Conceptual photography is often regarded as self-serious and academic. Yet, since the very inception of conceptual art in the 1960s, many such artists have strategically employed humour to provoke and meaningfully engage the viewer, as well as challenge visual norms. Despite being humorous, this work remains intellectually rigorous and profound.

Seriously. is a group exhibition curated by Nana Bahlmann, featuring over a hundred conceptual photographs, print media, and select films ranging from the 1960s to the present, which expose the absurdities of our world and its representations. Through visual wit, subversiveness, and even outright slapstick, these photographic experiments offer humorous conceptual investigations of how images are constructed and interpreted. Employing a range of strategies, from masquerade and role-play to the construction of inexplicable scenarios, unexpected juxtapositions, and idiosyncratic sculptural compositions, these works reveal the farcical and fantastical within the visual realm.

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Seriously. features the work of Bas Jan Ader, Keith Arnatt, John Baldessari, Massimo Bartolini, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Lynda Benglis, Helen Chadwick, Robert Cumming, Thomas Demand, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Braco Dimitrijevic, Cao Fei, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Ceal Floyer, Tom Friedman, Dan Graham, Rodney Graham, Scott Grieger, Aneta Grzeszykowska, Sigurður Guðmundsson, Andreas Gursky, Barbara Hammer, Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson, Rebecca Horn, Douglas Huebler, Birgit Jürgenssen, Astrid Klein, David Lamelas, Louise Lawler, Natalia LL, Sarah Lucas, Urs Lüthi, Tom Marioni, Anthony McCall, Jonathan Monk, Peter Moore, Bruce Nauman, Joshua Neustein, Dennis Oppenheim, Géza Perneczky, Sigmar Polke, Charles Ray, Andrea Robbins and Max Becher, Ulrike Rosenbach, Thomas Ruff, Ed Ruscha, Cindy Sherman, Stephen Shore, Santiago Sierra and Franz Erhard Walther, Roman Signer, Laurie Simmons, John Smith, Martine Syms, Robert Therrien, Rosemarie Trockel, Keiji Uematsu, Ger van Elk, Mark Wallinger, John Waters, Gillian Wearing, Carrie Mae Weems, William Wegman, Hannah Wilke, Stephen Willats, and Christopher Williams.