The Eyes revisits Berlin with the agency Ostkreuz.
The reality of a metropolis is hard to fathom without the help of photography. It is the visualization of thoughts and memories that a photograph collects or triggers within us. We can draw quite a bit from images of residents, architecture, and the system of signs in trying to understand a place that is depicted.
Berlin seems to be forever doomed to always becoming and never being, commented Karl Scheffler in 1910. It is a bon mot that is used to this day in reference to the city, and for good reasons. Having suffered great damages in WW2, West Berlin, between 1961 and 1989, was walled in like an island and its recently renewed infrastructure severed. Politically and militarily dependent on the four occupying powers, the city had a special status in many ways. Meanwhile, East Berlin was the “Capital of the GDR” and exchange between the two halves of the city was rare. The photography scenes in the East and West were likewise on their own. But there was an important figure in Berlin who bridged the gap between the political systems: Arno Fischer. His flat at Schiffbauerdamm near Friedrichstrasse was a meeting point for photographers from East and West. Seven of his photographers friends later founded Ostkreuz.
Extrait de l’article de Matthias Harder
