticism and bondage in a fine art context, he has published over 500 books. Early life and education Araki ...

New York Project Space

The Walther Collection Project Space, in the West Chelsea Arts Building in New York City, extends the collection's mission and program to American audiences. The space opened to the public on April 15, 2011 with an exhibition of Jo Ratcliffe's portfolio of

platinum print Platinum prints, also called ''platinotypes'', are photographic prints made by a monochrome photographic printing, printing process involving platinum. Platinum tones range from warm black, to reddish brown, to expanded mid-tone grays that are ...

s from the series ''As Terras do Fim do Mundo (The Lands of the End of the World)''. The second exhibition at the Project Space was ''August Sander and Seydou Keïta: Portraiture and Social Identity,'' It exhibited ''Rotimi Fani-Kayode: Nothing to Lose,'' the first solo exhibition in New York of Fani-Kayode's photographs. The Walther Collection presented the three-part exhibition series ''Distance and Desire: Encounters with the African Archive'' at the Project Space New York from September 2012 to May 2013. ''Gulu Real Art Studio'', an exhibition of ID photographs collected in Uganda by Martina Bacigalupo, was presented from September 2013 to February 2014. Christine Meisner's ''Disquieting Nature'', a video installation exploring the geographies in the Mississippi Delta region where blues music originates, was presented from February 28 to June 14, 2014. A mid-career survey of self-portraiture by

was exhibited from September 11, 2014 to January 17, 2015. The collection presented ''Santu Mofokeng: A Metaphorical Biography'' from January 29 to June 27, 2015.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Walther Collection Non-profit organizations based in the United States Non-profit organisations based in Germany Art museums and galleries in New York (state) Art museums and galleries in Manhattan Photography organizations Photography museums and galleries in Germany Photography museums and galleries in the United States German art collectors Arts organizations established in 2010 Art museums and galleries established in 2010 2010 establishments in Germany Neu-Ulm (district)

Background and architecture

Exhibitions

New York Project Space

Further reading

References

External links