Passants parmi les pierres

The exhibition Passants parmi les pierres, curated by the internationally renowned artist Thomas Demand, revolves around images that do not simply depict, but simultaneously produce the reality to which they refer: perception as construction, memory as montage, the image as a form of history. In this movement, the work itself becomes a space of thought—not as a representation, but as an arrangement of visibility.

The exhibition brings together 27 positions from photography, film, and sculpture. All of them move between reportage and reconstruction, between the observed moment and the staged image, between a historical event and its representation. The works selected for the exhibition share aspects of image composition and spatial arrangement, and in many cases also the seemingly incidental, almost unnoticed presence of the camera. Figures often appear in front of architecture, frequently turned away from the camera. They suggest a relationship to the surrounding spaces which, upon closer inspection, proves to be more a supposition than a confirmed connection.

Captions written by the author Clemens J. Setz form an independent textual layer within the space. They do not explain the exhibited works, but accompany them with openly subjective commentary—as association, memory, observation, or short narrative. In doing so, they invite viewers to develop their own interpretations rather than asserting an allegedly objective set of facts.