Coronavirus-free: A virtual tour of Germany's photography biennial

Titled "The Lives and Loves of Images," the 2020 Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie examines how photography can generate a range of emotions from enthusiasm to indifference or skeptism. Initially spread out in six museums, the exhibition can now be experienced online. It features 70 international artists, including Eva Stenram's series "Drape," which plays on eroticism, concealment and femininity.

The virtual visitor can walk through the rooms, zoom into the photos and read the exhibition texts. Navigation can be learned intuitively, but a small explanatory video also helps. The high-resolution photos allow a detailed examination of the works unlike any real-life exhibition. Two of the six exhibition venues are accessible for now; the rest of should follow shortly.

Are these museum visitors even appreciating the artwork they are in front of, or just through the digital display of their own cameras? Antonio Perez Rio spent more than 30 days in the Louvre, and was both fascinated and terrified by the visitors' behaviour: They'll perhaps never get to visit the museum again, yet they refuse to directly observe these centuries-old paintings and sculptures.

Does this soldier's pose look familiar to you? The artists Cortis and Sonderegger reflect on photography's most iconic works and restage them for their own photos, such as here the "Death of a Loyalist Militiaman," taken in 1936 by Robert Capa. It shows a soldier in the Spanish Civil War just as he falls to the ground after a head shot.

Photographer Daniel Stier takes a look at the world of research. He's not into sterile test tubes or deserted laboratories, but rather focuses on the researchers themselves. For his series "Ways of Knowing," he photographed students and professors undergoing self-experiments in modern research institutions.

The work of pioneering artists of the past can also contribute to a modern reflection on the impact of photography, which is why the Biennale shows works by Hein Gorny (1904-1967), among others. The advertising photographer is one of the most important representatives of the New Objectivity movement.

Algorithms determine which images we see on the internet. Aron Hegert has made a project out of it: For a photo he took but had not yet published, he looked for a suitable equivalent using the image search of a search engine. Since the picture did not yet exist online, the results offered algorithmic presumptions.

"Photography has become a symbol of the extremes of today's society. It is deeply private, yet completely public," says curator David Campany. "We enjoy photography, but we are also skeptical of its power and how it can be manipulated — or at least we should be." Shown above, a collage by Kensuke Koike, one of the 70 artists of the biennale, reflects this idea well.