Gehaltene Zeit

Background information, content

"As an independent artistic genre, photography was not held in high esteem in the GDR. Massive state propaganda prevented the depiction of the reality of life. Oppositional viewpoints were not tolerated. It is all the more remarkable that East German photographers succeeded time and again in capturing human life in all its diversity and thus questioning the GDR's self-image. The result was social documentary photography dedicated to the big city and its population. Ursula ARNOLD, Arno FISCHER and Evelyn RICHTER are among the outstanding representatives of their guild who, as contemporary witnesses, photographed everyday life in divided post-war Berlin. As silent observers, they never produced 'event pictures' and relied on staging. This may explain the peculiar melancholy that is expressed in the black-and-white motifs. When the Museum für bildende Künste in Leipzig, in cooperation with the Evelyn-RICHTER-Archive of the Ostdeutsche Sparkassenstiftung, founded in 2009, exhibits the three photographers together for the first time, not only stylistic comparisons will be possible, but also the different working conditions and employment biographies will be brought into view, which contribute to the understanding of the respective œuvres.
While Ursula ARNOLD had to give up photography in the meantime due to the incompatibility of freelance projects and the commissioned work as a photojournalist, Arno FISCHER and Evelyn RICHTER were able to establish themselves in the environment of the Leipzig Academy of Visual Arts and escape censorship and restriction with other opportunities." (© Kettler Verlag, 2016)

About the photographers represented in the volume with their works

• Ursula ARNOLD, Arno FISCHER, Evelyn RICHTER
  

Photo books of the photographers represented with their works in this volume

• ARNOLD, Ursula
  FISCHER, Arno
  RICHTER, Evelyn