A collection of contemporary photography

Admittedly, photography accounts for a relatively small proportion of all artwork produced, but is nevertheless a central, pictorial medium of communication around the world, one which opens up rich and exciting works of art. The camera was originally envisioned as a device that would capture and preserve reality for eternity. Photographers quickly began to use the medium as a subjective means of expression, moving away from pure documentation. The liberation of photography from its classical application began in the mid 20th century with its emergent mediatization, which paved the way towards artistic expression. The breakthrough came in the 1980s and 90s, as the acceptance of the medium as a legitimate means of artistic expression increased and free photography began to appear in art museums and was sold on the art market.

Today, artists use techniques from across the near 200-year history of photography, from analog, large-format cameras to smartphones, screenshots, and moving images. Likewise, the newest technological means of visualization from computer sciences and information design, such as virtual reality or computer generated imagery, are also a part of the artistic practice of photography. Through a variety of methods, pictorial worlds are created using various visualization and viewing techniques, in order to obtain new perspectives on the present. Artists take the time to see, to research, to think, and to question. The end result is a visual work, which offers us an attractive invitation: to consider the artist’s perspective, to be amazed, to discover new things, and to see differently.

The new Vontobel Art Collection gathers works from international artists created from the year 2000 onwards. The focus of the content is on the presentation of humanity and our actions in the present: what faces does the contemporary person wear? What does society look like? What conventions are in place for representing people? How has the image of the person changed in the last 20 years? What influence does globalization have on the images of people? And from another perspective: what do these people produce and how? What actions do they take and how do these actions influence our world, our planet? How do new technologies and accomplishments change the visual world retrospectively? With the decisive, but open question: where does humanity end?

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