In the organizer's words:
How do images make social and political realities tangible? What knowledge do they convey? And how are they themselves involved in the production of reality? The exhibition It's not about nothing presents cinematic and photographic works that use documentary means to question the visible. They take us to different places: a Nazi fortress in the south of France or a tomato plantation in Apulia, a prefabricated housing estate in Halle or the interior of the Statue of Liberty in New York, a publishing house in Sarajevo or a square in Bratislava. They tell of war and exile, of traces of history in the present, of systems of order and media events, of struggles for visibility and of moments of powerlessness and solidarity. In their works, the artists combine their own footage, archive and media images and quotes from film history to create multi-layered narratives.
In two episodes, the exhibition shows works from the GfZK collection, invited artistic positions and diploma presentations. Between July and October, the examination of the documentary will be expanded to include works that deal with image archives, among other things. The exhibition title It's not about nothing is borrowed from a collage by Maya Schweizer. In it, she treats words in a similar way to images, cutting them up and pasting them over and placing them in different contexts. Inspired by cinematic strategies, the exhibition itself becomes a form of montage. References are created between the individual works, but also breaks and empty spaces that offer visitors room for associations.
May 22, 2026
until June 27, 2027
GfZK old building & GfZK new building
Opening Episode 1:
Thursday, May 21, 7 pm
Opening Episode 2:
Friday, July 3, 5 p.m.
Episode 1
With works by Azra Akšamija, Éric Baudelaire, Margret Hoppe, Sharon Lockhart, Christian Nyampeta, Marcel Odenbach, Artūras Raila, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Michael Scheffer, Maya Schweizer, Shirana Shahbazi, Andrzej Steinbach and Anna Witt from the GfZK collection as well as loans from Clemens von Wedemeyer
Episode 2
With works by Maryam Jafri and Pınar Öğrenci as well as diploma presentations by Pooya Sedighi Mournani and Merlin Rainer
Curated by
Franciska Zólyom with Sabine Weier and Hanar Hupka
Graphic design
Arne Winter with Tina Kaden
Episode 1
22.5.26-27.6.27
GfZK Old Building
Episode 2
4.7.-18.10.26
GfZK new building
Price information:
One-way ticket: 7€ / 5€ Combined ticket: 10€ / 6€ Free admission on Wednesdays
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