Subjects of Life – Photography in the Mudam Collection

As part of the ongoing series of Mudam Collection displays, Subjects of Life highlights a selection of emblematic artworks from the museum’s collection of photography. This selection encourages a reflection on the medium and the effects of the image on our perception of reality, notions of territory, and the represented subject. Including works by twelve artists from Europe, Asia, the Middle East and North America, the presentation also underscores the varying approaches to photography within the broader scope of contemporary art practice.

This new display includes important early acquisitions for the Mudam Collection such as 18 Hauts Fourneaux by Bernd and Hilla Becher (1931–2007 / 1934–2015) and Vitrines, Luxembourg by Valérie Belin (*1968), whose black and white images, respectively, draw on the systematic procedures of Conceptual Art and the history of photography in the work of Eugène Atget. The colour photographs by British photographer Martin Parr (*1952), move between the world of photojournalism and visual art to capture with acerbity aspects of contemporary social life.

Operating somewhere between investigation and fiction, Sophie Calle (*1953) and Pasha Rafiy (*1980) exploit, through their respective tours around Venice and New York, the narrative potential of images, while the fanciful staging of anonymous fashion aficionados by Kyoichi Tsuzuki (*1956) recreates a new reality. His images, which reveal as much their personalities in a sensitive manner, find resonance in the intimist atmosphere of the portraits of Nan Goldin (*1953), while the recently acquired 22 portraits by Wolfgang Tillmans (*1968) evoke the painterly traditions of portraiture in which the public figure and the anonymity of a person wistfully collide.