RAY 2021

Qiana Mestrich (*1977, US), Manslaughter 2ND, Tompkins County, NY;aus der Serie Namesake, Group 2, 2013 © Qiana Mestrich, Courtesy: sepiaEYE Gallery

Ideologies

03.06.–12.09.2021

Flanked by targeted communication strategies, ideological attitudes are disseminated as justification of ideas, beliefs, and values of a person, a group, or entire state entities, not only via the spoken or written word, but above all via images. With the new media accessible everywhere on smartphones and tablets and with the help of personalised messages, as well as messages by trained algorithms, the degree of manipulation is increasing, while the truth content of a message or an image is becoming more and more difficult to gauge, if not long since decoupled from reality. In accordance with the respective ideology, value judgments are thus presented as facts, deviating ideas are discriminated against, particular interests are declared to be universally valid, myths are formed, and a totalitarian claim to truth is propagated. It seems clear that images have always had a fundamentally rhetorical function

in that they contribute to both the construction and transformation of discourses, identities, communities, cultures, opinions, and ultimately worldviews. This explains why they have been used in the past as a preferred means of forming and disseminating ideologies. As a visual medium, photography is particularly closely connected in its genesis with the imperial industrialisation of Western nation states, with the colonisation of large parts of Asia, Latin America, and the African continent in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Photographs from this period represent a significant part of the Western cultural-historical arsenal of images and visual knowledge. They articulate narratives of dichotomies, ideas, values, and structures of power and domination, of Orientalism, exoticism, racism, and group-based misanthropy. Their reverberation into our present is an expression of a permanent unconscious, as well as a manipulatively employed conscious reproduction.

Counteracting the unambiguousness of images that have become solidified as stereotypes, critical-reflexive art always shows the act of showing itself. By questioning its own foundations and conditions of creation and by lifting the veil of what is depicted, it provides insights into the process of image formation and depiction and is thus genuinely critical of ideology. The viewer’s engagement with the work of art takes place in the confrontation with something new: the disturbance, friction, and exaggeration of what is represented and the irritation triggered by this. This is the moment of an intrinsic critique of ideology, in which the manipulative fusion of image and viewer is inhibited. At the same time, it is a critique of the conditions that produce and reproduce ideologies on a daily basis. The works challenge us to encounter images with distance in order to critically analyse them— a skill that has become essential in a world shaped by and based on images. The exhibitions on the theme of ideologies, as part of the international triennial RAY 2021, aim to use the critical potential of art, especially artistic photography and film, to reveal the impact of past and present ideologies. Wherein lies the ideological aspect expressed in the past and in the here and now? What is behind ide- ologies, how do they work, and to what extent do they support power, manipulation, abuse, exclusion, and exploitation, or even exercise these themselves? The photo triennial wishes to discuss these questions with current and historical positions. One aspect seems indisputable: since every ideology is always self-referential, it cannot ultimately do justice to our complex realities and near- future demands as a self-contained system of meaning and values.

Curator team

Anne-Marie Beckmann, Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation; Christina Leber, DZ BANK Kunstsammlung (heute: Kunststiftung DZ BANK); Alexandra Lechner, freie Kuratorin; Celina Lunsford, Fotografie Forum Frankfurt; Susanne Pfeffer und Anna Sailer, Museum für Moderne Kunst MMK; Matthias Wagner K, Museum Angewandte Kunst

Artists

Akinbode Akinbiyi (*1946 UK/NG), Máté Bartha (*1987 HU), Johanna Diehl (*1977 DE), Yagazie Emezi (*1989 NG), Ja’Tovia Gary (*1984 US), Eddo Hartmann (*1973 NL), Paula Markert (*1982 DE), Qiana Mestrich (*1977 US), Mohau Modasikeng (*1986 ZA), Yves Sambu (*1980 CD), Adrian Sauer (*1976 DE), Salvatore Vitale (*1986 IT)

Venues

Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, Fotografie Forum Frankfurt, Kunststiftung DZ BANK, Museum Angewandte Kunst, MUSEUM MMK FÜR MODERNE KUNST

Partner venues

Historisches Museum Frankfurt, Museum Giersch der Goethe-Universität, Kunstforum der TU Darmstadt, Kunst- und Kulturstiftung Opelvillen Rüsselsheim, Marta Hoepffner-Gesellschaft für Fotografie e.V., Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden

Media archive

Eröffnung

Festival

As part of the RAY Triennial, the RAY Festival took place from September 1 to 3 over three festival days with lectures and talks. The RAY Festival invited international artists, curators and experts to bring together and discuss diverse perspectives on the topic of ideologies. The RAY Festival took place at the Museum Angewandte Kunst.

Lectures and Artists Talks

Keynote speech with Rainer Forst: TRUTH, DEMOCRACY AND IDEOLOGY

Panel on the RAY Triennial theme IDEOLOGIES

Artist Talk with Adrian Sauer and Kathrin Schönegg

Opening of the RAY 2021 Master Class Exhibition

Artist Talk with Yves Sambu and Matthias Wagner K

Yagazie Emezi, Mahret I. Kupka, Eric Otieno Sumba and Sakhile Matlhare: EMANCIPATIVE CORPOREALITIES

Artist Talk with Qiana Mestrich and Celina Lunsford

Introduction from Anne-Marie Beckmann: US AND THEM

Artist Talk with Máté Bartha and Cornelia Siebert

Artist Talk with Salvatore Vitale and Cornelia Siebert

Artist Talk with Eddo Hartmann and Anne-Marie Beckmann

Artist Talk with Paula Markert and Anne-Marie Beckmann

Vortrag von Annekathrin Kohout: CUTE AGGRESSION — Niedlichkeit als Machtinstrument