Out of Focus
Out of Focus. Leonore Mau and Haiti.
Upcoming Exhibition, November 2025
Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany
Out of Focus is an exhibition by Dora Imhof and U5 that opens at the Lenbachhaus Munich in November 2025. It is part of the SNSF research project Conflict and Cooperation. Episteme and Methods Between Art History, Art and Ethnology in the Performative Pictorial Practices of Vodun.
Read more: Out of Focus Research Project
The photographer Leonore Mau (1916–2013)
spent almost two decades traveling with the
writer Hubert Fichte to research Afro-diasporic
religions. Her photographs appeared in photo-
books and magazines, but the great majority
remained unpublished.
The exhibition Out of Focus at the Lenbach-
haus undertakes a critical review of her legacy.
Its focus is on Haiti, which Mau and Fichte
visited in the 1970s, when the country was ruled
by a dictatorship. Produced in dialogue with
Gina Athena Ulysse and other artists and
experts, Out of Focus is a joint effort to chart
a decolonial approach to these pictures.
The exhibition is a creative adaptation of Dora
Imhof and the artist collective U5’s research
project “Out of Focus” at the University
of Zurich. In cooperation with the S. Fischer
Foundation and bpk-Bildagentur, Berlin
Opening: November 3, 2025
Exhibition: November 4, 2025 - February 15, 2026
