Recent News
About the Artist
Adam Broomberg was born and brought up in South Africa. Oliver Chanarin was born in London but brought up in South Africa before returning to London with his family at the age of seven. It was on a holiday back to SA as a teenager that the two first met. Ten years later they started working together. First as editors for Colors magazine where they remained for three years commissioning and art directing before branching out as photographers in their own right. Their work, which predominantly deals with socio-political issues, is known for merging photojournalism with visual art, resulting in provocative and ambiguous interpretations of history and current events. They have exhibited worldwide, published several monographs and are included in some of the world’s most renowned collections both public and private. They are recipients of numerous awards including the Deutsche Börse Prize in 2013 and the International Center of Photography Prize in 2014. Both professors of photography at the Hochschule für bildenden Künste in Hamburg, they also teach on the MA Photography & Society programme at the Royal Academy of Art in the Hague - a course they co-designed. They live and work between London and Berlin.
Books

MACK
December 2015
The series of portraits in this book, which include Pussy Riot member Yekaterina Samutsevic and many other Moscow citizens, were created by a machine: a facial recognition system recently developed in Moscow for public security and border control surveillance. The result is more akin to a digital life mask than a photograph; a three-dimensional facsimile of the face that can be easily rotated and closely scrutinised.

RM / JUMEX
September 2014
A catalogue from the exhibition of the same name at the Galería Jumex in 2014. The book is structured along three axes: the artists’ exploration of exhumation and the re-publication of traces; an approach to and reading of the context through time; and the way the questions and findings of the work group are displaced or translated into new territories and beings: the dodo and the extinction of a landscape.

Tate Publishing
September 2014
Humans and Other Animals is enhanced by British Sign Language and produced in collaboration with students and staff at London’s Frank Barnes School for Deaf Children. Making unexpected connections between familiar words and their meanings through black-and-white photography, text and brightly coloured graphics, the artists play with the complex relationship between image and text.

Trolley
2013
Ghetto, Broomberg and Chanarin’s first collaboration with Trolley, was published ten years ago. It saw the then creative editors and principal photographers of Colors Magazine document 12 contemporary gated communities, from a maximum-security prison in South Africa to a psychiatric hospital in Cuba. Photographed entirely on large format colour negative, Ghetto took three years to produce and over time has become a popular classic within photobook history.

MACK / AMC
2013
The format of Broomberg and Chanarin’s illustrated Holy Bible mimics both the precise structure and the physical form of the King James Version. By allowing elements of the original text to guide their image selection, the artists explore themes of authorship, and the unspoken criteria used to determine acceptable evidence of conflict.

Chopped Liver Press
2012
Black Market takes its name from the eponymous film Al Suq al Soda, or Black Market. Directed by the surrealist painter-turned-filmmaker Kamel el-Telmissany, the film was banned shortly after its release in Egypt in 1945, and has since all but disappeared. What is more, this rare copy of the film, a recording from television, has been partially erased by another film – an unknown porno probably made in the 1970s or 80s. The two films share the same strip of magnetic tape, but sit uncomfortably together and transmit inverse aesthetic, moral and political positions.

Self Publish Be Happy
July 2012
The first volume displays a series of polaroids by the artists. Mixing private moments, self-portraits and images from their documentary projects, the beautiful collection of personal polaroids form an intimate and imperfect inventory of their fifteen-year collaboration.

MACK
2011
War Primer 2 is a limited edition book that physically inhabits the pages of Bertolt Brecht’s remarkable 1955 publication War Primer. The original is a collection of Brecht’s newspaper clippings, each accompanied by a four-line poem that he called Photo-epigrams. It was the culmination of almost three decades of intermittent activity. Brecht’s book is a practical manual, demonstrating how to “read” or “translate” press photographs. War Primer 2 is the belated sequel. While Brecht’s War Primer was concerned with images of the Second World War, War Primer 2 is concerned with the images of conflict generated by both sides of the so-called “War on Terror”.

MACK
2011
The Belfast Exposed Archive occupies a small room on the first floor at 23 Donegal Street and contains over 14,000 black-and-white contact sheets, documenting the Troubles in Northern Ireland. These are photographs taken by professional photo-journalists and ‘civilian’ photographers, chronicling protests, funerals and acts of terrorism as well as the more ordinary stuff of life: drinking tea; kissing girls; watching trains.

Steidl / Photoworks
2007
Fig. contains over ninety still lives, portraits and landscapes by celebrated photographers Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, drawing together specially commissioned work made around the south coast of England and other works made internationally, tracing links between photography, imperialism and the colonial impulse to acquire, map and collect.

Steidl MACK
2006
Chicago is a fake Arab town built by the Israeli Defense Force for urban combat training. It is a place that is familiar to Israeli and American soldiers but until now largely unknown outside Israel. Chicago stands in the middle of the Negev desert; a ghost town whose history directly mirrors the story of the conflict for Palestine.

Trolley
2004
A decade after the fall of apartheid and how have things changed for those living in South Africa today? The authors spent three months traversing their homeland examining the way people live, how they work, how they love and how they die. Initially commissioned for the new Constitutional Court in Johannesburg, the book brings together the many portraits that represent this new South Africa.

Trolley
2003
In a journey through twelve modern ghettos, Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin document the lives of their inhabitants by asking each the same questions and then taking their photograph. From a refugee camp in Tanzania to a mental asylum in Cuba and an old people’s holiday camp in the USA.

Westzone
2000
Trust is a series of photographs made in the last two years of the twentieth century. On the surface, it is very simple. Photographs of faces made in a documentary way: real people leading real lives, aware of the camera only as an incidental, seemingly uncomplicit in the making of the photographs.
Exhibitions & Events
Solo Exhibitions
Nogueras BlanchardMadrid
Centre Georges PompidouParis, France
Goodman GalleryJohannesburg, South Africa
Ag GalerieTehran, Iran
Kings Cross StationLondon, UK
Lisson GalleryLondon, UK
Romantso Cultural CentreAthens, Greece
Hasselblad CenterGöteborg, Sweden
C/O BerlinBerlin, Germany
Baltimore Museum of ArtBaltimore, USA
Stratford StationLondon, UK
Lisson GalleryLondon, UK
The Freud MuseumLondon, UK
Center for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski CastleWarsaw, Poland
Fig-2, ICA StudioLondon, Uk
FOAMAmsterdam, Netherlands
Goodman GalleryCapetown, South Africa
Jumex FoundationMexico City, Mexico
FotomuseumAntwerp, Belgium
MOSTYNLlandudno, North Wales
TJ BoultingLondon, UK
Goodman GalleryJohannesburg, South Africa
Paradise RowLondon, UK
Galerie Gabriel RoltAmsterdam, Netherlands
Paradise RowDusseldorf
Paradise RowLondon, UK
Paradise RowLondon, UK
The Goodman GalleryJohannesburg, South Africa
Paradise RowLondon, UK
Galerie Karsten GreveCologne, Germany
Townhouse GalleryCairo, Egypt
Galeria SpafiskaKrakow, Poland
Goodman GalleryCape Town, South Africa
Galerie Karsten GreveParis, France
Musee de L’ElyseeLausanne, Switzerland
Brancolini GrimaldiRome, Italy
Impressions GalleryBradford, UK
Paradise RowLondon, UK
FotoFreoFreemantle, Australia
Brancolini GrimaldiRome, Italy
Photomonth FestivalKrakow, Poland
John Hansard GallerySouthampton, UK
Stedelijk MuseumAmsterdam, Netherlands
Q Arts, Derby Photography FestivalDerby, UK
National Portrait GalleryLondon, UK
The Photographers GalleryLondon, UK
The Johannesburg Art GalleryJohannesburg, South Africa
The Hasselblad CenterGothenburg, Sweden
Selected Group Exhibitions
Hamburger KunsthalleHamburg, Germany
Goodman GalleryJohannesburg, South Africa
Haus der Kulturen der WeltGermany
Akademie der KünsteBerlin, Germany
Museo Archeologica e de Arte Della MaremmaGrosseto, Italy
Deutsches Hygiene MuseumDresden
Bonniers KonsthallStokholm, Sweden
Preus MuseumOslo, Norway
Ryerson Image CentreToronto, Canada
Yale University Art CentreYale, USA
Yokohama, Japan
EMST in the Word,National Museum of Contemporary ArtKassel, Germany
Goodman GalleryCape Town, South Africa
C/O BerlinBerlin, Germany
Hasselblad FoundationGötenburg, Sweden
Fotomuseum WinterthurSwitzerland
London College of CommunicationLondon, UK
ICP MuseumNew York, USA
J Paul Getty MuseumLos Angeles, USA
Fotografisk CentreCopenhagen, Denmark
Les Rencontres d’ArlesArles, France
Somerset HouseLondon, UK
RethymnoCrete, Greece
Sies & HokeDüsseldorf, Germany
Scottish National Gallery of Modern ArtEdinburgh
Les Rencontres d’ArlesArles, France
Goodman GalleryJohannesburg, South Africa
Hasselblad FoundationGothenburg, Germany
Leeds Art GalleryLeeds, UK
Tate ModernLondon
Power Station of ArtShanghai
Belfast ExposedBelfast, Northern Ireland
Paloazzo del Monte di PietàPadua, Italy
Lisson GalleryLondon, UK
American Academy in RomeItaly
FruttaRome, Italy
MUDAMLuxembourg
Tate BritainLondon, UK
MoMANew York, USA
Dong Gang International Photography FestivalYeongwol, South Korea
The Photographers GalleryLondon, UK
Victoria Island, Lagos
Tate LiverpoolLiverpool, UK
Turner ContemporaryMargate, UK
American Academy in RomeItaly, UK
Fotografia EuropeaReggio Emilia, Italy
State Museum of Egyptian ArtMunich, Germany
Goodman GalleryCape Town, South Africa
The Photographers GalleryLondon, UK
Goodman GalleryCape Town, South Africa
Monash University Museum of ArtMelbourne, Australia
Breda MuseumThe Netherlands
Houston Center for PhotographyHouston, USA
Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia CollegeChicago, USA
Saatchi GalleryLondon, UK
Cornell University, Herbert F Johnson Museum of ArtIthaca, New York, USA
The Philadelphia Photo Arts CenterPhiladelphia, USA
Goodman GalleryJohannesburg, South Africa
Yaffo 23, Bezalel Academy of Arts and DesignJerusalem
FOAMAmsterdam, Netherlands
Talinn Art Hall GalleryTalinn, Estonia
WissenschaftsstadtDarmstadt, Germany
KW Institute for Contemporary ArtBerlin, Germany
La Virreina Centre de La ImageBarcelona, Spain
Beirut Arts CenterLebanon
International Photography Festival of ArlesFrance
The Goodman GalleryCape Town, South Africa
Palazzo StrozziFlorence, Italy
Villa IchonBremen, Germany
FOAMAmsterdam, Netherlands
Aperture FoundationNew York, USA
Dutch PhotomuseumRotterdam, Netherlands
Akademie der KunstBerlin, Germany
Fondazione RagghaintiLucca, Italy
Galerie Karsten GreveParis, France
The Courtauld InstituteLondon, UK
The Welcome TrustLondon, UK
Aperture FoundationNew York, USA
Steidl Paris, France
New York, USA
Venice, Italy
Fremantle Arts CentreFremantle, Australia
Palazzo Magnani
Museum voor FotografieBelgium
Durban MuseumSouth Africa
Reykjavik Museum of PhotographyIceland
Aranjuez, Photo EspanaSpain
Circulo de Bellas Artes, PhotoEspañaSpain
The Victoria and Albert MuseumLondon, UK
Gardener Art Center, Brighton UniversityUK
The National Museum of Photography, Film and TelevisionUK
Awards & Prizes
International Center of PhotographyNew York, USA
The Photographers GalleryLondon, UK
Royal Photographic SocietyBath, UK