The exhibition follows various forms of photographic representation of city life from the GDR and in eastern Germany. The perception of city – in this case predominantly the cities of Berlin, Halle and Leipzig – is not so much that of a documentary or socio-documentary viewpoint here; this is in a very subjective vein. Almost all those involved are showing work from the seventies and eighties as well as from more recent times. A change in the situation of society thus lies between the times the photographs were taken. The artists represented here involve themselves in the discussions about living and building – or sometimes demolition – in the cities, about the formation and handling of urban situations in the city today. Often these places are of biographical or personal interest: the artists’ own neighbourhoods and family milieus are also explored.
The exhibition is being held as part of the Heimat Modernism project, a joint initiative by a number of Leipzig institutions and groups, funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes.
