The Deutsches Historisches Museum (German Historical Museum) in Berlin acquires the complete series (41 prints) of “Trabant. The Final Days of Production” (1990-1991) by Martin Roemers. Roemers was an art school student in his twenties when he made the Trabant series. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Roemers wanted to make a series about industrial culture in East Germany. In Zwickau, he photographed the production of the Trabant in the ‘Sachsenring Automobilwerke’. The Trabant, a compact car with a plastic body made in East Germany since 1957, was well known beyond the borders of the German Democratic Republic. In the West, the ‘Trabi’ was seen as reactionary and was looked down on for its technical simplicity. Within the GDR, it was unloved and treasured in equal measure, a fixed component of everyday life and a reflection of social status. In 1991, the final Trabant was fabricated after 34 years of production.
The Deutsches Historisches Museum made two solo exhibitions of Martin Roemers’ work: “The Eyes of War”in 2014 and “Relics of the Cold War” in 2016.
“A bitter sweet exhibition There is a surreal sadness in these photos, as the resolutely old- fashioned Trabant, in various stages of production, slides along in scene after scene.”
— The Wall Street Journal
Trabant images: http://martinroemers.com/?page_id=2139#1
Trabant book: http://martinroemers.com/?page_id=29#Trabant
Prints of “Trabant” are available in a Limited Edition.
Deutsches Historisches Museum
Unter den Linden 2
10117 Berlin
