current exhibition
staubfrei - analogue Photography
29 March - 20 July 2025
Steffen Diemer
Frank Göldner
Markus Kaesler
Inessa Siebert
Daniel Stier

Inessa Siebert, timeless I, 2025, Photogramm on Barytpaper, 18 x 13 cm
The exhibition ‘staubfrei – analoge Fotografie’ unites five analogue photography positions from the Ludwigshafen-Mannheim-Heidelberg region who each pursue very different approaches and techniques – from cameraless photography through historical methods to colour photography. It is also about querying visual habits and handed-down prejudices when the subject is ‘photography’. With this, ‘staubfrei’ features in the series of exhibitions at PORT25 which is devoted to the different genres and the dissolution of their boundaries in contemporary art.
Steffen Diemer has dedicated himself to wet-plate collodion photography, in which every shot is a unique piece: the glass plate bearing the motif is the negative, which only first becomes visible as a positive through a dark background. With Diemer, everyday things – like flowers or chocolate whips – appear oddly familiar and at the same time nostalgically other-worldly.
‘timeless’ is the name of a series by Inessa Siebert, in which the motifs shine out of the deepest darkness like highlights. In ‘still leben’ Siebert alludes to the Baroque theme of Vanitas; simultaneously, she exhibits moments frozen, in a sense, in the course of time. Her photograms on old baryte papers sweep away viewers into inscrutably poetic image spaces.
From black-and-white poetry to garishly coloured sham, Daniel Stier catapults us into the consumer world of cheap mass products. The works in the series ‘any two for five’ represent our economic system focused on maximising profits. Stier applies the aesthetic of advertising photography with subversive humour in his artistic work and thus carries the at once fictitious and manifest boundary between commercial and artistic photography to absurdity.
‘dust to dust’ is an installation in which Frank Göldner queries the documentary purpose of photography in a manner which is equally autobiographically motivated and universally readable. He sanded off the shots from sixteen years – one for each year – and collected the paper dust. The question is posed of what remains and how archivable pictorialised memories actually are.
Conversely, Markus Kaesler asks to what extent unerasable traces manifest themselves where, in course the of time, events become historical facts of past eras. Kaesler pursues the basics of photography by making light, motion, time and space visible.

EVENTS
EVENTS
Sunday, 30 March 2025 | 5 pm
europa_morgenland_reading with Artur Weigandt
Admission: 8 / 5 € / free with Kulturpass
Thursday, 03 April 2025 | 8 pm
Concert: Preface to Preface
Patrick Stadler, Saxophon & Luís Antunes Pena, Klangregie
Admission: 10 / 5 € / free with Kulturpass
Sunday, 06 April 2025 | 5 pm
reading & talk: Helmut Orpel liest aus „Die Kinder der Via Gluck. Roman über die Wechselfälle des Lebens“ (2024), then talk with
Prof. Dr. Henry Keazor
Admission: Pay What You Want
Thursday, 10 April 2025 | 7 pm
BBK Werkgespräch #13 with Andrea Tewes and Rainer Zerback
Thursday, 08 May 2025 | 7 pm
"Sprechen wir über... "
2001, collage, 90 x 75 cm
Admission free
Thursday, 25 September 2025 | 7 pm
"Sprechen wir über... "
Ute Petry, "Ateliertisch mit Staffelei", 1986, mixed media on canvas, 100 x 100 cm
Admission free
Thursday, 06 November 2025 | 7 pm
"Sprechen wir über... "
Peter Schnatz, "Erinnerungen an Lanzarote", 1982, acrylic on canvas, 110 x 130 cm
Admission free
Dates OFF // FOTO
Donnerstag, 15. Mai 2024 | 19 Uhr
Talk with Sonja Maria Kaas
admission free
Saturday, 24. Mai 2025 | 11 am - 4 pm
Cameras, photo books and more: flea market at PORT25 – Raum für Gegenwartskunst
Saturday, 31. May 2025 | 11 am - 4:30 pm
Workshop: Camera Obscura, with Cordula Hilgert
incl. material: 35 € per person
with Kulturpass free
max. 6 Participant
Saturday, 28. June 2025 | 11 am - 3:30 pm
Workshop: Lumenprints, with Cordula Hilgert
incl. material: 30 € per person
with Kulturpass free
max. 6 Participant
OPENINGS
Friday, 28 March 2025 | 7 p.m.
STAUBFREI - ANALOG PHOTOGRAPHY
Friday, 25 April 2025 | 7 p.m.
Sonja Maria Kaas - reality bites
GUIDED TOURS & TALKS (admission free)
Sunday, 04. May 2025 | 3 pm
Talk with Daniel Stier (plus coffee & cake)
Thursday, 22 May 2025 | 6 pm
guided tour in Turkish Melek Kilic
Saturday, 21. June 2025 | 3 pm
Talk with Markus Kaesler (plus coffee & cake)
Sunday, 29 June 2025 | 3 pm
guided tour in Russian with Anna Sieber
Saturday, 19 June 2025 | 3 pm
Talk with Steffen Diemer and Inessa Siebert (plus coffee & cake)