The Graphic Collection of the Cologne City Museum includes a comprehensive photographic collection (including approx. 20,000 picture postcards), which comprises some 20 percent of the stock. The museum’s very first objects included photographs from the stock of the Historical Archive and the city building department.
The focus of the photography therefore lies on urban profile and architecture, which also covers the Rhineland at least until 1945. But this was swiftly followed by portraits and “costume pictures”, images of unknown persons of every gender and age, which were collected on account of their clothing. Until the mid-20th century, the city collected photography essentially in the form of documentation; artistic photography did not follow until it acquired August Sander’s portfolio “Köln wie es war” (“Cologne the way it was”), naturally also under the aspect of urban history, profile, culture or architecture. This practice is continued to this day.
The invited artist will be able to draw on this fund, be the subject individual artist personalities, aspects of urban profile photography from 1853 to today, portraits.
Kölnisches Stadtmuseum
Minoritenstraße 11
DE-50667 Cologne
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Archives & Collections
Photography has a rich and varied history in the Cologne area. This is evidenced by the numerous photo collections in art museums and photographic archives, ranging from classical picture archives to private and corporate archives. In the Artist Meets Archive programme, the hidden treasures within these institutions are revived.
The collaboration between the archives and participating artists results in exhibition projects that are presented as part of the Photoszene Festival. Here, the archive becomes the site of an artistic debate and focuses on local photographic history as well as casting a global perspective on the medium of photography.