Exhibition, book and queer life: Don't let assholes put you down

It's a good idea if exhibition venues and their curatorial teams also look at their immediate surroundings and dare to focus on local topics and local protagonists. Otherwise, this remarkably extensive photographic work by Tony Rizzi would probably have been forgotten in the Frankfurt Dancer's boxes until further notice.

As a photographer he has repeatedly exhibited, but less frequently institutionally, but often in his own apartment. Celina Lunsford, director of the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt, also regularly admired the walls plastered with Polaroid. The two of them had agreed for a long time to organize an exhibition. Shortly after Rizzi's 60th birthday, it all worked out.

Katharina Cichosch, freelance art critic, lives in Frankfurt am Main.

“Work Hard, Don’t Lie and Try Not to Hurt Anyone” is the title of the solo show in the Photography Forum, based on a note that the then 20-year-old American wrote in his diary about moving to the city on the Main. Here he danced for William Forsythe's Frankfurt Ballet, and today Rizzi produces his own pieces.

With Tony Rizzi it's not all dance, drag or ballet. But the dancer sees a lot of things with the gaze of someone who is always in motion. And so many individual Polaroids ultimately become large picture collages. Or dancing trees from a short digital video recording.

Photography accomplishes what dancing alone could not, says Rizzi. Some of the works he created as a pre-teen are not suitable for young people. Your own desire plays a key role in his show. But, according to Rizzi, it is not only aimed at other men, but also at women, friends, family in the USA, places or things.

Tony Rizzi's exhibition runs until January 17, 2027 at the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt am Main

Robert Schittko's book, "The Stories of Marmara", was published by KRAUTin

The exhibition beautifully combines city and personal biography. The photographer is dedicating a larger work to a legendary woman from Frankfurt: Hannelore Kraus, who became known for her vehement opposition to the Campanile high-rise. She was Rizzi's landlady.

She turned down many millions and ignored threats. You shouldn't let assholes bring you down, she told Tony Rizzi. Rizzi portrays Kraus in front of her house, the Frankfurt Fortress, including the surroundings that she set out to protect.

Robert Schittko went from Frankfurt to Istanbul last year, and his work is currently receiving a political update. The photographer and artist traveled to the Bosphorus on a scholarship, where he wanted to devote himself to queer life in the city. Nothing came of it at first. And then, in an unplanned way, more than he had planned.

“Everything is almost normal, but I see bars and police everywhere,” Schittko begins his notes. There's TransPride in town right now; a hard-won, fragile visibility. In addition to ceramics, drawings and photographs, the Frankfurt native brought texts from Istanbul that have now been published in book form.

“The Stories of Marmara” functions as a casual, personal approach to the city where, as Schittko has observed, “everyone is under the same pressure.” Economically and socially subject to the rhythm of a giant metropolis.

And yet its queer residents are under their own pressure to maintain secrecy, balancing between hiding or revealing. Schittko portrayed some of them with the perspective of a friend. Her photographs are located between observations, defying the circumstances. Just because they are there.