Exhibitions: Color for the Republik

Although this exhibition in the Berlin Deutsches Historisches Museum is advertized as showing 'contract photography' in the former communist German Democratic Republic, it actually contains work by 2 photographers only: Kurt Schwarzer and Martin Schmidt. Nevertheless, their photos are quite representative for the kind of insipid propaganda the former regime preferred. Although the photographers' mastery is obvious, their contract work contains the ever the same concept: a seemingly idyllic group of citizens enjoying an "accomplishment" of the socialist state. However, the photos are all eerily posed, and often reveal a bland background. Or the pose is so artificial that they become noncredible. They do remind one of similar photos from the 50s era in the West, but here the look never changed till the end of the German separation in 1989. So, instead of demonstrating any achievements or progress, the exhibition proves that the Eastern German state existed in an uncomfortable aesthetic standstill. Quite fascinating indeed.