Ausstellungsrundgang mit der Künstlerin Barbara Klemm: Helldunkel. Fotografien aus Deutschland

Barbara Klemm's works bear witness to the historical development and the present in a country that was divided for decades. Many of her pictures have become icons of contemporary history and have shaped the cultural memory of several generations. It is a photographic oeuvre that combines documentation and artistic inspiration in a way rarely seen in the German press.

With the exhibition Barbara Klemm. Helldunkel. Photographs from Germany , the ifa - Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen is showing pictures by one of Germany's most important photographers. This is the first time in 15 years that her work has been shown in Germany.

Most of the photographs shown in the exhibition were commissioned by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. From 1959, Barbara Klemm worked there as a laboratory assistant and in cliché production, and from 1970 as an editorial photographer specializing in politics and the arts section. However, her photographs are far more than just reportage pictures taken for the day. They take us into the most important areas of social life in the Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR. A clear focus of the exhibition is on photographs taken in East and West Germany before and after reunification. These are images from all areas of social life, from politics, culture and the economy, of precarious and everyday situations of social reality, of demonstrations, protests and migrant life as well as cultural events, mass events and urban spaces.

With a keen sense of essence and essentials, the photographer captures moments that tell far more than what they directly depict. Her pictures show the "condensation of an action", as Barbara Klemm herself describes it, and thus the condensation of history.

No advance booking is necessary.