A Bouquet of Flowers. Transient Beauty
Photography from the beginnings to the present day

17th May until 29th June 2024

on the occasion of düsseldorf photo+ Biennale for Visual and Sonic Media


With Nobuyoshi Araki, Max Baur, Boris Becker, Ute Behrend, Viktoria Binschtok, Peter Bömmels, Tim Berresheim, Natalie Czech, Michael Dannenmann, Sam Evans, Jan Paul Evers, Jitka Hanzlová, Axel Hütte, Leiko Ikemura, Benjamin Katz, Annette Kelm, Karin Kneffel, Maximilian Koppernock, August Kotzsch, Heinrich Kühn, Kathrin Linkersdorff, Robert Mapplethorpe, Hartmut Neumann, Roland Schappert, Luzia Simons, Josef Sudek, Michael Wesely, Dr. Wolff+Tritschler and a selection of anonymous historical photographs.

The bouquet of flowers as an artistic installation that precedes photography is the focus of this group exhibition.

As a classic still life subject, the bouquet of flowers has not lost its appeal to the present day. The arranged photographs of bouquets of flowers in the mid-19th century are to be understood as precursors of staged photography.

With various photographic positions, the exhibition ranges from historical photography, for example by Heinrich Kühn, to computer-based photography by Tim Berresheim. This pictorial subject is also used to demonstrate the changes in the technical and content-related possibilities of photography.

Contemporary "bouquet photography" goes far beyond nature or documentary photography. Photographic artists have explored and scrutinized the sculptural, painterly and conceptual possibilities of this still life to varying degrees.

Since the beginning of the 17th century, the bouquet of flowers has been present in painting as a still life in all its arranged splendour, often symbolizing the transience of all existence. Photography has the opportunity to accompany the process of transience, and it is often the flowers that have already withered that create a special charm in the perception of reality. Nothing shows reality more strikingly than transience.


Exhibition and exhibition concept: Hartmut Neumann

Dr. Wolff + Tritschler, Nobuyoshi Araki, Anonym, Max Baur, Boris Becker, Ute Behrend, Tim Berresheim, Viktoria Binschtok, Peter Bömmels, Natalie Czech, Michael Dannenmann, Sam Evans, Jan Paul Evers, Jitka Hanzlová, Axel Hütte, Leiko Ikemura, Benjamin Katz, Annette Kelm, Karin Kneffel, Maximilian Koppernock, August Kotzsch, Heinrich Kühn, Kathrin Linkersdorff, Robert Mapplethorpe, Hartmut Neumann, Roland Schappert, Luzia Simons, Josef Sudek, Michael Wesely