What topics are seized on by art today? How are they presented? And which works are going to endure for their quality? These questions are asked time and time again whenever an art competition is held. Now, for the eighth time running, the exhibition 'gute aussichten - junge deutsche fotografie 2011/2012' presents works by students at German universities, academies and technical colleges, created for their final-year shows and selected here by a big-name jury. In the Museum of Photography the winners are given a platform to install their works and present them for the first time to the wider public, before the exhibition goes on a tour of other cities.

At the same time, the Museum of Photography takes a look back at the 'Berlin Photographie' exhibition of 1921, which remains highly regarded to this day. Back then, the Art Library, which currently administers the Museum of Photography, unveiled to the public masterpieces by photographers of the likes of Nicola Perscheid, Karl Schenker, Erna Lendvai-Dircksen and Frieda Riess in a show held in the glass-roofed atrium in the Gropius Bau. Back then, portraits of the beautiful and famous went on display alongside nudes, painterly landscapes and street scenes. Thirty of the works selected then are now to go on display together for the first time in ninety years. The show reinforces the fact that competitions are great barometers of their time, in that they serve as a concentrated melting pot of the topics and trends of a particular age.

'gute aussichten - junge deutsche fotografie 2011/2012' is organized by the gute aussichten bureau (Frankfurt), in conjunction with the Art Library, National Museums in Berlin.