People of the 21st Century
People of the 21st Century: A Contemporary Response to August Sander
Thomas Kellner’s Facets of the City after August Sander brings together 1,056 portraits to create a contemporary photographic image of society in Siegen. The project represents one percent of the city’s population and was developed as a homage to August Sander on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of his birth in 2026. Through individual portraits, Kellner explores how the diversity of people, biographies, professions and social backgrounds can form a collective image of society in the 21st century.
Facets of the City after August Sander is the third part of Thomas Kellner’s trilogy exploring the cultural identity of Siegen and the surrounding Siegerland region. The first two projects focused on regional architecture: the half-timbered houses of the Siegen industrial area and the distinctive chapel schools of the region. In the third part, Kellner turns from architecture to the people themselves. August Sander, who was born in nearby Herdorf, became the central historical reference for this contemporary exploration of portraiture and society.
The 1,056 portraits bring together people from different generations, professions, educational backgrounds, cultural origins and social environments. Photographed in places connected to their everyday lives, the participants remain recognizable as individuals while becoming part of a larger photographic portrait of contemporary society. In this way, Facets of the City after August Sander asks how the people of the 21st century can be represented without reducing individual identities to fixed social types.
People of the 21st Century in Siegen
August Sander’s People of the 20th Century is one of the most influential photographic portraits of modern society. Through a systematic series of individual portraits, Sander sought to create a comprehensive image of the social structure of his time. People from different professions, social environments and generations become part of a larger photographic portrait of society. For Thomas Kellner, Sander’s approach provides the historical point of departure for asking how the people of the 21st century can be portrayed today.
Rather than presenting society through fixed professional or social types, Kellner uses demographic data to structure the selection of individual portraits. The resulting series connects statistical data with human faces and creates a photographic image of the people who form contemporary society in Siegen.
Cultural Diversity in Siegen
The portraits reflect the cultural diversity of contemporary Siegen. People with different geographical and cultural backgrounds form part of the city’s society and contribute individual experiences and biographies to the project. Rather than assigning participants to fixed national identities, Facets of the City after August Sander brings these individual perspectives together within a broader photographic portrait of the community.
Demographic Structure of the City
Age is one of the demographic parameters that structure the project. The 1,056 portraits bring together people from childhood to old age, allowing different generations to become visible within the same photographic series. Rather than presenting age groups merely as statistical categories, the portraits reveal individual people whose lives, experiences and identities form part of contemporary society in Siegen.
Education and Social Background
Education and social background add another dimension to the project. The people portrayed have followed different educational paths, work in a wide range of professions and bring diverse personal experiences to the series. These differences are not used to define individuals, but to make visible the variety of biographies that shape contemporary society. Together, the portraits create a multifaceted image of the people of the 21st century in Siegen.
August Sander and People of the 20th Century
August Sander’s People of the 20th Century is one of the most influential photographic portraits of modern society. Through a systematic series of individual portraits, Sander sought to create a comprehensive image of the social structure of his time. People from different professions, social environments and generations become part of a larger photographic portrait of society. For Thomas Kellner, Sander’s approach provides the historical point of departure for asking how the people of the 21st century can be portrayed today.
After August Sander – People of the 21st Century at MGKSiegen
The exhibition After August Sander – People of the 21st Century at MGKSiegen brought August Sander’s work into dialogue with contemporary artistic perspectives. Presented from January 28 to May 29, 2022, the exhibition took a group of 70 large-format photographs by Sander as its starting point and combined them with works by contemporary artists exploring images of people in the 21st century.
The contemporary positions responded to Sander’s photographic legacy through different artistic media and approaches. Photography, video, sculpture and installation addressed questions of identity, social structures, representation and memory, demonstrating how Sander’s examination of society continues to generate new perspectives in the 21st century.
After August Sander – People of the 21st Century demonstrated the continuing relevance of Sander’s photographic approach for contemporary art. By placing his historical portraits in dialogue with current artistic positions, the exhibition showed how questions of identity, representation and society can be reconsidered from the perspective of the 21st century. This continuing engagement with Sander provides an important context for Thomas Kellner’s own exploration of the relationship between the individual portrait and contemporary society.
