When Annette Kicken's late husband, Rudolf, founded a photo gallery in Aachen, West Germany, in 1974, appreciation of photography as an art form was rare. Major German photographic museums were years away from opening. In the UK, the National Portrait Gallery had only just appointed its first curator of photography. In the US, the Metropolitan Museum of Art would not establish a department of photographs until 1992.
"It was a very, very small scene," says Kicken, who joined the gallery in 1999. "There were few institutional exhibitions. There was no market."
Kicken Gallery, which moved from Aachen to Cologne in 1979, and to Berlin in 1999, set out to preserve photography. Quick to participate in fairs such as Art Basel and proactive in its cooperation with museums, the gallery helped to build recognition for the photography of surrealism, Czech modernism and the Bauhaus, as well as American new colour photography and artistic documentary movements in both East and West Germany.
The current 50 Years | 50 Photographs at Kicken Berlin reflects on the gallery's legacy, and the gradual acceptance of photography as a means of artistic expression. The exhibition is curated by Wilhelm Schürmann, a photographer and cofounder of the gallery.
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