Marie-Claude Deffarge & Gordian Troeller - Keine Bilder zum Träumen
Marie-Claude Deffarge & Gordian Troeller - Keine Bilder zum Träumen
Marie-Claude Deffarge (1924 – 1984) and Gordian Troeller (1917 – 2003) were two exceptional figures of European journalism. Natives of France and Luxembourg respectively, they worked as a team for many decades, informing millions of viewers in Germany, Luxembourg, France, and other countries about crises around the world through their photo reports and films. The result was the Troeller / Deffarge brand which this exhibition aims to view from a new perspective, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Marie-Claude Deffarge’s birth.
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In the second half of the 20th century, their highly recognized and equally controversial work contributed to debates on revolutions, development aid, and feminism. The polyglot duo always treated the people in the five continents they covered as their equals – people whose lives were impacted by colonisation and globalisation. They uncompromisingly held up a mirror to their European audience and broke with the political certainties of their day. On the back of meticulous research, they opposed the prevailing sensationalist journalism with the goal of reducing Eurocentrism and promoting intercultural understanding. With their subjective and tenacious coverage, Deffarge & Troeller had their finger on the pulse of the times and were often ahead of it. This included correcting assessments that had proved wrong.
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This exhibition brings together Deffarge & Troeller’s photographic and filmic œuvre in a museum context. The duo’s extensive archive, preserved at Museum Folkwang and Centre national de l’audiovisuel (CNA), is a great source for better understanding the roots of economic crises, refugee movements, environmental destruction, and discrimination in our own time. The exhibition traces Deffarge & Troeller’s development from the 1950s onwards through their photographic and film projects and recurrent themes. It gives an insight into their working methods and intellectual network, which included many likeminded collaborators, notably Ingrid Becker-Ross. At a surprisingly early date, the world in Deffarge & Troeller’s work is not just black-and-white, both in terms of film, and in how it is depicted.
In 2025, the exhibition was shown for the first time at the Museum Folkwang, Germany with the active support of the CNA. For the presentation in Luxembourg, it was redesigned, adapted to the new setting of the Pomhouse, and the theme of the connection between Gordian Troeller and Luxembourg was expanded. In the summer of 2026, a variation of the exhibition will also be shown in Arles, France, as part of the Rencontres d'Arles photography festival. The three presentations were made possible by the support of the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia and the Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg – Ministry of Culture.
