Stuke, Sieber, Takano:
Towards the City

“Los Angeles, it is said, is the most photographed city in the world — but it’s one of the least photogenic. It’s not Paris or New York.”

This is how the voice-over begins in Thom Andersen’s film Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003). The city appears as a site of projection: Hollywood’s stage, the universal metropolis that on screen can pass for Texas, Switzerland, China, or ancient Rome. Andersen assembles sequences from a wide range of films — from Nobody Lives Forever (1946) through Blade Runner (1982) to The Million Dollar Hotel (2000) — while the narration continues: “Of course I know movies are not about places — they’re about stories. If we notice the location, we’re not really watching the movie.”

How does the built environment steer the photographic gaze — and how does photography shape the image of the city?

With the exhibition Towards the City by Katja Stuke, Oliver Sieber, and Ryudai Takano, the photographic image of urban space takes center stage. Works from Paris and Tokyo are on view.

In cooperation with Filmwerkstatt Düsseldorf, a screening of Los Angeles Plays Itself on Thursday, October 9, 2025, opens the program.

THU, October 9, 8 pm
Introduction: Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber
Venue: Filmwerkstatt, Birkenstraße 47
www.filmwerkstatt-duesseldorf.de

Opening

At the opening on Saturday, October 11, 2025, Pascal Beausse (CNAP Paris) will offer welcoming remarks.

SAT, October 11, 4–8 pm
Opening remarks: Pascal Beausse (CNAP Paris) at 4:30 pm
Venue: Projektbüro DFI e. V., Eiskellerberg 1–3

Conversation »City in Film«

On Saturday, October 18, 2025, at 11:00 am, the conversation “City in Film” will bring together Christoph Hochhäusler (director, Berlin) and Matthieu Orléan (curator, Cinémathèque Française) to discuss the city, cinema, and image production — and how their interplay shapes the image of the city.

with Matthieu Orléan and Christoph Hochhäusler
SAT, October 18, 11 am
Venue: DFI e. V. Project Office, Eiskellerberg 1–3

Katja Stuke (b. 1968) and Oliver Sieber (b. 1966) have collaborated for many years on projects at the intersection of photography and social questions. Le Monde de Demain (2023) was produced within the national photographic commission Regards du Grand Paris (Ateliers Médicis/CNAP). The project traces nine urban walks covering 84 kilometers in the Paris banlieues. In the exhibition, it appears as a multimedia installation of photographs, a nine-monitor video installation, and an original soundtrack composed specifically for the project by DJ Sundae (Paris). The series shows how migration, hip-hop culture, and the Olympic Games shape the urban fabric. It is complemented by nine artists’ books in which material from the walks is arranged as sequences. Stuke and Sieber live and work in Düsseldorf; their practice spans artistic, photographic, curatorial, and publishing work. Since 2005, they have worked regularly abroad, including residencies in Osaka, Tokyo, the Cité internationale des arts (Paris), Chicago, Rotterdam, Chongqing, Sarajevo, and Toronto.

krautphotographer.org
move-freeze.boehmkobayashi.de/about

By invitation of Stuke and Sieber, Tokyo-based photographer Ryudai Takano (b. 1963) takes part in the exhibition. For nearly three decades he has been working on the series kasubaba — an ongoing collection of observations of the urban realm — from which 48 photographs are on view. His images gather façades, traffic, overhead wires, crosswalks, billboards, neon signs, and passing pedestrians into precise visual structures. In 2005, Takano received the Kimura Ihei Award, Japan’s most prestigious prize for artistic photography.

ycassociates.co.jp

In cooperation with Filmwerkstatt Düsseldorf.

With the kind support of the Cultural Office of the City of Düsseldorf