How to navigate 10,000 images? The six-week European Month of Photography festival (October 15-November 28) pastes Berlin’s topography into a city-wide ‘scrapbook’. From its hub at Berlinische Galerie, exhibitions (150!) radiate out into 100 venues of various kinds.
The festival – held concurrently in seven European cities, from Paris and Vienna to Moscow and Bratislava – is now in its fourth year. The Berlin chapter, run by KulturForumBerlin (also responsible for Lange Nacht Der Museen) maps out the city’s photographic history: Berlin’s Forgotten Centre (October 10-March 27; Stadtmuseum) exhibits archival images of Mitte from 1840 onwards, while Arno Fischer’s solo show Project Berlin (October 15-November 28; Berlinische Galerie) explores the post-World War II, pre-Wall period through his street-life photos from 1953-1960. Christian von Steffelin’s Palace Viewpoint (October 23-November 27; berg19 raum für fotografie) observes the rapid transformation of post-reunification Berlin from the perspective of the Palast der Republik, and Otaño Ugarte’s Berlin-Mitte Underground, 1991-1996 (October 16- November 20; Galerie ZeitZone) recalls a time when squats still ruled in Mitte and Berlin was still cheap. Time Travel (October 16-December 7; Galerie Orange) jumpcuts to the present with 10 years-worth of images from the local Fotomarathon. In Through the Night (October 16-November 19; Galerie Ina Köhler), Sebastian Klug’s grainy night shots show the city as it is now: a roving noctambule wandering from bar to squat party to club – poor, sexy and totally unfocused. Which brings us bang up to date…
The MdF continues into November: watch out for some exciting big-name exhibitions (Nan Goldin, Garry Winogrand, László Moholy-Nagy).
EUROPÄISCHER MONAT DER FOTOGRAFIE BERLIN | October 15-November 28. For more information, visit www.mdf-berlin.de
