People embrace at a festival, a woman unloads her Mercedes next to a demolished house, families push prams through an artificial leisure world. Something is happening everywhere – and more often than not, several things are happening at once.

For more than four decades, Wolfgang Zurborn has been looking at places where people come together. Not necessarily at the main event itself, but preferably at what happens beside it, behind it and right in the middle of it. His new photobook, Crowds, published by Kehrer Verlag, takes us through more than 40 years of public life – part social study, part journey through time, and at the same time a highly entertaining visual puzzle book for adults.

Zurborn’s settings range from political, sporting and religious events to fairs, tourist attractions, amusement parks and other places of collective entertainment. But anyone looking for the decisive moment may well be looking in the wrong place.

Because it is precisely the incidental details that make these photographs so compelling: a gesture, a glance, a peculiar piece of clothing, an advertising billboard in the background, or two people who, for a fraction of a second, form an involuntary choreography. Foreground and background are constantly competing for attention. The eye jumps around the images, discovering stories on the second or third viewing that seemed not to be there at first glance.

Wolfgang Zurborn is interested neither in the anonymous “crowd” nor in the completely isolated individual. Instead, his photographs reveal how people react to one another, to their surroundings, and to the images and messages they are constantly confronted with. Advertising, architecture, fashion, cars, media and bodies collide in a visual jumble that, remarkably, keeps finding an order of its own.

Ironically, the starting point for Crowds came at a time when gatherings of people had suddenly disappeared. During the Covid pandemic, Zurborn began revisiting his archive and digitising hundreds of analogue colour negatives. Images from the 1980s encountered more recent work – creating unexpected connections across the decades. That is also what makes the book particularly fascinating today. Fashion and hairstyles change, cars disappear, advertising messages grow old and leisure worlds acquire new backdrops. Human behaviour, on the other hand, can seem surprisingly familiar.

Across 272 pages, Crowds brings together 131 colour photographs spanning more than four decades. The book was designed by Wolfgang Zurborn together with Kehrer Design, while an interview between Alasdair Foster and Wolfgang Zurborn complements the photographic journey. And perhaps that is the greatest pleasure of Crowds: at first you look at the crowd – and eventually find yourself captivated by a single person.

Wolfgang Zurborn – Crowds
Interview: Alasdair Foster with Wolfgang Zurborn
Design: Wolfgang Zurborn & Kehrer Design
Softcover with open binding
19.8 × 28 cm, 272 pages, 131 colour illustrations
German / English, ISBN 978-3-96900-259-9, €58

Wolfgang Zurborn, born in 1956, studied at the Bayerische Staatslehranstalt für Fotografie in Munich and at Dortmund University of Applied Sciences. In 1985, he received the Otto Steinert Scholarship from the German Photographic Society. Together with Tina Schelhorn, he has run Galerie Lichtblick in Cologne since 1986; in 2010, he founded the Lichtblick School. His work has been exhibited internationally, and he has taught photography in Germany and abroad.

 
07.10.2026 show complete article

Water as inspiration, a place of longing and an elemental force: with “High Tide”, Musea Brugge brings fashion and contemporary art into a multifaceted dialogue at the new BRUSK from 30 October 2026 to 14 March 2027. Conceived by renowned fashion curator Karen Van Godtsenhoven, the exhibition marks the first time that fashion and contemporary art have been presented together on this scale in Bruges.

The sea connects and divides, fascinates and threatens at the same time. “High Tide” explores this ambivalence, spanning everything from sun-drenched beaches, sea creatures and mythological figures to storms, pollution, migration and rising sea levels. Fashion, visual art, video, sound and immersive installations examine our emotional and social relationship with water – and the role the oceans may play in shaping our future.

Featured positions from the worlds of fashion and art include Versace, Iris Van Herpen, Bill Viola and Dries Van Noten. The exhibition brings established names into dialogue with a younger generation of creatives, addressing themes such as transformation, rebirth, threat, migration and feminist perspectives.

The setting could hardly be more fitting: for centuries, Bruges has been closely connected to the tides of the North Sea. At the same time, “High Tide” forms part of the first major exhibition year at BRUSK, Musea Brugge’s new art venue, which officially opened on 8 May 2026. Its inaugural programme included the first Belgian solo exhibition by media artist Refik Anadol. BRUSK aims to bring historical and contemporary art together, connect international artistic positions with the history of Bruges, and create encounters across different disciplines.

And BRUSK is intended to be much more than a new exhibition venue. In 2027, it will become one of the locations for Triënnale Brugge 2027 – “After Birth: Structures of Togetherness.” From March 2027 onwards, BRUSK will also provide a temporary home for major works from the renowned Groeninge Collection during the multi-year renovation of the Groeningemuseum. From the outset, the venue positions itself at the intersection of historical heritage, contemporary art and experimental exhibition formats.

High Tide – the exhibition book by Hannibal Books
Accompanying the exhibition, Hannibal Books will publish “High Tide” on 30 October 2026, edited by Karen Van Godtsenhoven and Michel Dewilde. Across 224 pages, the publication delves deeper into the poetic and transformative power of water in art and fashion.

'HIGH TIDE – Of Humanity and the Sea, Through Fashion and Art' 
30 October 2026 – 14 March 2027
BRUSK, Bruges, Belgium

 
01.10.2026 show complete article

Paper is an everyday material, almost taken for granted – and at the same time one of the oldest carriers of our memories, thoughts and stories. In Papyrus, Jessica Backhaus makes this very material the starting point for a photographic body of work that is as reduced as it is sensual. Following Cut Outs (2021) and Plein Soleil (2024), the new book completes her trilogy on abstraction – and marks her tenth publication with Kehrer Verlag.

At a time when images increasingly exist on screens and paper is slowly disappearing from our everyday lives, Jessica Backhaus turns her attention to its immediate qualities: surface, colour, fragility, light and shadow. Using the simplest of means, she creates compositions whose very reduction gives them a remarkable presence.

The title Papyrus draws a beautiful line between past and present. In antiquity, this fragile material was entrusted with thoughts, poetry and knowledge. Backhaus translates this idea into her own contemporary visual language: colour becomes vocabulary, paper becomes a stage, and natural sunlight a creative collaborator.

“For this series, I worked with different coloured papers and natural sunlight as the main elements. These materials are humble, fleeting and direct,” Jessica says of her process. She understands colour as a form of writing – a way of marking space, time and emotion without the need for a literal narrative.

And this is precisely where the particular quality of Papyrus lies. Backhaus’ abstraction does not move away from reality; rather, it sharpens our perception of things we might otherwise overlook. A line, the edge of a sheet of paper, the meeting of two colours or a shadow is enough to create a mood. The images prescribe very little – and in doing so leave plenty of room for personal perception and association.

As a book, the series gains another dimension. Paper is reproduced on paper, photography encounters materiality – and, fittingly, the printed book becomes the ideal place for a body of work devoted to the sensual qualities of the analogue.

The fact that Papyrus is already Jessica Backhaus’ tenth publication with Kehrer Verlag also speaks of an exceptionally enduring collaboration between photographer and publisher. Across many years and different phases of her work, the books have accompanied the evolution of her photographic practice – with Papyrus now providing a beautifully consistent and poetic conclusion to this latest trilogy.

Jessica Backhaus lives and works in Berlin and is one of the internationally established voices in contemporary German photography. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is held in numerous public and private collections.

Jessica Backhaus – Papyrus / Exhibitions 2026–27

An exhibition at Leica Galerie Frankfurt opens in October 2026 and runs through February 2027. At Paris Photo, Robert Morat Galerie will present works by Jessica Backhaus from 11–15 November 2026, followed by Art Week Luxembourg with Galerie Anja Knoess from 19–22 November. In January 2027, Backhaus will be represented by Robert Morat Galerie at House of Galleries in Frankfurt, followed by a solo show at Robert Morat Galerie in Berlin in spring 2027.

 
16.09.2026 show complete article