PHOTOGRAPHY

Ralph Gibson in Cologne: A Master of Surrealist Photography Presents His Life’s Work

June 2025

Courtesy of Taschen

On 28 June 2025, Cologne will welcome an extraordinary guest: Ralph Gibson, one of the most influential photographers of our time, will visit the TASCHEN Store in the heart of the city to sign his new book, Photographs 1960–2024. The event, commencing at 12 noon at the TASCHEN Store in the Neumarkt-Passage (Neumarkt 3, 50667 Cologne), offers a rare opportunity to meet the American artist in person and to explore his work at the accompanying vernissage. The book, published by TASCHEN, spans six decades of his photography.

Ralph Gibson’s career, born in Los Angeles in 1939, began in the 1950s when he discovered photography during his service in the United States Navy. Following his military service, he moved to San Francisco, where he worked as an assistant to the legendary documentary photographer Dorothea Lange. Her humanistic visual language would later shape his work. Subsequently, in New York, he assisted Robert Frank. By 1967, he had established his own photographic studio in New York, where he swiftly gained recognition and was hailed by critics alongside artists such as Larry Clark and even Diane Arbus as one of the central voices of American photography.

Gibson’s work is distinguished by a singular aesthetic, predominantly in black and white, where genres such as nudes, portraits, and still lifes intertwine. With his Leica, he created series such as The Somnambulist (1970), Déjà-Vu (1973), Days at Sea (1974), and Chiaroscuro (1982). His works bear poetic titles that underscore Gibson’s philosophical approach to photography. His focus on details – shadows, a fragment of a hand, a seemingly trivial object – transforms the mundane into something profound. “A spectacular journey through a visual world brimming with enigmatic details,” writes Vogue of the collection Photographs 1960–2024, now published by TASCHEN.

In his images and the accompanying texts in the new book, Gibson shares his reflections on the philosophy behind his series, which often oscillate between reality and abstraction. His works are represented in the world’s foremost collections, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Over the years, Gibson has received numerous accolades: he was awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, received the Leica Medal of Excellence in 1986, and was appointed Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 2008. As the founder of the publishing house Lustrum Press, he contributed in the 1970s to promoting the works of photographers such as Mary Ellen Mark and Larry Clark.

The TASCHEN Store Cologne, situated in the heart of the city in the Neumarkt-Passage, is a fitting venue for this occasion – a magnet for art enthusiasts with its minimalist aesthetic and a book selection in which one could lose oneself. The signing event on 28 June promises more than a mere encounter with an artist. The vernissage of Photographs 1960–2024 is not only a retrospective but a testament to Gibson’s ability to render the invisible visible.

Details:

Date: Saturday, 28 June 2025

Time: 12 noon

Venue: TASCHEN Store, Neumarkt 3, 50667 Cologne

Alethea Magazine