During preproduction for feature films, location scouts are dispatched to find settings suitable for specific scenes. In the finished film, however, we focus less on these scenic spaces than on the actors, their roles, and the overall narrative. In photography, we likewise rarely perceive a room as a visual motif in itself – unless the photographer consciously asserts the space as the primary subject. Following the major 2019 exhibition Body Performance at the Helmut Newton Foundation, the thematic sequel Rooms / Stages now shifts our attention deliberately from the performative act to the space itself.
The artists in this group exhibition include Helmut Newton, Viktoria Binschtok, Götz Diergarten, Anna Lehmann-Brauns, Jana Sophia Nolle, Julia Peirone, Robert Polidori, Friederike von Rauch, Ricarda Roggan, Georges Rousse, Gregor Schneider, Karen Stuke, and Paolo Ventura. They consciously incorporate the space into their staged portraits, use long exposures to let people or dancers disappear, or focus on deserted interiors. These empty spaces range from artists’ own studio, with shifting furniture, to museums in Versailles or Dresden, where we inevitably envision specific scenarios. Beyond framed photographs, sections of the exhibition space are accentuated by wall-sized photographic murals. The presentation includes elaborate spatial interventions created solely for a single photograph, inhospitable yet perfectly designed subway tunnels in Berlin and London, as well as images from dance and theater.
Newton Foundation, Berlin
June 5 – November 15, 2026
