The paintings of the Photorealists look so sharp that a camera might have taken them. Daniel Zamani, artistic director of the Museum Frieder Burda, examines how much illusion lies behind this apparent closeness to reality, and where the artists deliberately worked with “fakes”.
Dr Daniel Zamani has been artistic director at the Museum Frieder Burda since 2024. Previously, from 2018 to 2024, he was curator and head of collections at the Museum Barberini in Potsdam; he studied art and architectural history as well as museology. His lecture accompanies the survey exhibition “A Contest with Reality”, which the Museum Frieder Burda devotes to Photorealism until 2 August. The art movement emerged in the USA in the 1960s and strives for technical perfection in painting. Zamani explains how the artists built strategies of humour, ambivalence and alienation into their pictures.
The lecture is part of the Baden-Baden Summer Dialogues 2026, held under the motto “Of certainties and uncertainties”.
Notes
The event takes place at the Museum Frieder Burda. The number of participants is limited and registration is required at kultur@baden-baden.de or by telephone on 07221 93-2065. The lecture itself is free; the regular museum admission is payable on site.