Produced on the occasion of the exhibition Peter Hujar, Eyes Open in the Dark at the Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn, 27 February–23 August 2026.

Peter Hujar was a central figure in the downtown scene of 1970s and early 80s New York, but at his death in 1987 from AIDS-related pneumonia his photography was largely unknown to a broader art world. Hujar’s principal concern was with portraiture, whether photographing his friends and denizens of the downtown scene – whom he encountered on the street, shot in his apartment studio, and sought out at performance venues – or turning his attention to animals, architecture and landscapes.

Portrait Mode presents a new essay by artist, photographer, writer, and filmmaker Moyra Davey. In aphoristic texts paired with her own photographs, Davey interweaves accounts of her experiences as a photographer with reflections on canonical practitioners and theorists of the medium. With a particular focus on framing, light, contingency, and temporality, she considers the work of photographers who have challenged conventions of (self-)portraiture and representation, connecting their approaches to contemporary queer and feminist protagonists of the genre.

Paul Outerbridge, Jr. emerged in the 1920s as a bold innovator, transforming ordinary objects, such as milk bottles, collars, eggs, into fractured Cubist constructions of light and form. His platinum and silver gelatin prints reduced subjects to intersecting planes and geometric rhythms, revealing a structural beauty aligned with the avant-garde movements of his time.

*Please note this publication is secondhand and may have some traces of previous ownership.

The Swiss photographer Werner Bischof started his career in studio photography in Zürich and later documented Europe in the aftermath of World War II. He joined the famous photographers group Magnum Photos in 1949 and travelled the world.

Disliking the ‘superficiality and sensationalism of the magazine business, he devoted much of his working life to looking for order and tranquility in traditional culture, something that did not endear him to picture editors looking for hot topical material. Bischof died at the early age of 38 in a car accident in the Andes of Peru.

*Please note this publication is secondhand and may have some traces of previous ownership.

Artistic polymath Herbert Bayer was one of the Bauhaus’s most influential students, teachers, and proponents, advocating the integration of all arts throughout his career.

Most of Bayer’s photographs come from the decade 1928–38, when he was based in Berlin working as a commercial artist. They represent his broad approach to art, including graphic views of architecture and carefully crafted montages.

Dancing Horizon is a comprehensive collection of the photographic work of Icelandic artist Sigurdur Gudmundsson, focusing on a critical period in his development. In the 1970s Gudmundsson made a famous series of conceptual photographs he called Situations, in which the artist is posed with various props–for example, balancing a wooden slat on his head to make visual contact with the horizon in the background, or digging himself into the grass.

Signed by the artist.