A masterful photographic storyteller, Ilit Azoulay transcends the single linear image, creating prismatic views that transform one another as they unfold in space. Traces of the past and fragmented temporal layers are visible yet concealed: she carefully excavates her finds, dismantles artefacts, and listens attentively to capture even the subtlest moments of the object under investigation.

Guest Book accompanies Azoulay’s most recent project for the Museum Villa Stuck. In 2024 the museum relocated to an unassuming building at 54 Goethestrasse in Munich, while Franz von Stuck’s prestigious villa underwent renovation. Azoulay was invited to engage with the construction site and temporary quarters: in “Stopover” she explores the history of 54 Goethestrasse, which was used as compulsory housing for Jewish people under the Nazis; while “No Single View” contemplates the Villa Stuck itself—and towards those who were, and are, connected with it. For Azoulay, historical evidence is never an end in itself; rather, she sees fact and fiction as complementary ways to interpret reality, allowing different voices and times to exist side by side: subjective, fragmentary and contradictory—like memory itself. Guest Book presents extensive photos of Azoulay’s project alongside texts that approach it from literary, essayistic and art-theoretical perspectives, reflecting the plurality of voices at the heart of this work.

Co-published with Museum Villa Stuck, Munich