The Dream of Myself, the Dream of the World – Set 2 from the Collection of the Fotomuseum Winterthur

Ever since the 1960s, photography has been searching for a “true”, or self-defined, identity, and an analysis of “false”, socially prescribed, identity. “True” identity must be sought and gained, “false” identity must be exposed and overcome. The Dream of Myself grapples with the problems: Who am I? Who defines me? How free am I? How can I find myself? The Dream of the World tackles the plural of these questions and asks about the search for social identity. More often than the individual, it is the group that seeks its path in its limitations. What begins as liberation usually ends in violence.

The aim of Set 2 from the Collection of the Fotomuseum Winterthur is to pursue these questions on the example of our own works. Works by Urs Lüthi, Walter Pfeiffer, Valie Export, Peter Hujar, Mark Morrisroe, Nan Goldin, George Tony Stoll, Ugo Rondinone, Maria Friberg, Daniele Buetti and others evoke a visual murmuring on the Dream of Myself. This weave of questions is rooted in social forces – in pressure, violence, coercion and their counter-forces – in the super-individual, in social interrelations, in pictures by Gilles Peress among others. Play, theatre, seeking, wrestling and fighting are manifested through the human body in both areas.

The exhibition was curated by Thomas Seelig and Urs Stahel.

Main sponsor: UBS AG