Typologien

Artists: Bernd and Hilla Becher, Sibylle Bergemann, Karl Blossfeldt, Ursula Böhmer, Christian Borchert, Margit Emmrich, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Isa Genzken, Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, Lotte Jacobi, Jochen Lempert, Simone Nieweg, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Heinrich Riebesehl, Thomas Ruff, August Sander, Ursula Schulz-Dornburg, Thomas Struth, Wolfgang Tillmans, Rosemarie Trockel, Umbo (Otto Umbehr), and Marianne Wex.

“Typologien”, curated by Susanne Pfeffer, is an extensive study dedicated to 20th-century German photography. The exhibition, hosted in Podium, the central building of the Milan headquarters, is curated by Susanne Pfeffer, an art historian and director of the Museum MMK für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt.

The project applies the principle of “typology”, which originates in 17th- and 18th-century botany to categorize and study plants and emerges in photography in the early 1900s, establishing itself in Germany throughout the 20th century. Paradoxically, this formal principle allows for unexpected convergences of German artists spanning different generations and the manifestation of their individual approaches.

The exhibition follows a typological rather than a chronological order, bringing together more than 600 photographic works by 25 established and lesser-known artists essential to recounting a century of German photography. A system of suspended walls creates geometric partitions in the exhibition space, forming unexpected connections between artistic practices that differ from one another but are united by a common principle or intention of classification.