Pauline Hafsia M’barek at the Museum Ludwig
A photo is not just an illustration, but a composition of chemical substances and compounds such as silver, copper, glass, salt and gelatine. These form complex, unstable image layers, which require protection against external influences by means of conservation processes. Pauline Hafsia M’barek takes the corporate photographs from the Agfa collection of the Museum Ludwig as the basis for an in-depth examination of this vibrant matter. As she does so, she explores the chemicophysical properties of the image and traces the photo-making process, which always delineates the precarious relationship between humanity and environment as well. In a multimedia assemblage, the artist interweaves photographs originating from the Agfa production site, toxic documents, and microscopic material analyses with film experiments on sensitive surfaces.
Pauline Hafsia M'barek
Pauline Hafsia M'barek (born 1979 in Cologne, now lives in Cologne and Brussels) studied fine arts in Hamburg, Marseille and Cologne. In her artistic practice, the body and its systems of perception are both an instrument and an object of research. By moving as close as possible to her subject, she exposes herself to precarious and unstable moments between observation and experience. The videos, photographs, installations or performative lectures that emerge from this open, experimental approach are not to be seen as completed works, but as transitional stages of artistic research in motion.
Visit to Pauline Hafsia M'barek in her residency at Museum Ludwig
More about Pauline Hafsia M'barek:
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Museum Ludwig
With some 70,000 works, the Museum Ludwig has an important and extensive collection of photography from the early days of the medium to the present, and is one of the first museums of modern and contemporary art to devote a separate collection to photography in 1977.
The photography collection includes early daguerreotypes, important artistic photographs ranging from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries, albums, and portfolios, as well as extensive materials on the cultural history of the medium. Here, too, it was private collectors who laid the foundation for the photography collection in 1977 with purchases and donations from the collection of L. Fritz and Renate Gruber, who maintained close contacts with photographers in Germany and abroad.
The collection has been expanded in recent years with purchases of works by VALIE EXPORT, Tarrah Krainak, Senga Nengudi and Carrie Mae Weems, to name just a few.
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© A.R
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Chargesheimer, At the bar. Kissing couple, 1957
© Museum Ludwig, Köln, Repro: Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln
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Tarrah Krajnak, Master Rituals II: Weston's Nudes 2020/2021, Museum Ludwig, Cologne
© Tarrah Krajnak, courtesy Galerie Thomas Zander, Repro: RBA
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Wolfgang Tillmans, Ms Pisters, Remscheid, 1986 C-print
© Wolfgang Tillmans, Repro: Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln
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Aenne Biermann, Gerd 7 years old, 1930
© Museum Ludwig, Köln, Repro: Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln
More about Museum Ludwig:
Website
Artist Meets Archive
Residency Programm
Artist Meets Archive is the central program of the Internationale Photoszene, which focuses on the artistic exploration of photography in the context of archives. Every other year, we invite artists from all over the world to Cologne to get to know a diverse and historic photographic tradition in the city's archives, collections and repositories.
Artist Meets Archive #4
The Internationale Photoszene Köln is hosting the Artist Meets Archive program for the fourth time in collaboration with the photographic collections and archives of the city of Cologne. International artists are invited for a residency at the participating institutions, where they engage with the respective collections and develop exhibitions that will be presented as part of the Photoszene Festival in Cologne.