Art Matter Festival: Tour of the photography exhibition The Camera and Us

On the occasion of the Art Matter Festival, which from 23 May to 1 June brings together artists and art institutions, you can join a special tour of the exhibition The Camera and Us with the curators Mette Kia Krabbe Meyer and Charlotte Præstegaard Schwartz.

The Camera and Us is Denmark's first permanent exhibition on the history of photography with humans as the motif and presents a selection of works from the Royal Danish Library's photo collections, which contain many millions of images. The theme is humans as a motif, and the exhibition asks what photography does to our perception of ourselves and our ideas about each other.

The Daguerreotypists, as history's first photographers were called, fascinated the world with the new invention in 1839. Never before had anyone seen themselves reproduced in such detail and so quickly. The well-liked images were perceived as pure magic, and suddenly the art of portraiture was no longer reserved for society's elite. Photographs of people spread throughout the world, and today they are everywhere.

For almost 200 years, the medium has become our most important means of communication and remembrance, while at the same time it has developed as a special art form. In The Camera and Us, the story is told based on different forms of photography, which all have in common that they characterise today's visual culture. From the first precious portraits created on silver-coated metal plates to the image stream of the digital age running through public and private life.

Read more about the exhibition