Coming up!
+ BunkerGarten
17.05.2025 – 05.07.2025
Stephen Gill
Nobody's Library
For this year's Photoszene Köln Festival the PhotoBookMuseum presents NOBODY’S LIBRARY – the comprehensive and complex photobook oeuvre of the British documentary photographer Stephen Gill. In an experimental setting, THE BOX is transformed into a library: more than forty photobooks by Stephen Gill can be admired, all of which he has published since 2005 in his own ʻNobodyʼ imprint.
In an outdoor exhibition in the BUNKERGARTEN, at the end of Körnerstraße behind the k101-bunker, visitors can immerse more deeply into the ever exciting ‚Gill cosmos‘.
Full programm to follow... please save the date!
Opening:
17.05.2025 as of 14:00
Gardenparty:
in the BunkerGarten as of 19:00
@ THE BOX
Körnerstraße 6–8
Köln - Ehrenfeld
Wednesday to Friday: 16:00–20:00
Saturday and Sunday: 14:00–18:00
and by Appointment
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@ BUNKERGARTEN
Körnerstraße 101
Köln - Ehrenfeld
Wednesday and Thursday: 16:00–20:00
Friday and Saturday: 16:00–22:00
Sunday: 14:00–20:00
supported by:
in cooperation with:
from Magnificient Failure by Stephen Gill (Nobody 2023)
Shortlist Announced!
*The Dummy Award is the international competition for the best unpublished photobook dummies of the year
Announcing the 2025 Dummy Award shortlist
On March 8th the international jury met in Cologne to go through all 395 submitted dummies sent in from 48 countries. In the end, 50 books were selected to make up the shortlist of the Dummy Award ’25.
Congratulations to all the shortlisted artists!
Browse the Shortlist
Watch on Youtube
The 2025 Shortlist Jury: Melanie Mues, Frederic Lezmi Licia Halder, Luis Weinstein, Mathieu Nicol, Ufuk Sahin, Armandine Marchand, Yvonne de Rosa
Meet The Shortlist-Jury
Read the Jury Statement
Kicking-off the World Tour in Sofia!
03.04. – 06.04.2025, Goethe Institute Sofia
We are very happy that this year’s world tour will kick off with a very special dummy award weekend at the Goethe Institute in Sofia, Bulgaria from the 3rd to the 6th of April. This event is initiated and organised by our dear friends from PUK!. The Dummy Award/PhotoBookMuseum team will be present and there will be a special program with a guided tour by Frederic Lezmi and a lecture by Markus Schaden. On this occasion we will announce the winners of the 2024 Dummy Award. Stay tuned!
Have a look at PUK! or the Goethe Institute for the details and follow the event on social media.
www.dummyaward.org
Recommended reading
»Form Follows Me«
Photobook Design and Authorship
The European Society for the History of Photography (ESHPh) has invited Christoph Schaden as a guest editor for another special photobook edition of it's bi-annual magazine PhotoResearcher (No.42). Have a look!
"Form follows me" is the title of the new issue of ESHPh-PhotoResearcher, which PBM has produced in cooperation with the ESHPh. For the first time, the renowned scientific periodical is exploring the function and significance of design in photobooks from the point of view of authorship.
The eight text contributions examine the significance of book design in the context of monographic works from the Second World War to the present day. The analyses focus on internationally active auteur photographers such as Otto Steinert, Dominique Darbois and Eikoh Hosoe. But also on subversive expressions of Chilean photobook culture and the legendary MoMA designer Carl G. Laanes, who was responsible for the design of the legendary "William Eggleston's Guide", and not least on influential contemporary designers and artists such as Ana Druga and Thomas Gust, Hans Gremmen and Dayanita Singh.
Click here for more about PhotoResearcher
Cover from Otto Steinert, Subjektive Fotografie , Bonn 1952. © Museum Folkwang, Essen
Previous Show!
STUDIO COLOGNE
Portraits from Cologne Photo Studios 1861-1928
24 May to 23 June 2024
on Körnerstraße
STUDIO COLOGNE: The Museum goes street!
Through an innovative street-exhibition Körnerstraße in Cologne-Ehrenfeld will be transformed into a walk-in outdoor and indoor exhibition. An 800-metre-long parcours full of discoveries will be created, bringing historical portraits from Cologne's photo studios to new life.
For all! For free! For one month!
more on:
www.studio-cologne.de
Photoatelier BLUM & HÖFFERT, 1908-1918, Hohe Str. 111a
Museum goes Club
Japanese Photobooks from the Collection
A big thank you to the Nachtigall Team and all the many vistors that joined us on that wonderful TOKYO EXPRESS experience.
Click here for the TOKYO EXPRESS program
Photo: Koji Onaka from memories of younger days in Shinjuku, Tokyo 2018
New Release
Photobooks for everyone!
“The Photobook in Art and Society”
Participative Potentials of a Medium
Photography has been undergoing a paradigm shift since the turn of the millennium. The fine art print has been increasingly replaced, making way for the photobook which is experiencing a certain boom. However, it remains to be seen if the medium finds its way out of the ivory tower of the elitist photography scene. Is the photobook capable of establishing a visible literature that is accessible and understandable for everyone?
The PhotoBookMuseum and the Montag Foundation for Art and Society have tackled this question in a collaborative mobile project. Under the motto "World in Transition", the participatory qualities of photo books have been examined on the basis of new communication concepts. In the recent publication, professionals from the fields of science, art practice and culture institutions impressively unveil the social relevance of the medium. The Reader demonstrates how photobooks nowadays, act as a structuring force against the immanent flood of images.
“The Photobook in Art and Society”
Participative Potentials of a Medium
Montag Stiftung Kunst und Gesellschaft (Ed.)
in cooperation with The PhotoBookMuseum
Swiss brochure binding
16,7 x 24 cm
468 pages, 220 col. und b/w images.
English
Jovis Verlag, 2020
ISBN 978-3-86859-594-9; € 42,80
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