Over the coming weeks, a small exhibition of East German photography aims to build a bridge from the Venice Biennale art exhibition to the Capital of Culture 2025 in the eastern German city of Chemnitz.
Under the title "Anleitung zum Sehen" (Guide to Seeing), works by photographers Margret Hoppe, Oskar Schmidt and Edgar Leciejewski, all former master students of Timm Rautert at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig, are on display.
Photographs from Leciejewski's "Aves" (Latin for birds) series - portraits that show birds very close up and full of grace - and from Hoppe's "Die Verschwundenen Bilder" (The Vanished Images) series will be on display.
Hoppe's work is dedicated to walls that were once adorned with art commissioned by the former East Germany.
The show can be seen in the Desire Lines pavilion away from the official Biennale programme, which the Chemnitz art festival shares with two partners from England and Italy.
On the one hand, the aim is to honour the top class of East German photography, which is usually overshadowed internationally by the Düsseldorf Art Academy, explained curator Kristin Dittrich in the run-up to the event. The show also ties in with the motto of Chemnitz as European Capital of Culture 2025.
With "C the Unseen!" the focus shifts to the previously unseen. The exhibition was due to open on Saturday evening and will be on display until the end of June. It is an international showcase for the Capital of Culture, cultural manager Frank Weinhold told dpa.
The biennial Venice art exhibition is regarded as the most important presentation of contemporary art alongside documenta in the German city of Kassel.
On Saturday, it started its 60th edition. Under the title "Foreigners Everywhere," it is primarily concerned with migration, exile and the experiences of being foreign.
