Carrie Mae WeemsTrue Pictures? Contemporary Photography from Canada and the USA06.11.2021 - 13.02.2022
Sprengel Museum Hannover

Devoted to this phenomenon, TRUE PICTURES? is showcasing works by Canadian and US artists from three generations who not only share their origins and the medium of photography, but who all also belong to the digital age. By this is meant not only the advent of digital photography in the previously analog medium, but also that no artist can ignore the challenge of engaging with digitisation and the accompanying social changes – be it in addressing the oft-cited “flood of images”, the technical possibilities offered by the medium or in deliberately dissociating from the phenomena of the “digital age”.
The three generations of artists also have experience of periods of upheaval and challenges in society as a whole and in the political arena. These range from the 1968 protests, the impact of the Vietnam War and the AIDS pandemic to racism, preoccupation with feminist theory, identity issues and the questioning of perceptions of sexuality and gender – topics that in many cases have not lost their urgency to this day. In addition to narrative and politically motivated stances, the works of the younger artists include subjective and transmedial approaches that are an expression of the visual culture of the 21st century.