The exhibition 'Bling Bling Baby’ will present the new, colourful world of photography. From Glam Fashion to nature poems, from the ironic representation to pop portraits – the past few years have seen the emergence of a fascinating canon of images which celebrate the artificial and do not shy away from kitsch. The international group exhibition that includes stars such as David LaChapelle and Pierre et Gilles will be on show at the NRW-Forum Düsseldorf from the 19th of November 2016 until the 15th of January 2017.
Be it roaring stags, alpenglow lights or sunsets – exaggeration has remained a popular form of artistic expression ever since the Romantic period. The glorification of the trivial and of sentimental exuberance has led to a particular visual vocabulary within photography. Guy Bourdin was the first to use dazzling colours and bizarre settings for his fashion shoots. David LaChapelle, Miles Aldridge and Pierre et Gilles successfully continued this flirt with pop. Subsequently we can identify a younger generation of artists who are employing their fantasy and the power of colours to explore the limits of this medium: the Dutch Ruud van Empel who places ideal figures in front of heavenly backgrounds, the Moroccan Hassan Hajjaj who supplements pattern-mix hipster portraits with found objects á la Warhol, the English Jason McGlade, who arranges humans, flowers and animals on a glass scanner, the duo Christto & Andrew from Doha who design entire wall worlds with their bizarre motifs – or the Swedish couple Inka & Niclas whose kitschy rock art also includes the frame.
The exhibition project “Bling Bling Baby” is curated by Nadine Barth and combines the most interesting new approaches from the field of photography, it introduces new and familiar names and carries us off to a sweet, surreal, glittering and incredibly fresh cosmos.

More information at: www.nrw-forum.de