Article:

Ästhetik des Elends. Thesen zu sozialengagierter Fotografie und dem Begriff des Mitleids

Photographies are said to be powerful even in an over-visualized world. Especially pictures made in the tradition of documentary photography are believed to change the world. At the same time critics and recipients often claim concerned photography romanticizes the suffering of others. Still, photography, picturing diseases, famine and the results of war become a part of contemporary art, to be shown in museums and galleries, and also to be merchandised in the international art market. Keywords in the discussion about contemporary documentary photography are compassion, humanism, ethics and aesthetics. However, the theoretical approaches toward contemporary documentary photography are still missing definitions of the afore mentioned key terms.