The Late Estate of Broomberg & Chanarin is the entity that holds the collaborative work of Adam Broomberg (b. 1970, Johannesburg, South Africa) and Oliver Chanarin (b. 1971, London, UK) made over a twenty year period.
In February 2021 the artists announced the death of their partnership on the occasion of their first posthumous retrospective at Fabra I Coats Contemporary Art Center, Barcelona, providing an opportunity to survey two decades of collaborative work.
Their acclaimed body of work considered themes of surveillance, warfare, and institutional authority. Having stood at the frontlines of war, Broomberg and Chanarin captured zones of conflict not as documentarians, but rather as unassuming witnesses. Their body of work resisted the allure of being purely representational imagery and instead considered how a photograph can capture more than just a visual encounter. Tackling politics,religion, war and history, Broomberg and Chanarin examined the fault lines associated with imagery, creating new responses and pathways towards an understanding of the human condition.
Major solo exhibition took place at the Centre Georges Pompidou (2018) and the Hasselblad Center (2017). Their participation in international group shows included the Yokohama Trienniale (2017), Documenta, Kassel (2017), The British Art Show 8 (2015-2017), Conflict, Time, Photography at Tate Modern (2015); Shanghai Biennale (2014); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2014); Tate Britain (2014), and the Gwanju Biennale (2012). Their work is held in major public and private collections including Pompidou, Tate, MoMA, Yale, Stedelijk, V&A, the Art Gallery of Ontario, Cleveland Museum of Art, and Baltimore Museum of Art.
Major awards included the ICP Infinity Award (2014) for Holy Bible, and the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize (2013) for War Primer 2. Broomberg and Chanarin are the winners of the Arles Photo Text Award 2018 for their paper back edition of War Primer 2, published by MACK.
Both Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin continue to work independently, they are professors of photography at the Hochschule für bildende Künste (HFBK) in Hamburg and teach on the MA Photography & Society programme at The Royal Academy of Art (KABK),The Hague which they co-designed.