In 2022, Condé Nast Publishing published on the cover of Vogue: Olena Selenska, First Lady of Ukraine: A Portrait of Courage. After the images were published, the image content and context were critically questioned on social media: Is it permissible for a U.S. photographer to travel to Ukraine just to take pictures of this kind for a Western medium? A discussion began about images that are created during a war and have different functions internally and externally.

“It seems macabre and unhelpful at first to attach functionalities of the journalistic photograph to disasters of all things, but it is often the traumatic events and their omnipresent images that expose these structures in the first place.” Florian Ebner, Centre Pompidou, 2010

In three chapters, Crossing Lines examines the distribution, circulation, and mechanisms of photografical images. Which images are conveyed to a society through news channels or social media? Who today guarantees and vouches for the authenticity of images that land on our smartphones in real time? Which image worlds are generated to make statements? When does image content become propaganda for one’s own political statements?

The exhibition presents more than 150 photographs and video installations by twenty international artists.