FRANKFURT.- "Now I begin my life in Frankfurt. I really like it here and feel like I should be here. I feel like there’s a protective presence by my side at all times…strange. WORK HARD, DON’T LIE, AND TRY NOT TO HURT ANYONE." - Excerpt from Tony Rizzi’s diary (September 7th, 1985)

This quote frames the most comprehensive exhibition to date of the renowned US-American dancer, choreographer, and photographic artist Tony Rizzi (*1965, USA).

For the first time, this exhibition offers deeper insight into Rizzi’s intuitive photographic practice to date. From his early black-and-white photographs and distinctive Polaroids and photo collages to his recent video works. His oeuvre on display demonstrates the versatility of his artistic practice.

When Tony Rizzi joined William Forsythe’s Ballet Frankfurt he stepped into a city whose motto was "Culture for Everyone" and where experimentation in arts and international exchange was treasured. As a dancer and choreographer travelling the world, photography became another creative process to connect with others in his daily life. Comprised of portraits, performances, lovers, family and queer communities, his photographs reflect Rizzi’s obsession of being in the moment.

With his rarely known black-and-white photographs from the 1980s and 1990s, we glimpse behind the scenes of Ballet Frankfurt and view performances as well as personal experiences; we encounter pieces of history. At the same time, the deep sense of connection and care within this dance community remains tangible to this day. Rizzi’s photographs reveal personal relationships with lovers, friends, and colleagues, both at home and on tour. They include numerous self-portraits, ironic and playful moments, as well as emotionally charged situations in which existential questions are reflected, including his experience of living with AIDS. The vibrant LGBTQIA+ scene and everyday life in Frankfurt also find their place in his work.

Fleeting encounters — parties, erotic moments, laughable breakdowns and the fear of loss and death — are transformed into images of remarkable intimacy. In doing so, the personal becomes intertwined with fundamental questions about community and how we live together. Celina Lunsford, curator of the exhibition, writes in her catalogue essay: "Each impulse to photograph is an eye, brain, heart moment. The multiple compositions are expressions of becoming. For Tony Rizzi performance and photography are similar in that they incite engagement with the human condition, provide emotional connection, and hold on to what has occurred and those who were present."





An important chapter in Tony Rizzi’s photographic work is devoted to his family, above all to his personal and artistic relationship with his mother, Verna. She not only stood alongside Rizzi as an actress in his dance piece "Snowman Sinking", which premiered at Frankfurt’s Künstlerhaus Mousonturm in 2000, but also repeatedly became the subject of his photographs — most recently in 2026 for a large-scale collage. Both works are included in the exhibition. Inspired by the artist’s apartment in Frankfurt’s Bahnhofsviertel, the curator selected two important rooms to recreate as part of the exhibition. The installation "Living Room", consisting of more than 6,000 Polaroids, is being presented publicly for the first time. And Tony Rizzi’s kitchen acts as a kind of autobiographical exhibition space that tells stories from Rizzi’s life including his passion for cooking.

"Tony will charm you. He will draw you in. One way or another, he will capture your attention. He is funny, inquisitive, perceptive, endlessly curious, and instinctively knows how to make you look again." What Tamàs Gèza Moricz, a former dancer of Ballet Frankfurt, describes in his essay as a personal quality becomes an artistic attitude in Rizzi’s photographs: the urge to look more closely, to experience the moment in all its intensity, and to preserve what has been experienced in an image.

For the project TONY RIZZI: WORK HARD, DON’T LIE, AND TRY NOT TO HURT ANYBODY, Celina Lunsford conducted extensive research into the artist’s archive of more than 10,000 images and conceived the exhibition in close collaboration with Tony Rizzi.

PUBLICATION

Accompanying the exhibition is the artist’s first monograph. Released as a limited edition, the publication brings together photographic works from 1986 to the present, alongside texts by William Forsythe, Celina Lunsford, Tamàs Gèza Moricz, and Tony Rizzi. The book was designed by Studio Markus Weisbeck, Frankfurt.

TONY RIZZI (*1965 in Dedham, Massachusetts as James Anthony Rizzi) trained at the Boston Ballet School under legendary dancers Violette Verdy and Bruce Wells. In 1985, he moved to Frankfurt, where he was a dancer and close collaborator with William Forsythe/Ballet Frankfurt for over 20 years, performing many of the leading roles. From 1999 to 2023, he performed as a main protagonist in productions by Troubleyn/Jan Fabre including the 24-hour performance "Mount Olympus." In 2012, he played the young Marina Abramović in Robert Wilson’s "The Life and Death of Marina Abramović."

With his own company, Tony Rizzi and the Bad Habits, he has created his own dance productions since 2000. He premiers regularly at the Mousonturm and the Gallus Theater in Frankfurt am Main and touring to Montreal, Vienna, Tokyo, New York, Berlin and Oslo.

In 2025, he was nominated Best Dancer in Europe in the annual critics' survey by TANZ magazine.

Since the late 1980s, Rizzi has been active as a photographic artist, exhibiting at Platform Sarai, the Frankfurter Kunstverein, Opera Frankfurt, Fotografie Forum Frankfurt, Kunstverein Hamburg, MUMOK in Vienna and the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo. His works are collected worldwide.