Faraway Focus: Photographers go Travelling (1880 - 2015)

Travelling has been a major theme in photography for over a hundred years. As a genre, travel photography emerged around the same time as mass tourism in the late 19th century, when it reinforced expectations of foreign parts as somehow exotic. Only since the 1920s has travel inspired photographers to respond artistically to cultural, political and social conditions in other countries. These pictures might be spontaneous reactions to the unknown or else prompted by a preconceived plan. The exhibition presents over 180 works by 17 photographers and reflects the history of 20th-century art photography. The different approaches illustrate changes in visual idiom and perceptions from early travel photography down to our globalised world.