In political discussions, there is often talk of “the citizen”: a person who is seen as reflecting the entire population. But who is the citizen? Germany is diverse. Every fourth person has a history of immigration. How can we strengthen our diversity?

Anys Reimann has glued several pictures together. They now form a single person.

In 2002, Angela Merkel was elected Germany’s first female chancellor. At the time, Barbara Klemm was working as a photojournalist for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. She captured the election night with this photo. Her photographs document political events in a time before digital image processing and artificial intelligence. Even without editing, every shot contains a certain statement by the photographer. But how can images be perceived objectively?

The photographer Barbara Klemm has been capturing the changes in politics and society in Germany and around the world since the 1960s. In 1973, she photographed Leonid Brezhnev (former General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union) with Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt in what was then the German capital Bonn. Barbara Klemm as the only woman among powerful men.

In the year in which Barbara Klemm’s photograph of Willy Brandt was taken, the artist Ulrike Rosenbach produced the video work “Der Mann sei das Haupt der Frau” (the head of the woman is the man). The work was created 51 years ago while feminist movements were loud. They demanded self-determination for women. No man, not politics, not the church, not the husband should decide over a woman's body. The title "the head of the woman is the man" quotes the Bible.

Joseph Beuys wanted to reform education in the Germany of his time. The training of artists should include social issues. As a professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, he wanted to enable all applicants to study there. Together with rejected applicants, Beuys occupied the academy’s office several times in protest. In 1972, he was dismissed as a result and the police took him out of the office. The staged press photo depicts this situation.

Joseph Beuys wanted to create “art for everyone”. He created multiples (artworks in large editions) that were available for little money. The objects were intended to make his ideas accessible to many people. One of these multiples is the FIU brick. The abbreviation stands for the “Free International University” founded by Beuys. This organization was intended to train creativity for shaping society. The FIU was financed by the sale of multiples such as this brick. The brick can be understood as a building block in various ways.

For a long time, photography had the reputation of portraying reality without distortion. This trust has since begun to waver. The photographer Andreas Gursky edits his photographs by combining several shots. In 1998, he photographed the Bundestag in Bonn - shortly before the government moved back to Berlin. You can see the members of parliament in the plenary chamber voting with ballot cards. What is real and what is an optical illusion?

Benjamin Bergmann used window panes from the Palace of the Republic for his work. This was built in 1976 on the site where the Berlin Palace had previously stood. The historic city palace was the scene of various governments. In the GDR, a “Palace of the People” was to stand here instead: a place for leisure, culture and political events all in one. After reunification, the Palace of the Republic was closed due to the presence of asbestos. Concerts, theatre and exhibitions were held here until it was demolished in 2008. Today, the reconstructed palace, which houses the Humboldt Forum, stands in its place. Various “big things” were obviously dreamed of at this location. Who dreamed up the Humboldt Forum?

How do we deal with the content of the press? The starting point for Sigmar Polke’s artwork was a newspaper picture from the National Socialist era. It shows visitors to the “Degenerate Art” exhibition. In this exhibition, the National Socialists showed works of art that did not correspond to their political views. The art was degraded in exhibitions and the media, confiscated from museums and in some cases destroyed. Polke alienates the original photograph by means of a rasterization, as used when printing photographs. Here, however, the grid appears greatly enlarged and coarsened, the motif barely recognizable.

It is unclear what the “ Seltsame Fracht (strange cargo )” is that Paul Klee depicts. Klee painted the picture in 1939, the year of Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Poland, a few years after the artist emigrated from Germany to Switzerland. In Germany, the National Socialist government under Hitler had banned him from exhibiting and the German museums sold his art abroad. Is the cargo in Paul Klee’s painting wrapped up in the round shape? Or is this a round sail?

The artist Erik van Lieshout looks at Germany and how Germany looks at the world. Since the so-called “refugee crisis” in 2015, there has been talk of a “culture of welcome” in Germany. But who welcomes whom? How long does a person have to be welcome before they have arrived?