STARA ZPAF GALLERY
Oliver Kern (born 1965)
„Deutsche Aussicht“ [ „German perspective“]
Studied at Fachhochschule Dortmund in studio of Arno Fischer.Now lives in Berlin and works as an independent photographer, collaborating with various artistic projects.
Exhibitions and projects (selection): 2006 – journey to Iran within the project „Caravan”, organized by Austrian Kulturverein X-CHANGE; 2005 – artistic stay in Sigmaringen; 1998 – 2003 – project: „Die vorläufige Stadt” [„Temporary city”], realized with Michael Heissenberger; 1995 – “Die Zone”.
Awards and citations: 2006 – Lotto Brandenburg award; 2008 – Saara scholarship in Künstlerhaus Schloss Wiepersdorf.
Arno Fischer (born 1927)
In the years 1947 – 1953 he studied sculpture in East and West Berlin. From 1956 he worked as an assistant in Kunsthochschule Berlin – Weißensee. In 1961, as a result of the building of the Berlin Wall, his book “Berlin Situation” was not published. As a photographer and a publicist he worked for many publications, among them “Sybille”.At the turn of 1965 and 1966 he formed a group of photographers, which was called “Direkt” from 1969. In the years 1972 – 1993 he worked, firstly as an assistant and later as a professor in Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig. In the years 1990 – 2000 he ran classes in press photography in Fachhochschule Dortmund. In 2000 he was awarded the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photograpfie award. As one of its founders, he also taught at the private photography school Fotografie am Schiffbauerdamm till 2006.
Exhibitions (a selection): 2009: “Arno Fischer. Retrospektive”, Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland; Kunstmuseum Dieselkraftwerk Cottbus; « Arno Fischer. Der Garten », Robert Morat Galerie, Hamburg, 2008: “Arno Fischer. Der Garten” , Stiftung Moritzburg, Kunstmuseum des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt, Halle/Saale ; 2007: “Arno Fischer. Am Wege. Fotografie”, Galerie Pankow, Berlin; “Arno Fischer. Portraitfotografien”, Galerie argus fotokunst, Berlin; “Arno Fischer. Der Garten”, Leonhardi-Museum Dresden; 2006: “Arno Fischer. New York. Fotografien 1978/1984”, Comptoir-Kunstmagazin - Städtische Galerie, Sonneberg; “Arno Fischer. Fotografie”, Galeria Miejska we Wroclawiu, Wrocław; Centrum Kultury Zamek, Galeria “pf” Poznań; 2005:, “New York Ansichten 1978 und 1984”, Galerie argus fotokunst, Berlin; 2002: “Arno Fischer. Der Garten”, Galerie Rosenkranz, Chemnitz; 2000: “Arno Fischer. Photographien 1943-1989”, Haus der Fotografie, Hannover; 1998: “Arno Fischer. Ost-West-Berlin und andere Photographien 1943-1990”, Galerie Zimmer, Düsseldorf; 1997: “Arno Fischer. Photographien”, Staatliche Galerie Moritzburg, Halle/Saale; 1996: “Arno Fischer”, Vidéothèque de Paris, Paris; 1995: “Berlin – Before the Wal”l, Laurence Miller Gallery, New York ; 1985: “Fotografien aus vier Jahrzehnten”, Fotogalerie Friedrichschein.
Chargesheimer, Carl-Heinz Hargesheimer (1924-1971)
„Photographs from Cologne”
After WW II studied photography and graphic arts in Cologne. Interested in various art fields: opera, theatre, costume design, painting and above all – photography. Since 1950 experimented with abstrakt structures of Ligot on a photographic paper and photo-montages. Since 1955 worked as an independent photographer. Became famous in Germany because of his dynamic portraits of public figures and reportages.
In 1968 honored Deutsche Gesellschaft für Pfotographie award in Cologne.
Publications (selection): “Köln 5 Uhr 30”, Köln 1970, “Theater, Theater”, Frankfurt 1967, “Köln farbie photographiert”, Köln 1965, “Menschen am Rhein”, Frankfurt 1960, “Berlin. Bilder einer großen Stadt”, Köln 1959, “Romantik am Rhein”, Köln 1959, “Im Ruhrgebiet”, Köln 1958, “Unter Krahnenbäumen”, Köln 1958, “Cologne intime”, Köln 1957.
“The Observer's Gestures
‘Berlin Situation’ by Arno Fischer in the century after”
Text by: Thomas Martin
Using a pun penned by a certain critic: Arno Fischer is the most famous from the least famous photographers in Germany. Despite this his images can be found in gallery catalogues, as well as constituting a part of the East German cultural identity their author remains anonymous. The fact that only a few of Fischer's photographs are widely known leads to the creation of myths about their author. In the year 2000, the Berlin publishing house Nicolai, displayed a collection of his early photographs in a new context. "Berlin Situation" is a title, which was originally supposed to appear in the Autumn of 1961. The collection was, at the time, passed over in silence and banned. It was released after 39 years in a new collection with the artist's authorization. The one who wants to capture reality, does not need a camera, but looking at photographs can be helpful in recognizing the 'real' in what we see. 'To have an image of something,' to use a popular phrase. For the culture of a country, which does not exist anymore, looking at images from its past means looking at its present. Dead souls transform their lives into stories. This story is a carrier of misshapen visions and an unlived utopia. Fischer's socially analytical images are, in their character, part of it.
One of them, which is more about a 'situation' rather than about 'Berlin,' is the most renowned work of the author. It has no title. It only identifies a place and time: "Müritz, 1956." The people captured in the frame of the waterfront platform's wooden planks, are staring into the horizon, they are not looking at each other. Their gaze is but an extension of their bodily positions. They are eternal. They are forever running. They will only meet when they are beyond the image. A black and white quartet, according to Edward Hopper. A visual installation without a stage, according to Samuel Beckett. The photograph of the Müritz lakeside and early photographs of Berlin - like René Burri's images of Germany, the Parisian works of Robert Doisneau, Robert Frank's "The Americans," – form the photo iconography of the XX century. They belong to the world of post-war reality imagery, which together with the fall of the Berlin wall, entered into its final phase and died away, thus cementing the status quo of the Federal Republic.
It's a moving, nearly overwhelming sensation, that the images created 'before my time', the observers 'real time,’ reflect the present so intensely. The time volume of these photographs is indicative of their quality, above all trends and epochs. They depict ruins, people among ruins and ruins of people. Prosperity and renovation on the western side of the city, demonstrations on the eastern side. Fischer: "In the west the repletion of capital, in the east the repletion of politics." He butted in. He didn't but in. Fischer lived in the eastern part of the city. His sympathies lay on the side of the new social model, which he observed with a growing distance and photographed when the opportunity arose.
That which could be seen in anthologies and exhibitions, from "Berlin Situation," could be allowed the times of GDR to be read as a description of its present time. An image of a crack along the wall of a house: the crack runs along un-plastered stone, through the figure of a person, who leans out of the window, as if it was an embrasure. The gaze of the man, presumably toward some street scene, was understood by the contemporary observer, as if this window-man were gazing through a wall, onto the other side of 'freedom.' The photographer stood in front of the house holding his wriggling little son. Fischer waited for the man in the window to disappear. Finally he took the photo with his left hand. The picture, taken in 1953, was reproduced in "U. S. Camera" five years later and become Fischer's international debut. That which brings together the representatives of various classes, professions, national affiliations is, in the photographer's view, their position on the verge of happenings: they are watching. Something is moving in two directions at once: away from them and towards them. The rigid look on the face of a person carrying a flag. He wants to go down in history. This puts him on the verge. The old man who gazes at the ground underneath the May 1st flags in the East European capital. This puts him on the verge. In the images, which were created between 1952 and 1960, put in chronological order, faces with a free gaze appear only sparsely. Faces from the previous century, expressions, profiles, stamped by breakthroughs of the epoch, like figures from the 'Panoptikum', held in various phases of looking into the future and into the past in observational gestures. These are the last images of the times prior to the separation of the eastern part of the city by the wall. They were created before West Berlin, seen from the eastern perspective, became a white blotch on the map. Raw faces, even more rarely free. Looks, which suddenly pull the observer toward them. Looks, which at the same time lead beyond the image. On the western side they are more directed, they have a goal. On the eastern side they're absent, often turned toward an undefined space where everyday life is dominated by ideology. The motive of work, of the person who takes part in the production process, is solely reserved for the east. There is also more space here for hope beyond the ruins, more daylight. In the west signs and illuminated advertisements are joined with darkness. Both situations are rushing away from each other, towards the wall, because of which, "Berlin Situation" experienced defeat, as an unpublished album.