Phillip Toledano ꟾ Edward Trevor: Never Seen the Light

For a long time, photography was regarded as a medium of evidence: proof that something must have existed for an image of it to be made. This promise has shaped our cultural understanding of reality for decades.

At first glance, the exhibition, on view at Fotografiska Berlin from 28 March to 31 May, appears to tell a completely unknown story.

Phillip Toledano’s father, who worked under the name Edward Trevor as an actor, was also a painter and sculptor. Only after his death did a box of previously unseen negatives offer his son a new perspective. The images depict 1930s and 1940s New York with cinematic precision and a subtle sense of the bizarre.

What initially seems like a family archive gradually unfolds into a multi-layered reflection on authenticity and construction.

For the images are not what they first appear to be: historical documents.

Edward Trevor was, in fact, never seen holding a camera. The entire series was generated by Toledano using artificial intelligence. In this way, images emerge without an event, without a camera, without traditional witness – and yet they appear as if they were visual evidence of a past reality. The project is driven by a simple question: “What if?”

This realisation dawns on visitors only gradually. Never Seen The Light begins like a conventional photography exhibition and only reveals its artificial DNA in the second half.

“Many people don’t understand how convincing AI can be. Some claim it has no soul. But the same was said about photography in the 1850s. The aim of this exhibition is to encourage visitors to immerse themselves in this imagined story – and then to be surprised that it contains beauty and emotion, even though everything has been created by AI. I think this is an important lesson, because in the future we will see more and more images that are both artificial and full of beauty and feeling. In fact, we already encounter them all the time – on Instagram, for example.”

– Phillip Toledano

Toledano’s engagement with artificial intelligence is far from new. In 2024, he presented We Are The War, a project imagining what the lost photographs of war photographer Robert Capa from D-Day might have looked like. Other works, such as Another America and Another England, also explore alternative photographic realities.

Those who look closely may notice the presence of AI in this exhibition as well: in some images, Toledano subtly intervenes in reality. Has the little boy just lit a cigarette for a monkey? And why is a horse wandering through the city in the middle of the night? Certain motifs and perspectives repeatedly feel strangely familiar. In fact, Toledano has embedded so-called “Easter eggs” – small clues for attentive and initiated viewers.

But do we question them at all? Or do we trust the “evidence” hanging on the wall? The twenty works captivate the eye while leading to a more fundamental question: what makes an image credible – its origin, or our willingness to believe in it?

“Photography has always been closely tied to technological developments – from the darkroom to digital post-production. With artificial intelligence, we are now entering a new phase of this dialogue. Computer-generated images may mark less of a radical break with the history of photography than a logical continuation – a transition from the real to simulation. As an institution dedicated to the medium of photography, we see it as our responsibility not only to accompany these developments, but also to reflect on them critically. Never Seen The Light invites us to rethink the relationship between image, authorship, and responsibility, and to engage in an open discussion about how we want to read images in the future.”

– Thomas Schäfer, Director of Exhibitions, Fotografiska Berlin

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Phillip Toledano (*1968, London) lives and works in New York. His practice spans photography, sculpture, installation, and the use of new technologies. At its core are questions of identity, memory, and truth, as well as the cultural narratives that shape how we perceive ourselves and others.

He gained international recognition with Days With My Father (2006–2009), a deeply personal exploration of dementia, loss, and family bonds. In recent years, he has also established himself as a pioneer in the artistic use of artificial intelligence. For the past three years, he has worked intensively with AI and published three books in which he constructs speculative visual worlds to question the “truth” of photographic documents and the authority of the photographic image.

His work has been exhibited worldwide, including in major solo exhibitions such as The Day Will Come When Man Falls at the Haus der Photographie, Deichtorhallen Hamburg.