"PEOPLE" Leica Gallery Stuttgart

The 5-year anniversary of the Leica Store & Gallery Stuttgart serves as the occasion for the group exhibition entitled "PEOPLE." The exhibition showcases five different perspectives that cover various facets of portraiture: these portraits were predominantly created within the context of serial projects, ranging from close-ups and spontaneous stories of creation to precisely planned image compositions. Reflecting both the photographers' self-perception in their role and the individuals being portrayed, the portraits capture the personalities of the subjects and their interaction with the photographers. Ingrid Hertfelder interviewed actors from the Schauspiel Stuttgart about their fictional places of longing and portrayed them against a green screen for the seamless merging of portrayed reality and AI-generated fiction. Similarly, Claus Rudolph constructs imagery that invites viewers to dream, with his elaborate setups often done on-site and created with minimal retouching – one of his latest compositions features a self-portrait. In his recent series "Nocturne," Alwin Maigler collaborates once again with dancers from the Stuttgart Ballet. The ballet dancers are removed from the stage context and explore the cityscape of Stuttgart, blending motifs from different worlds into something new. Dennis Kupfer captures simple close-up portraits of the VfB Stuttgart "Legends" from the club's history, assembling a football team for the exhibition that never actually played together on the field – a compelling thought experiment. Alex Schwander's series "Colleagues and Friends" features personalities who have previously exhibited at the Leica Gallery Stuttgart and who have a spatial or personal connection to the city.