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 “coalition of the willing”, huddled alongside the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other European leaders, over a phone call with the US President Donald Trump.
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’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It was taken on 10 May this year by Jesco Denzel, the official photographer of the German Federal Government.
Linda Conze, the head of the department of photographs at the Kunstpalast, tells The Art Newspaper: “By 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.”
Conze goes on to explain the museum’s 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.
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
© Jesco Denzel
The new image, she says, “tells 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.” In contrast, the 2018 shot “has been perceived as an image of power struggle between Europe and the US”.
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, “span a very interesting and frightening seven years of history”, show us how “images become part of narratives of global power relations”.
The differing procedures for acquiring the images also underscore the pace of digital change between 2018 and 2025. “We acquired the Zelensky photo through the German Federal Government’s image agency,” Conze explains. “They no longer sell prints, only digital files, and then granted permission for us to have a print made here in Düsseldorf.
“It was different with the Angela Merkel image,” she continues. “In that case, we received the print directly from the image agency, and Jesco Denzel had signed it.”
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. “Jesco Denzel slightly alters his images to look even more like paintings,” says Conze, “If you look at it closely, it’s not the pure image. It kind of gives this aura of historical painting.”
Conze and her department are now working with two other Dusseldorf institutions to preserve and utilise the photo archives of a local newspaper. “If there weren’t three institutions in Dusseldorf that were interested in this archive, they would just throw it out,” she says, describing the overall plight of historic photos.
“We 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’s really not clear how many of them will still be there in a hundred years.”
