OFF Triennale

In 2018, for the 7th edition of the Triennale der Photographie Hamburg, entitled “BREAKING POINT. SEARCHING FOR CHANGE”, artistic director Krzysztof Candrowicz introduced the OFF TRIENNALE in collaboration with Nina Venus.

Nina Venus curated the OFF TRIENNALE as a dynamic, experimental and cutting-edge component of the Triennale der Photographie Hamburg, complementing the main exhibition program with 15 unconventional international positions of emerging and established artists working in the medium of photography exhibiting at independent art spaces. The experimental and progress-oriented presentations were open to a wide audience as the combination of international artists and local spaces intended to inspire a dialogue among artists and public about the medium of photography in the context of fine art.

Based on the idea to widen the scope and access of participation for artists, exhibitors and viewers alike, and to highlight the city’s vivid independent art scene, the OFF TRIENNALE launched an international open call for entries that was promoted June-November 2017 at well-established international photography festivals such as “Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles”, “Paris Photo”, “unseen amsterdam”, and subsequently received nearly 700 applications from all over the world.

A jury of internationally acclaimed photography experts

• Ute Meta Bauer (international curator, professor and founding director, Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, NTU CCA Singapore)
• Alison Nordström (independent scholar, former senior curator of Photography at George Eastman House, NY, founding director of the Southeast Museum of Photography)
• Susanna Kirschnick (photographer and master-printer, owner and founder of gOlab, Berlin)
• W.M.Hunt, (photography collector, critic and curator),
• together with Krzysztof Candrowicz
• and Nina Venus chose 15 participating international positions.

Based on their strong independent program and continuous contribution to the diverse cultural landscape of Hamburg, Nina Venus selected 15 locations, artist run spaces and independent institutions to be hosting the 15 finalists from the open call during the opening week of the festival, June 7–17, 2018.

People all over the world are constantly taking photographs, most of which have nothing to do with art and are not intended to be shown in an art context. Pictures are taken for all kinds of reasons. Their value depends on the purposes they fulfil: documenting a decisive moment, keeping the memory of an experience, capturing an instant, evoking an emotion, creating a phantasy, influencing an opinion, recording reality or making an assertion. Photography that regards itself as art does many of the same things. It can be art. We all could be artists. Everyone takes photographs; we all use the visual language of photography to tell stories, achieve our personal, profane and professional goals, and we all succumb to the quotidian power of images. Photography shapes our perception of the world and contributes significantly to our knowledge of the present.

However, there is also the sort of photography that is considered art and creates images that magically transcend the reality they represent and become timeless, even though they merely depict the present, This sort of photography tells stories in the language of art.

OFF Triennale has invited international artists working with the medium of photography to engage with the theme of the 7^th Triennial of Photography: “Breaking Point. Searching for Change”. The artistic positions they present are complex bodies of work – poetic, provocative, playful, and analytic statements. They observe, express opinions and tell stories – their own stories and of others.

OFF Triennale introduces these selected artists and their controversial, inspiring, and timely positions at OFF locations throughout Hamburg with fifteen OFF solo shows and two OFF collective shows.

Alongside the museums and art institutions in Hamburg the OFF Triennale offers many diverse alternative forms of representation such as a classic white cube, old warehouses, and disused industrial structures, a lab, a former kiosk, an elegant private home, and a museum-barge. These OFF locations allow for the OFF artists to engage with the site-specific conditions. They create a realm in which the interplay of space and body of work initiate a dialogue about the aesthetic and the political expectation of photography.

This examination of local structures has resulted in exceptionally exciting exhibitions that force us to reflect on the state and significance of art and challenge us ti reconsider our practice and conception of art.

These extraordinary and innovative OFF solo and collective shows document a search for new ways to use the medium of photography. They transform the OFF Triennale into an exciting exploration of contemporary photography in Hamburg.

Alongside the fifteen solo shows, OFF Triennale introduced two OFF collective shows.

The group show “Sightseeing the Real”, curated by Philipp Meuser and Enver Hirsch, examines the discrepancy between the conceptual blueprints of Hamburg city planning and the actual necessities of the city’s inhabitants. On their quest these ten photographers discover unusual perspectives in the seemingly familiar and come across unknown points of view and vivid or long outlived utopian ideas. Works by Andreas Hofgarten, Julia Knoop, Kolja Warnecke, Paula Markert, Peter Bialobrzeski, Philipp Meuser/ Enver Hirsch, Roman Bezjak, Stefan Becker, Henrik Spohler and Jonas Fischer.

“Amanet / Legacy”, curated by Carla Erdmann and Anna Ehrenstein, shows higlights of recent Albanian history, everyday life, society and culture – from communism of bygone days to today’s consumerism. Reportage photography, conceptual work and video installation by Roman Bezjak, Birte Kaufmann, Roland Tasho, Ardian Isufi and Anna Ehrenstein.

OFF COLLECTIVE #1 “Amanet / Legacy. Upheaval in Albania“
OFF COLLECTIVE #2 “Sightseeing the Real“
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