FRANKFURT.- Euphoria on the dance floor, turmoil in the factories, ever-changing landscapes – the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (FFF) will present the first comprehensive exhibition of the work of the German documentary photographer Michael Kerstgens (b. 1960) in "Michael Kerstgens. Out of Control". The exhibition provides a deep insight into his work spanning more than forty years, featuring long-term socio-political photographic essays in black-and-white and colour from Germany, Russia. With great sensitivity, Kerstgens documents the transformation of living environments and sheds light on the connections between culture, people and the economy.


Relive the 1980s: Capture the Era with Michael Kerstgens! Dive into the vibrant and complex world of 1986 Germany with Michael Kerstgens' stunning photography. Click here to purchase "1986 Back to the Present" and experience the seductions of consumer society firsthand.


Born in Wales and raised in Mülheim an der Ruhr, Michael Kerstgens studied Communication Design and Photography at the Folkwang University of the Arts (GHS) in Essen. He returned to Great Britain as a student in 1984–85 to document the miners’ strikes. "What interested me then was not the political significance but rather the social dimension of the strike and the lives of the families involved."

Back in Germany, Kerstgens delved into the steelworkers’ strike in Duisburg-Rheinhausen in the late 1980s and later sought the impact of German colonialism connected to the steel industry on a journey to the Tanzanian port of Kigoma. "1986 – Back to the Present" shows how the photographer uses colour to document aspects of German lifestyle, emphasizing the seductions of the consumer society of the 1980s, themes that continue in his recent photographs of landscapes. In contrast are the black-and-white series ZwischenZeiten showing the Thuringian town of Mühlhausen before German reunification and The Final Winter which explores daily life in Moscow during the final winter of the former USSR. Also on view is Kerstgens’s intensive photographs from Kurdistan made in 1991, after Saddam Hussein’s expulsion of the Kurdish population from Iraq.

The broad spectrum of Michael Kerstgens’s work also includes impressive portraits from the music and art scenes. Among the personalities portrayed by him are Helge Schneider, Joachim Król, Udo Kier and Christoph Schlingensief.

Numerous monographs on Michael Kerstgens have been published, including "Neues Leben. Russen – Juden – Deutsche" (2012, Kehrer Verlag), "The Enemy Within – The Miners’ Strike 1984/1985" (2014, Dewi Lewis Publishing), "The Final Winter" (2018, Peperoni Books) and "1986: Zurück in die Gegenwart – Back to the Present" (2021, Hartmann Books). He has received many awards for his photographic work, including the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences Science Award in the category "Outreach" (2018) and the Imke Folkerts Prize for Fine Arts, East Frisia (2004).

As a freelance photographer, he worked internationally for editorial offices and companies before turning to teaching. After his first teaching positions in East Frisia and Dessau, he has been Professor for Photography at the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences from 2007 to 2025.

Curated by Celina Lunsford in collaboration with Michael Kerstgens, the exhibition Michael Kerstgens. Out of Control presents more than 100 photographs from four decades of work, which convey Michael Kerstgens’s insight into themes of radical change and relevance, bringing sensitivity to the times we live.

The exhibition will be complemented by projections, numerous publications by the photographer and various programming events.



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