Early photographic work included in the group exhibition 'Inside - Out. Constructions of the Self', Kunstmuseum, Wolfsburg

Early work from Billingham's photographic series 'Rays a Laugh' was included in the group exhibition 'Inside - Out. Constructions of the Self', 26th October 2019 – 12th January 2020, Kunstmuseum, Wolfsburg, Germany. Other participating artists were Nevin Aladağ, Daniele Buetti, Daniela Comani, Birgit Dieker, Cao Fei, Sylvie Fleury, Harry Hachmeister, Isabell Heimerdinger, Johannes Kahrs, Barbara Kruger, Mário Macilau, Bjørn Melhus, Signe Pierce, Richard Prince, Ulrike Rosenbach and Kerry Tribe

This was a participatory exhibition developed by the Kunstmuseum's curatorial and research assistants and a number of young people between the ages of fourteen and seventeen.

The exhibition was conceived around questions of identity such as - “Who am I? How do others see me? Who do I want to be?” These questions are more relevant during puberty when one’s own identity gains in importance. The transformation of one’s own body, the awakening of sexuality and emerging social tasks and attributions during puberty make young people aware for the first time of the different concepts of identification offered by real and digital environments.

In the development process of the exhibition, aspects of sexual self-determination, ideals of beauty, self-staging, delimitation, crises and conflicts emerged as especially relevant to the young people.

These existential questions are also explored in contemporary art. With reception, self-representation, and self-staging, artists often discuss the various forms of the representation of identity - reflecting social roles and stereotypical identity patterns.

The young people, curatorial and research assistants selected works according to their own thematic emphases and approached the concept of identity through mutual exchange. This was done from a preselection of 200 works of art from the Kunstmuseums permanent collection.

Richard Billingham's early photographic work from the series 'Ray's a Laugh' was selected because it includes the theme of social localisation and highlights the precarious social milieu of his own family.

The exhibition was accompanied by a publication containing illustrations of the exhibited works and documentation of the project. There was an introduction by Dr. Andreas Beitin and a project description and detailed explanation of the curatorial concept by Nathalie Stelmach.