{"id":395066,"date":"2025-09-03T17:16:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T17:16:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/395066\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T17:16:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T17:16:15","slug":"press-photo-of-world-leaders-at-coalition-of-the-willing-meeting-acquired-by-dusseldorfs-kunstpalast-the-art-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/395066\/","title":{"rendered":"Press photo of world leaders at \u2018coalition of the willing\u2019 meeting acquired by Dusseldorf’s Kunstpalast – The Art Newspaper"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Kunstpalast in Dusseldorf has recently acquired an official image of Friedrich Merz taken during the German chancellor’s first visit to Ukraine. The image shows Mertz at a meeting of the \u201ccoalition of the willing<\/a>\u201d, huddled alongside the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other European leaders, over a phone call with the US President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

The photograph, which also features the French President Emmanuel Macron, the Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, captures an intense moment in thus far unsuccessful efforts to broker a 30-day ceasefire in Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It was taken on 10 May this year by Jesco Denzel, the official photographer of the German Federal Government.<\/p>\n

Linda Conze, the head of the department of photographs at the Kunstpalast, tells The Art Newspaper: \u201cBy including images like these in art historical collections, you pay respect to its meaning for the visual history of our present. The more symbolic the meeting, the more important the images.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conze goes on to explain the museum\u2019s decision to contrast the newly acquired image with another by Denzel, which shows the former chancellor Angela Merkel and G-7 leaders confronting president Trump at a meeting in Canada in 2018.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Then-Chancellor Angela Merkel during consultations on the sidelines of the official agenda during the G7 summit at the Fairmont Le Manoir Richelieu Hotel, 2018<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Jesco Denzel<\/p>\n

The new image, she says, \u201ctells us something about how the German government wants its stance on the war between Russia and Ukraine to be perceived, as supportive, level-headed, showing Europe standing together on the side of peace.\u201d In contrast, the 2018 shot \u201chas been perceived as an image of power struggle between Europe and the US\u201d.<\/p>\n

Together, the head of department says the images serve as a lesson in press photography, a genre that has been transformed by digitisation. The two photographs which, she says, \u201cspan a very interesting and frightening seven years of history\u201d, show us how \u201cimages become part of narratives of global power relations\u201d.<\/p>\n

The differing procedures for acquiring the images also underscore the pace of digital change between 2018 and 2025. \u201cWe acquired the Zelensky photo through the German Federal Government\u2019s image agency,\u201d Conze explains. \u201cThey no longer sell prints, only digital files, and then granted permission for us to have a print made here in D\u00fcsseldorf.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was different with the Angela Merkel image,\u201d she continues. \u201cIn that case, we received the print directly from the image agency, and Jesco Denzel had signed it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both photographs went on display yesterday at the Kunstpalast, where they hang side by side along with contemporary art. They fit in well, and their painterly aspect is not by chance. \u201cJesco Denzel slightly alters his images to look even more like paintings,\u201d says Conze, \u201cIf you look at it closely, it\u2019s not the pure image. It kind of gives this aura of historical painting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conze and her department are now working with two other Dusseldorf institutions to preserve and utilise the photo archives of a local newspaper. \u201cIf there weren\u2019t three institutions in Dusseldorf that were interested in this archive, they would just throw it out,\u201d she says, describing the overall plight of historic photos.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think of masses of images, especially in the digital age, but also before that. I think we forget that these masses of images can be lost very easily. It\u2019s really not clear how many of them will still be there in a hundred years.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Kunstpalast in Dusseldorf has recently acquired an official image of Friedrich Merz taken during the German chancellor’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3939],"tags":[19467,4021,4020,4022,77,2249,7661,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-395066","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-acquisitions","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-photography","14":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115141501541300566","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}