Couple dynamics in photography

Editor Michèle Bischoff

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Real closeness instead of posed shots: the "Paare / Couples" exhibition at the Fotostiftung Schweiz shows intimate moments that make the depth and diversity of relationships tangible.

Two people kissing intimately at a red traffic light. Men dancing in a bathroom. A woman pastes a picture of her face over a photo of her ex-boyfriend's new partner.

Couples are omnipresent in photography. Thanks to social media, images of couples today are mainly self-staged and posed. The exhibition "Paare / Couples" at the Fotostiftung Schweiz offers a counterpoint to this.

The exhibition shows the diversity of couple dynamics in photography. The couples are not posing, they are photographs that convey the feelings of the people photographed to the viewer. There is deliberately not much context to the photographs in the exhibition. Visitors can only guess at the relationship dynamics from the emotions and feelings conveyed by the photographs.

The exhibition was curated by filmmaker Iwan Schumacher and Peter Pfrunder, Director of the Fotostiftung Schweiz. Iwan has been collecting couple photographs for over ten years. His collection is complemented by that of the Fotostiftung. A truly successful pairing, which is also available in book format.

Exhibition runs until 26 January 2025

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Cover picture: Karlheinz Weinberger, Knabenschiessen, Albisgütli, Zurich, ca. 1960
Pictures in the slider in order from left to right:

Iwan Schumacher, Bourse de Commerce, Paris, 2022
Iwan Schumacher, Coffee Shop, Corsham, England, 1972
Emil Schulthess, Times Square, New York, 1953
Laurence Rasti, Untitled, from the series "There Are No Homosexuals in Iran", Turkey, 2014
Kurt Caviezel, Untitled, from the series "Red Light", Zurich, 2000
Justin Jin, Nai Nai, a 23-year-old live-streamer with her friend, the famous live-streamer Jiang Bo, Wuhan, 2021
Jakob Tuggener, Homecoming after the race, Bern, 1949