Modeled on the Month of Photography, which began in Paris in 1980, seven European capitals now organize their own Months of Photography: Athens, Berlin, Bratislava, Budapest, Ljubljana, Luxembourg and Vienna.
In Berlin, the MDF (“Monat der Fotografie”) has existed since 2004, and on October 16th, 2014, the city launched its sixth edition of the event. For the time being, we can overlook the cruel lack of Berlin institutions dedicated to photography—the C/O Gallery has been under renovations for 19 months—and rejoice that 115 locations throughout the city—museums, galleries, project spaces, schools—will turn their attention to photography.
The MDF is coordinated by the non-profit organization Kultureprojekte Berlin. This year’s artistic director is Frank Wagner. Entitled Upheavals and Utopias. The Other Europe, the 2014 edition speaks about Europe, which cannot be done without stories.
Many of the exhibition address current events, starting with the official group exhibition at the Martin Gropius Bau, MemoryLab: The Sentimental Turn. Photography Confronts History, featuring the work of 15 contemporary artists, including Broomberg & Chanarin, Antoine d’Agata, Nan Goldin and Erwin Olaf. This multi-part laboratory of memory crosses border, with the different parts presented in different host cities for the European Month of Photography.
The 2014 program also offers an important historical section about Berlin, which allows viewers to relive the last decades of the city.
The diversity of Berlin’s Kreuzberg neighborhood, photographed by Siebrand Rehberg in the 1970s, is on view at the Collection Regard. The work of Günter Zint, who was sent by the magazine Stern to East Berlin in 1989, is being exhibited at the Browse Gallery, and the 1990s are covered in the exhibition Berlin Wonderland. Wild Years Revisited and the Gestalten publishing house.
On October 30th, C/O Berlin will reopen in the renovated Amerika Haus building with Will McBride’s exhibition I was in love with this city — Photographs 1956-1963.
Berlin isn’t just celebrating the 175th anniversary of the invention of photography this season, but also the 25th anniversary of the Berlin Wall on November 9th, 1989. The European Month of Photography 2014 is facing east, with a special focus on Belarus, which is being honored by the ifa-Galerie with BY NOW, an exhibition of 16 contemporary Belarusian photographers to whom we could dedicate an entire festival.
Further south, past Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria, the Turkish capital of Istanbul is celebrated in black-and-white by the great photographer Ara Güler, now 86 years old, who is holding his first retrospective in Germany, with more than 200 photographs at the Willy Brandt Haus through January 15th, 2014. When will there be a European Month of Photography on the Bosphorus?
