Frank Höhler, Thomas Kläber, Jürgen Matschie and Luc Saalfeld have captured the current situation in Eisenhüttenstadt on camera. Höhler focuses primarily on the people, those who have stayed here and those who have flocked here, refugees and asylum seekers. Saalfeld's view is that of classic black and white photography - full of poetry, but also full of attention to breaks and peculiar details. Kläber's images condense into a documentation of a subjectively perceived reality between demolition slab, birch forest, marginal zone aesthetics and the remains of heavy industry. Matschie allows things to enter into dialogue with each other: old and new structures, milk bar and tuning service, beauty shop and free church.
The four artists approach the former framework of economic functions and its current inhabitants with their own individual style of perception. The result is inevitably not an objective Eisenhüttenstadt picture sheet, but a puzzle of visual artefacts that, using Eisenhüttenstadt as an example, also asks: "How does perception work, what do we perceive?"
Dr Andreas Krase, Dresden Technology Collections, spoke at the opening on Friday 11 July at 8pm.
The artists were present at the opening.
The exhibition comprised around 100 photographs.
Catalogue
A catalogue was published to accompany the exhibition.