Seeing is essential in the encounter with photography: showing, looking at and being looked at determine the experience of every photographic work. In a large-scale joint exhibition, the Ann and Jürgen Wilde Foundation and the Photography and Time-based Media Collection of the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen in Munich are presenting for the first time an overview of their outstanding holdings of artistic photography from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day. Based on New Objectivity and conceptual-documentary positions, themes such as portrait, the world of objects, detail, landscape and environment, body and identity, street and society are examined in dialogical encounters. They make it possible to experience the medium as an art form that decisively shapes our perception and current discourses.

The accompanying catalog provides an overview of the holdings and the history of the two collections. It also serves as a handbook on modern and contemporary photography at the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen.