Exhibitions
3 Mai – 1 September 2024
For decades, the art institutions and collections in Frankfurt and the Rhine-Main region have been home to a remarkable density and expertise in the field of photography and related media. Following on from the first four successful editions of RAY the Triennial of Photography, eleven cooperating institutions once again joined forces to make this focus internationally visible. With exhibitions, numerous events, and a three-day festival on the triennial theme of ECHOES, RAY offered a multifaceted exploration of photography.
How do images contribute to our understanding of our identity, our memories, our emotions, and our ability to grasp and process current social, societal, and political challenges? RAY Echoes offered no answers to these questions, but rather – like a laboratory – many perspectives and opportunities for individual exploration. On this basis, RAY Echoes concentrated on three focal points: Identity, Memory, and Emotion.
The exhibition RAY Echoes. Emotion at the Museum Angewandte Kunst featuring Jesper Just, Anton Kusters, Jyoti Mistry, and Diego Moreno focused on photographic and media-related images that can trigger an emotional response or echo in us as viewers. By responding with an emotion – an interplay of feelings, thoughts, and a physical reaction — our own experiences and perspectives always feed into the interpretation of what we see.
In Malign Influences, the artist Diego Moreno (b. 1992, Mexico) graphically intervenes in photographs from his family archive. This is a reaction to his past – abuse, a highly religious upbringing and the resulting feelings of guilt, the long repression of his sexual identity, loneliness: an artistic practice as an attempt at subversion, resistance, and self-empowerment.
For his work The Blue Skies Project, Anton Kusters (b. 1974, Belgium) spent six years researching and travelling to former concentration and extermination camps in Europe to photograph the skies there. Each resulting Polaroid photograph is blind embossed by hand with the number of victims of the respective camp and its GPS coordinates. It is a work about remembrance and commemoration. The Blue Skies Project was curated by Monica Allende.
In her project Cause of Death (2020), Jyoti Mistry (b. 1970, South Africa) collages historical archive material from the EYE Film Museum in Amsterdam, directing a critical eye toward the historical marginalisation and representation of women. In contrasting images, Western women are portrayed either as sex symbols or as mother figures, while non-Western women appear as exotic attractions. The video material is accompanied by the words of the South African writer and poet Napo Masheane.
In the work Interfears (2022) by Jesper Just (b. 1974, Denmark), an actor (Matt Dillon) recites a monologue while an MRI machine scans his brain. The film questions the difference between real and simulated emotions. Interfears suggests that emotions and emotional responses are learned, a product of the social and cultural environment.
You can download the exhibition catalog here.
The RAY Master Class is a cooperation between RAY and the Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach, the Hochschule Darmstadt, the Kunsthochschule Mainz and the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Städelschule. The aim of the Master Class is to give national and international students in the field of artistic photography the opportunity to make a name for themselves and generate additional attention among young visitors. The third RAY Master Class was held under the direction of RAY artist Anton Kusters and together with twelve students.
The exhibition SOFT PROOF of the RAY Master Class was on display at the Museum Angewandte Kunst from 3 May to 1 September.
You can download the exhibition booklet here.