Gundula Schulze-Eldowy, Lothar, Berlin 1982. From the series 'Berlin on a Dog’s Night 1977-89'. Courtesy of the artist
What happens to a free, western society and to the role of art within that society when it’s taken over and run by a Communist regime?
A fascinating new exhibition brings together a group of remarkable photographers whose work offers an intriguing insight into life behind the Iron Curtain in the former East Germany, and provides a hitherto unseen glimpse of an era of social documentation ‘frozen out’ of history by the Cold War.
Do Not Refreeze – Photography Behind the Berlin Wall is showing at the Cornerhouse, Manchester, until June 17 2007 and features the work of nine photographers, almost completely unknown in Britain. Many had to negotiate the omnipresent secret police of the former GDR to create imagery increasingly compared to luminaries such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Diane Arbus and Paul Strand.
Had they been painters, sculptors, authors or playwrights, these photographers would have been arrested or imprisoned for their brazen portrayals of the underbelly of the socialist experiment.
Gundula Schulze-Eldowy, Berlin 1980. From the series 'Street Pictures 1980-90'.Courtesy of the artist
Fortunately, what the Communists defined as ‘art’ did not include photography and as long as photographers stuck to ‘realism’ – the state-decreed version of what was considered acceptable – and circumnavigated a rigid system of censorship, they were able to produce the most insightful and critical arts output in East Germany’s forty-year history.
Take, for example, the above seemingly straightforward image by Gundula Schulze-Eldowy of a wooden hut on a snow-covered street – a classic example of state-sanctioned realism but it also cleverly evokes the idea of a society, quite literally, frozen in time.
While none of the photographers worked directly for the government, they were all part of the official artists’ union and their official status varied enormously. Arno Fischer and Sybille Bergman, for example, were awarded major public commissions and enjoyed the privilege of foreign travel.
Arno Fischer, Equatorial Guinea, 1972. Courtesy of Stiftung Moritzburg, Halle
In a photograph taken in 1972, Arno Fischer has travelled to exotic Equatorial Guinea but takes with him his eye for sadness and human suffering.
His camera captures a group of black manual labourers, taking a brief moment from their toil of digging to look directly into the lens with a pithy mix of sadness and reproach in their eyes.
Another photographer careful not to upset the socialist authorities, Sybille Bergemann produced non-confrontational images that somehow managed to remain subtly subversive images.
Sybille Bergemann, Kirsten Hoppenrade 1984. Courtesy of the artist
His seemingly anodyne image of a young blonde girl – the new generation of Germans growing up in a completely new and bewildering world – is on closer inspection redolent of hopelessness and quietly suppressed anger.
While these photographers were allowed a certain degree of freedom and managed to stay on the right side of their socialist rulers, others did not fare so well.
Leipzig-based Erasmus Schroeter fell foul of the authorities when he applied for an exit visa and was subsequently denied any opportunities to exhibit.
Erasmus Schroeter, A Llama About to be Guided into a Ballroom, Leipzig 1981. Courtesy of the artist
Schroeter’s quirky and strangely comical imagery provides an unexpected touch in the exhibition, such as his bizarre shot of a llama being directed into a ballroom by a young man in a suit and tie.
Unforgiving and unflinching, the documentary aesthetic of such photographers as Ursula Arnold conveys both the harsh realities and remarkable richness of life behind the Iron Curtain.
Ursula Arnold, Leipzig, BrandvorwerkStraße (Woman at Window), 1956. Courtesy of Stiftung Moritzburg, Halle
In her portrayal of an old woman watching over children playing in the street, taken in Leipzig in 1956, Arnold’s domestic cameo, with its powerful triangular composition, evokes contentment and the enduring German spirit.
While some images possess a rich austerity evoking an almost Dickensian ambience that reveals the tawdry reality of the socialist experiment, others capture the humour, stoicism and resignation with which East Germany’s citizens dealt with their lives.
Arno Fischer, In Front of the Eremitage, 1964. Courtesy of Stiftung Moritzburg, Halle
Arno Fischer captures a group of young German children, fresh-faced in their winter bonnets, who appear to have taken time out of a school trip to pose patiently for the camera near some imposing-looking stately buildings.
One of the boys stands up straight, shoulders back and cocks a hand to his head, and with solemn expression salutes to the lens – presumably in mimicry of an act he has witnessed soldiers and police performing many times.
This striking collection of images – at times evocative and haunting, at others simply touching – reveals not only the claustrophobia and ideological pomp of the Communist era but also as its unexpected warmth and tenderness.
Gundula Schulze-Eldowy, Fallen Sons, Berlin 1979. From the series 'Berlin on a Dog’s Night 1977-89'. Courtesy of the artist
In the 1980s, younger photographers such as Gundula Schulze Eldowy developed a more daring, openly critical approach. In a series of photographic essays, she exposed the squalor in which many elder generation residents of East Berlin (many of them decorated heroes of socialism) were living.
These perhaps more than any photography created in East Germany clearly exposed the decayed state of the communist economy and the bankruptcy of state-directed ideology – all precursors of the dramatic political and social upheaval to come.
