Eyes wide open! 100 years of Leica photography

The museum presents the exhibition ‘Eyes wide open! 100 years of Leica photography’ in June, before the official opening of the museum. Following a successful tour through prominent museums across Europe, the exhibition has now reached its final destination, the Ernst Leitz Museum in Wetzlar. Visitors to the exhibition will see unique and iconic pictures, impressive contemporary documents and magical moments in the history of photography. The works on show include photographs by René Burri, Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Bruce Davidson, William Eggleston, Lee Friedlander, Barbara Klemm, Joel Meyerowitz, László Moholy-Nagy and Alexander Rodchenko.

‘Eyes wide open! 100 years of Leica photography’ explores the radical changes and the visual revolution in the world of photography that was triggered by the invention of the light, compact and extremely mobile ‘Ur-Leica’. The exhibition provides clear answers to how 35 mm photography changed our ways of seeing the world from an artistic and sociohistorical point of view in the 20th century. In 15 chapters, the exhibition spotlights various aspects of 35 mm photography from its beginnings until the present day – from journalistic strategies and documentary approaches to examples of freestyle artistic imagery. The exhibition simultaneously provides insights into the history of technological advances and developments relevant to the art of photography.