Innovative and Poetic

With “World through a Creative Camera – The Life’s Work of a Photographer” the Museum Folkwang of Essen presents works by Peter Keetman. Through 31 July, 2016.

Peter Keetman (1916–2005) was a central figure in German post-war modern photography, and the exhibition “World through a Creative Camera – The Life’s Work of a Photographer” is the largest survey of his work to date. It is also the first to examine how Keetman’s practice managed to link two prevailing trends of this era: on the one hand, a Modernist commitment to form, design, experimentation and abstraction; on the other, a humanist worldview and a turning toward the fundamental elements of post-war reconstruction, urban dwelling and nature.

To mark the 100th anniversary of Peter Keetman’s birth, Museum Folkwang and Stiftung F.C. Gundlach are presenting the first comprehensive retrospective of the eminent photographer’s work. Around 360 exhibits present Keetman not only as a young rebel involved with the influential group fotoform, but also as one of the most innovative and poetic photographers of the post-war era, whose extensive oeuvre combined nature and motion studies, experiments, industrial and applied photography.

This retrospective originates in a close collaboration with the F.C. Gundlach Foundation. After its first stop in Essen, the exhibition will continue on to the Deichtorhallen, Hamburg and the Kunstfoyer in the Versicherungskammer Kulturstiftung, Munich.

Please find more information at Museum Folkwang