The Berlinische Galerie is putting together the first exhibition in the world to take a comprehensive look at art photography in the GDR. Key questions will be: Was art photography ever free under authoritarian East German conditions? And how did things change over the course of four decades? The museum will show works by 33 photographers that critically reflect social conditions: Ursula Arnold’s blunt descriptions of everyday life, Arno Fischer’s melancholic symbolism, Jens Rötzsch’s colourful metaphors of a society falling apart, and purely subjective, emotional compositions in the manner of Thomas Florschuetz and Maria Sewcz. The positions selected convey the major threads of development for art photography in the GDR: montage and experimentation, documentary perspectives and social reportage, and the work of young newcomers in the 1980s.
Selected artists: Ursula Arnold, Sibylle Bergemann, Christian Borchert, Arno Fischer, Thomas Florschuetz, Edmund Kesting, Jens Rötzsch, Maria Sewcz, Gundula Schulze Eldowy, Ulrich Wüst et al.
