Galerie Berinson, in Berlin, presents about 60 vintage prints from the 1960s and 70s by Arno Fischer (1927-2011) taken for the famous GDR women’s magazine Sibylle.
Arno Fischer was one of the most important photographer of East Germany and his photographs accompanied life in the democratic republic from the beginning to the end. Already in the 1950s, he gained recognition with his photographs of the divided Berlin. In addition, he worked internationally as travel photographer and his photo series from New York, Equatorial Guinea or India are well-known.
Having studied sculpture, Fischer worked as photo lab technician and assistant and took a lectureship with Professor Klaus Wittkugel at the Art Academy Berlin-Weißensee in the mid-50s. Later he was lecturer at the Academy of Graphic Arts and Book Art Leipzig, the University of Applied Sciences Dortmund and last the Ostkreuz School of Photography in Berlin.
In the late 50s, Fischer, who was married to photographer Sibylle Bergemann, began to take fashion pictures, rather incidentally when fashion students asked him to photograph their collections. In 1962 Fischer became part of the editorial team of Sibylle. Sibylle was the most popular and almost only lifestyle magazine in the GDR, primarily dedicated to fashion. It appeared six times a year between 1956 and 1995 with a circulation of 200,000 copies, which was regularly sold out quickly. The magazine was an absolute exception in the GDR, because the photographers could freely develop their artistic activities despite the authoritarian regime.
Fischer’s fashion photographs for Sibylle were style-defining and had a formative influence on the magazine. They are kept in a documentary style and depict fashion in an everyday environment, like the streets of Prenzlauer Berg or the industrial area of Bitterfeld. With this concept, Fischer developed a new kind of photojournalism for fashion which was unique at the time. The readers not only liked the atmosphere of his photos, but they drew inspiration from them. The models, mostly female students, were photographed in everyday situations, in lively motion. He wanted to move away from the usual exclusive, bare illustration of fashion. Arno Fischer once said about the relevance of Sibylle on the everyday culture in the GDR that “Often we sold dreams, probably because we dreamed by ourselves.”
Arno Fischer: „Selling dreams“ – fashion photography for Sibylle
March 16, 2018 to July 13, 2018
Galerie Berinson
Schlüterstraße 28
10629 Berlin
Germany
