Sibylle Bergemann, Kirsten, Hoppenrade, 1975

MANCHESTER, UK.- Cornerhouse presents Do Not Refreeze - Photography Behind the Berlin Wall with artists Ursula Arnold, Sibylle Bergemann, Arno Fischer, Helga Paris, Evelyn Richter, Maria Sewcz, Erasmus Schroeter, Gundula Schulze-Eldowy,and Ulrich Wüst. The exhibition will be on view through June 17, 2007 and was curated by Matthew Shaul. Do Not Refreeze brings together a group of photographers whose extraordinary contribution to European photography has been 'frozen out' by the Cold War. Almost completely unknown in Britain, these artists developed their practice in the former East Germany negotiating its omnipresent secret police to create imagery, increasingly compared to that of luminaries such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Diane Arbus and Paul Strand.
Disparate in background and experience, their works use an unforgiving documentary aesthetic to convey both the harsh realities and remarkable richness of life behind the iron curtain. The stunning images convey a glimpse of day-to-day life and evoke the claustrophobia, rage, envy and ideological pomp of the Communist era as well as its unexpected personal warmth, tenderness and exoticism. Lire la suite http://www.artdaily.com/section/news/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=19907