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until 25.10. | #4820ARTatBerlin | Galerie Nordenhake is currently presenting the exhibition “die welt und die spiegel” by the artist Timm Rautert.
For five decades, Timm Rautert has shaped the perception of photography, its possibilities and limitations. His Image-Analytical Photography series, begun in 1968 and long considered groundbreaking, is regarded as a radical exploration of the medium’s basic grammar. Early on, Rautert departed from the idea of photography as a purely reality-reproducing practice, instead making visible the performative and staged aspects of representation.
His first solo exhibition at Galerie Nordenhake in Berlin brings together two recent series, a room installation, and several key works from the 1970s.
In Weltraum (2014/15), Rautert makes architectural space the protagonist. His photographs guide us through the FAO headquarters in Rome, a building conceived as a colonial administration, halted during WWII, and completed in the 1950s as the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. By documenting the rooms individually designed by member states, Rautert highlights the building’s layered and contradictory history while also reflecting on strategies of self-representation and on photography’s ability to shape reality.
With Manhattan Mirror (2012), New York becomes a city of reflections. Skyscrapers appear as collaged fragments, humans are present yet never central, acting instead as emblems of urban activity. The result is a critical lens on the alienating dynamics of metropolitan life.
The installation Four Mirrors and a Stone (2024) creates a tension between image and reality. A stone, visible in real mirrors, disappears in its photographic counterparts, echoing Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano: “He would have liked a mirror to ask himself that question. But there was no mirror. Nothing but stone.”
Already in Image-Analytical Photography (1968–74) or Germans in Uniform (1974), Rautert’s photography has been an intellectual practice – questioning the relation between representation and reality, while offering critical insights into history, identity, and our present condition.
Artist Talk & Book Presentation “Weltraum”: Saturday, 20 September 2025, 4:00 pm, Galerie Nordenhake
Opening: Saturday, 6 September 2025, 6:00–9:00 pm
Exhibition dates: Saturday,6 September – Saturday,25 October 2025
Image Caption Tilte: Timm Rautert, die welt und die spiegel, Galerie Nordenhake Berlin, 2025. Copyright the artist. Courtesy: the artist and Galerie Nordenhake Berlin, Stockholm, Mexico City. Foto: Gerhard Kassner.
Exhibition Timm Rautert – Galerie Nordenhake Berlin | Zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin | Contemporary Art | Ausstellungen Berlin Galerien | ART at Berlin
