Bernd Heyden : Berlin Prenzlauer Berg
Bernd Heyden‘s photographic view is still fascinating. Anyone who sees the pictures of the East Berlin photographer, feels that he did not go as a reporter in the old Berlin workers‘ district Prenzlauer Berg, but was at home there. In addition to the people who worked in the shops and on the streets, Heyden portrayed the elderly, the frail and the stranded as well as happy, sad, cheeky children, for whom the area left to decay was a huge adventure playground. The viewer gets an insight into the living conditions and everyday life in East Berlin in the 1970s and 1980s. But Heyden‘s view goes far beyond that: the crumbling walls of the houses turn out to be a scenery where pure life flourishs and the portrayed protagonists are in a greyish and luminous tone of reveling the Humain Comédie.
Bernd Heyden (1940-1984) came from a humble background and began taking photographs in the mid-1960s as an amateur. In 1967 he came in contact with the group of photographers around Arno Fischer and became an admired colleague in a short time, who also influenced younger photographers by his original and sincere view of the reality of life. Almost all of his pictures from Prenzlauer Berg were made between 1970 and 1980, well over a thousand motives in total.
An exhibition of the Freundeskreis Willy-Brandt-Haus and the Bildagentur bpk, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, curated by Mathias Bertram.
Arles 2019 – Voies Off
FOTOHAUS/PARISBERLIN
from 30th June to 31st July 2019
7 rue de la Roquette
13200 Arles
