„Berlin is still absolutely unreal”

Berlin Rein­beck­hallen are show­ing well-known and less­er-known insights into the Berlin pho­tog­ra­phy scene between 1945 and 2000 until the end of May 2021.

With the cur­rent exhi­bi­tion in the Rein­beck­hallen in Berlin-Ober­schönewei­de, the cura­tor Can­dice M. Hamelin man­ages to bring two things togeth­er: impor­tant trends in Berlin’s pho­tog­ra­phy his­to­ry on the one hand and a visu­al city his­to­ry between 1945 and 2000 on the oth­er. Ori­ent­ed by the his­toric events like the con­struc­tion of the Wall, the divi­sion of the city and the fall of the Wall, the exhi­bi­tion is divid­ed into three phas­es: 1945 – 1960, 1961 – 1988 and 1989 – 2000.

In the ear­ly phase, Her­bert Hensky’s post-war pho­tos from the destroyed city are very impres­sive, the pic­tures of the ruins, rub­ble women and young peo­ple. Hensky’s pic­tures suc­ceed in mov­ing the view­er emo­tion­al­ly into the post-war sit­u­a­tion. In one of the pic­tures two boys are sit­ting at the water some­where with their self-made fish­ing rods, in the back­ground the ruins of bombed hous­es are reflect­ed on the sur­face of the water. And it comes to mind that while chil­dren often enjoy fish­ing, the two of them may also make a valu­able con­tri­bu­tion to the nutri­tion of their fam­i­lies.

Arno Fis­ch­ers and Will McBrides pic­tures final­ly show pic­tures from a time when life has got going again, the “Wirtschaftswun­der” has begun, peo­ple are going on trips again, some can even afford cars, some peo­ple can enjoy life more care­free, at a boat trip or at the Strand­bad Wannsee.

From the time of the divid­ed city we final­ly see Roger Melin’s pic­ture series from the Jew­ish ceme­tery in Weißensee (in East Berlin), as well as Max Jacoby’s series “Bleib­treustraße” (in West Berlin). From today’s per­spec­tive, the most excit­ing series of this era are Karl-Lud­wig Lange’s pic­tures from the “Oranien­strasse” series from 1977. The series shows the shops in Kreuzberg’s Oranien­strasse seen from the street, with­out peo­ple, only with a view of the shop front. You can rec­og­nize indi­vid­ual places – and you can see how deeply this street has changed, per­haps sev­er­al times in the mean­time.

From the time after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Andreas Rost’s Tacheles and Love Parade pic­tures are mem­o­rable, which now tell of times gone by. Nan Goldin, who has vis­it­ed Berlin sev­er­al times and pre­sent­ed her series „The Bal­lad of Sex­u­al Depen­den­cy” among oth­er things, had close friend­ships in Berlin. In the exhi­bi­tion we see some per­son­al por­traits that she made of the artist Piotr Nathan.

The exhi­bi­tion can still be seen until May 30, 2021, accord­ing to the cur­rent sta­tus Thurs­day and Fri­day 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. and Sat­ur­day, Sun­day & pub­lic hol­i­days 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. The won­der­ful cat­a­log was pub­lished by Hart­mann Books (Ger­man and Eng­lish, 144 pages).

Berlin, 1945–2000: A Pho­to­graph­ic Sub­ject

With works by Wil­fried Bauer, Sibylle Berge­mann, Kurt Buch­wald, Gun­du­la Schulze-Eldowy, Arno Fis­ch­er, Nan Goldin, Her­bert Hen­sky, Max Jaco­by, Karl-Lud­wig Lange, Will McBride, Rudi Meisel, Roger Melis, Eve­lyn Richter, Andreas Rost, Michael Schmidt, Maria Sew­cz, Michael Wese­ly, Anno Wilms, Lothar Win­kler, Ulrich Wüst, Wern­er Zel­lien, Harf Zim­mer­mann and Miron Zown­ir

Stiftung Rein­beck­hallen
Samm­lung für Gegen­wart­skun­st
Rein­beck­strasse 11
12459 Berlin
stiftung-reinbeckhallen.de
Admis­sion: 9 euros, reduced 4 euros