with/against the flow. Contemporary Photographic Interventions

Imagine you are a photographer needing to go out into the world to take new pictures. But what does “out” actually mean these days? And how can we tell what “new” pictures are? What value does photography have as an artistic medium in an era in which everything has already been photographed and the world is awash with an incessant stream of networked images? What are the issues that need to be addressed today? And how?

artists:
#1 Viktoria Binschtock
#2 Michael Schäfer
#3 Sebastian Stumpf
#4 Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs

exhibition opening: 6 November 2026 (Friday), 7:00 p.m.
where: Galeria Labirynt, ul. ks. J. Popiełuszki 5, Lublin
exhibition runs until 10 January 2027 (Tue–Sun, noon–7:00 p.m.)
free entry

The exhibition series with/against the flow. Contemporary Photographic Interventions presents artists who live in Germany, have established their own distinct visual idioms, and are now interrogating the medium of photography afresh. The exhibited works address the phenomenon of visual overload both as a tool and as a subject of analysis, exploring new forms of visual reality to critically examine the society of the spectacle. Regardless of what motivates the artists or what interests them in terms of content, in the work they do they intervene in the very substance of the image or in external reality itself. The question remains as to whether this work should still be labelled “documentary” or is, in fact, a form of realism that spills over into fiction.

Galeria Labirynt hosts the two first exhibitions of the exhibition series, each of which focuses on different key areas in terms of content. The series debuted with an exhibition featuring artists Viktoria Binschtok and Michael Schäfer, which has been on an international tour since 2016. Both use and reflect on images from the media, exploring the different ways they operate. They also address the increasing autonomy of images in a networked world that will in future be dominated by digital algorithms. In this, their work can be seen within a tradition of artistic interest in the mass media going back to the 1970s; they also represent a new generation of artists today who are extending the notion of photography and its documentary potential.

Viktoria Binschtok (born 1972) connects the real world of the streets with its representation in digital spheres to show us how images on the internet no longer merely reflect our world, but rather create one of their own. In her work she makes equal use of both her own photographs and images from the internet and other media sources that are increasingly dominated by digital algorithms. The artist exploits the randomness of these new image formats and playfully challenges their potential. With this artistic approach she provides insights into the paradoxes and distortions of this new image order, even though it is an order that follows mathematical and economic principles.

Michael Schäfer (born 1964) reflects on the over-determination of press images from traditional print media as well as the nature of amateur videos. He explores the different ways images operate, their surplus of meaning and significance that literally presents the viewer with a historical and political constellation as a finished and closed interpretation. From such found images, Schäfer removes the faces of the actual protagonists and replaces them with his own photographs of actors. In this process, printer dots or pixels collide with the artist’s hyper-sharp image fragments. Schäfers approach to photography is a form of artistic mimicry, a kind of incorporation of images in order to deconstruct them.

The second exhibition that has been touring since 2019 and includes works by Sebastian Stumpf and Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs unifies two artistic stances that explore urban characteristics that shape our visual everyday life, as well as functional construction materials that are often overlooked. They investigate architectural space as a materialized expression of society, engaging with the existing urban order by highlighting gaps in the city’s structure. Through performative interventions, the artists playfully, and sometimes ironically, comment on contemporary urban life and its visual representation. The artists subversively—and sometimes even acrobatically—test the boundaries of their medium, employing visual tricks and illusions to create suspense and surprise effects.

Sebastian Stumpf (born 1980) establishes a relation between his own body and the urban space, its infrastructure and passers-by. The artist uses closing garage doors and urban types of architecture at the coast of Portugal with the aim to perform his little interventions that he always carries out in person. While balancing between a performance and a recording, the artist breaks down the determined urban order with seemingly absurd movement sequences. Through the repetition of the same movements in different locations visible on his photographs and visual recordings, our perception of urban love for order shifts towards the scope of individualism. He opposes the sheer a matter-of-fact gaze of the camera with his action reframes as an attitude.

With profound observations, optical illusions and subtle constructions, Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs (both born 1979) draw our attention to cultural idiosyncrasies. Their photographs and film installations do not just show real urban ensembles, but use small interventions to reflect on our own ideas and clichés that we project onto them. For the ifa exhibition series, works that were created in Berlin have been selected in which areas to the rear of refurbished streets, places that are undiscovered by tourists and unfrequented by Google Street View cars can be seen. By the use of ordinary roofing beams, pyrotechnics, and optical shifts they dedicate themselves to the reality and myth of the city of Berlin as an eternal wasteland. These pictures also cleverly demystify themselves in certain details, and they thus oscillate between construction and deconstruction.

Head of the Art Department: Dr Ellen Strittmatter
Curators: Florian Ebner and Christin Müller
Production and organisation: Alexander Lisewski
Installation: Frank Marks, Thomas Kaufhold
Project partner: Goethe-Institut
Production: Dorota Swinarska, Goethe-Institut in Warsaw

Exhibition production at Galeria Labirynt:
Director of Galeria Labirynt: Barbara Sawicka
Production: Diana Kołczewska, Gabriela Gawęda
Visual identity: Florentyna Nastaj
Promotion: Alicja Gieleta
Installation: Jarosław Mitura, Adam Oroń, Rafał Garula

An exhibition by ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen www.ifa.de, in cooperation with Goethe Institut and Galeria Labirynt.

ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen e. V. is funded by the German Federal Foreign Office, the state of Baden- Württemberg, and the city of Stuttgart.