Young People – Set 9 from the Collection of the Fotomuseum Winterthur

Growing up is a time of self-searching. Who am I and who do I want to be? It is a time of trying to ground oneself in the world and build a relationship with one’s own persona. Each individual must personally undergo the experience of transition from a protected childhood into a social system of relationships and responsibility, finding one’s role in group dynamics, identifying, and testing possibilities and boundaries. Artistic photography has repeatedly examined this phase of life, from at least two different perspectives. One is the viewpoint of actual experience – a young adult who shares the lives of the protagonists with whom he or she is involved. Then there is the adult perspective on the phenomena of youth, which takes a different form of expression due to a certain distance and life experience. Images of youth also represent a confrontation with one’s own story, with personal successes and defeats, whether as present experiences or reflections on the past. Moments of transgression, of protest, and experiences with drugs and alcohol are reactions that can be as little ignored as the (sometimes) relentless quest for sexual encounters, or the ongoing search for established models of living, and for possible approaches to the future.

With works by Nobuyoshi Araki, David Armstrong, Nathan Beck, Sabrina Biro, Beni Bischof, Daniele Buetti, Larry Clark, JH Engström, Michel François, Ilse Frech, Julian Germain, Nan Goldin, Paul Graham, Roland Iselin, Ari Marcopoulos, Pietro Mattioli, Boris Mikhailov, Anne Morgenstern, Daid? Moriyama, Taiyo Onorato/Nico Krebs, Suzanne Opton, Helena Påls, Walter Pfeiffer, Pipilotti Rist, Maya Rochat, Viviane Sassen, Rico Scagliola/Michael Meier, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Alec Soth, and Tobias Zielony.

The exhibition was curated by Thomas Seelig.