Opening Out of Focus

Leonore Mau and Haiti. An exhibition by U5

When:
Mon, November 3, 2025, 7pm–11pm

Free admission

What else:

There will be simultaneous translation into German Sign Language.
No registration is required.

When:
Mon, November 3, 2025, 7pm–11pm

Free admission

What else:

There will be simultaneous translation into German Sign Language.
No registration is required.

On Monday, November 3 from 7pm, the opening of the exhibition "Out of Focus. Leonore Mau und Haiti" will take place. Lenbachhaus Munich cordially invites you and your friends!

The photographer Leonore Mau (1916–2013) traveled to Haiti in the 1970s during the dictatorship of Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier. She traveled together with the writer Hubert Fichte (1935–1986). The trips were part of a long-term research project on Afro-diasporic religions, which took them to Benin, Brazil, Grenada, Senegal and Venezuela, among other places. Mau's photographs were published in her photo books "Xango" (1976) and "Petersilie" (1980) and in travel reports in many German magazines. The majority, however, has not yet been published or shown in exhibitions and is now part of the photographer's estate at the bpk-Bildagentur in Berlin.

"Out of Focus" is a collaborative examination of Leonore Mau's photographs taken in Haiti. The exhibition seeks a decolonial approach to these images and asks how working with this archive can contribute to changing the image of Haiti, which is still characterized by stereotypes today.

With speeches from
Mo Lüttig (they/them), Member of the Munich City Council representing the Lord Mayor
Matthias Mühling, Director of Lenbachhaus

In the context of the exhibition