Andréa Holzherr (1964, Tübingen) is an exhibition director, publicist and curator. Since 2003, she has been the international exhibition director and curator of Magnum Photos in Paris.

She promotes the Magnum Archive in collaboration with museums and cultural institutions. Previously, she worked as assistant curator to the director of the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris.

She is a member of the advisory board of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Frankfurt, the board of directors of the Fond de Dotation Magnum Paris, and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie.

She has curated numerous exhibitions, including: Bang Bang, Tatort Kunst (2012, Haus der Kunst Uri); Mythos Kindheit (2010, Kunstverein Ludwigshafen), Elina Brotherus: The New Painting (2006, Finnish Museum of Photography), Stella Polaris (2006, Paris Photo). In 2013, she was the curator of the 5th Mannheim_Ludwigshafen_Heidelberg Photo Festival.

About the exhibition: 

René Burri: Utopia

2026 is the tenth anniversary of Budapest PhotoFestival. The opening exhibition, as it is wont to be, will be realized in cooperation with Kunsthalle Budapest. Another world-famous photographer of the Magnum Photos agency will feature: René Burri’s iconic photos will be exhibited.

To mark the anniversary, the festival will lay special focus on strengthening its international presence, not only through exhibitions, but also with professional programmes, lectures, portfolio reviews, and workshops.

René Burri, renowned for his portraits of Che Guevara smoking a cigar, was a true photojournalist in the era of high-circulation illustrated magazines, reporting on the most significant events of the second half of the 20th century.

Burri joined Magnum in 1955 and became a member in 1959. During his career spanning six decades, he travelled in Europe, the Middle East, North, Central, and South America, Japan, and China. He was in Berlin when the Wall fell, he photographed the student protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, he captured the destruction of war in Beirut.

Nevertheless, Utopia takes a fresh look at Burri's multifaceted oeuvre, this time expressing the significant transformations of the century through the formal language of modern architecture. The selection can thus also be seen as a tribute to architecture: Burri’s photographs, reflecting his individual perspective, captured many buildings that have become symbols of modernism from Le Corbusier's chapel in Ronchamp to Oscar Niemeyer's ministry buildings in Rio de Janeiro and Brasília. 

Paris Match, among other publications, gave ample outlet to his photographic cycles, including his artist portraits; this exhibition features portraits of epoch-making modern architects. René Burri's unique, expressive documentary style can be seen in the close to one hundred photographs in the exhibition; the images of human creation and destruction give a bittersweet report on the metamorphosis of the past century.

The exhibition was created in collaboration with Magnum Photos, the Műcsarnok, and the Budapest PhotoFestival.

The original Utopia exhibition was realized in 2004, based on a joint concept by Hans-Michael Koetzle and René Burri.

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Műcsarnok Budapest