To mark its 20th anniversary, Galerie Priska Pasquer will be holding a major exhibition showcasing works by some 35 artists ranging from early 20th-century avant-garde to the present day and giving an overview of the gallery’s work from its earliest years to the present day.

“Our duty is to experiment!” This was the rallying cry with which Alexander Rodchenko revolutionised photography in 1924. One hundred years later, it is more relevant than ever: never has it been so necessary for us to change our way of thinking as it is today.

In its anniversary event, Priska Pasquer will be showcasing one of the Russian constructivist’s rarest photograms. Rodchenko’s masterpiece Photogram (Stars) from 1938 is the symbolic centrepiece of the exhibition, which not only serves as a retrospective of the gallery’s work to date but also presents forward-looking pieces.

With works from the 1920s/30s and 1960s/70s, Priska Pasquer concentrated at an early stage on art created in times of social change, a direction that continues to inform her gallery work to this day. In her exhibitions, she explores the far-reaching changes of the digital shift and the current debates regarding diversity and equality.

As well as photography by the Bauhaus and Russian avant-garde movements and by leading names such as El Lissitzky, Alexander Rodchenko and August Sander, Priska Pasquer was the first gallery in Germany to feature Japanese photography. Here, the focus was not solely on leading names such as Daido Moriyama, Yutaka Takanashi or Shomei Tomatsu – these were soon joined by important female artists like Rinko Kawauchi, Asako Narahashi and Lieko Shiga.

Priska Pasquer’s most recent exhibitions reflect the current upheaval by including the entire spectrum of contemporary art media, including painting, virtual and augmented reality, sculpture and photography, performance and installation, audio and video works.

In addition to individual and dialogue exhibitions by regularly featured artists such as Ulrike Rosenbach, Pieter Hugo, Johanna Reich, Radenko Milak, Rudolf Bonvie, Warren Neidich, Hanno Otten, Leiko Ikemura, Elena Bajo and Jane Benson, the gallery’s work focuses in particular on themed group exhibitions, which also integrate new positions.

The gallery has a long tradition of supplementing its exhibition programme with readings, Future Talks and performances covering a wide range of themes. It has also made a digital programme available to the general public since as far back as 2013. With webshop, Instagram Talks and 3-D tours, this use of contemporary media not only proved its worth in the current pandemic situation but also points to the possibilities and perspectives for future gallery work.

With her programme, Priska Pasquer took part in fairs such as Art Cologne, Art Paris Art Fair, Paris Photo, Art Basel, AIPAD New York, ALAC Los Angeles and Art Düsseldorf as well as procuring works for leading museums like the Getty Museum (Los Angeles), MoMA (New York), Tate Modern (London), Centre Pompidou (Paris) and Museum Folkwang (Essen). She has also contributed to numerous museum exhibitions, including the Centre Pompidou (Paris), Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson (Paris), FOAM (Amsterdam) and for the Multimedia Art Museum (Moscow).