The iconic photographs from the vast collection of the Farm Security Administration, an US government branch from the 1930s and 40s, are among the most celebrated documentary images known today. The black-and-white image collection is considered a landmark in the history of documentary photography as it depicts a tragic era of American History, the Great Depression. These images showed a then unfamiliar face of America – the poverty, the pain, the racism. Many of those photographs are widely known images of American life, even iconic in their visual quality, although the context in which they were taken remains unknown to many.
By means of showing the most captivating Farm Security Administration pictures taken by famous photographers Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Arthur Rothstein and Gordon Parks this exhibition will introduce and contextualize one of the first professionalized approaches to documenting life through the camera – hence shaping a genre which today has become an art form in its own right.
The show is divided into four sections, each focusing on the work of one of the aforementioned photographers. There will be an introduction to the work and mission of the Farm Security Administration, as well as biographical information and image material on the photographers. This exhibition will feature between 60 - 80 elegantly framed and mounted photographs in various sizes up to enlargements of 120 x 80 cm (15 3/4 x 19 5/8 in.)
The exhibition will be accompanied by an extensive, richly illustrated scholarly catalogue.
Curator: Katharina Beisiegel
The exhibition is available for booking
CATALOGUE IN PREPARATION
Editor: Suzanne Greub
Languages: tbd
Contributing Authors: tbd