Rooms / Stages

Museum für Fotografie, Jebensstraße 2, 10623, Berlin

June 5, 2026 – November 15, 2026

*Rooms / Stages* is a group exhibition at the Helmut Newton Foundation that shifts attention from performance itself to the spaces where performance is staged and photographed. Building on the 2019 exhibition *Body Performance*, it explores how rooms, interiors, and constructed settings shape the meaning of images in photography and film. The show brings together artists who treat space as a central subject: some place figures in carefully arranged interiors, others let bodies disappear over long exposures, while others focus on empty rooms, studios, museums, or transport spaces that suggest human activity without showing it. Large wall coverings, framed photographs, and photographic installations turn the exhibition space itself into part of the artwork. A second section highlights Helmut Newton’s own use of staged environments, from luxury hotel rooms and fashion-set interiors to stark outdoor scenes and garages. Like a film director and set designer, Newton transformed locations into dramatic backdrops for fashion and portrait photography. The exhibition includes works made for magazines and ballet programs, along with Polaroids and large-scale reproductions, showing how both Newton and the participating artists turn space into a kind of stage.