Everyone has at one time been cornered at a party by that veteran Berliner who can’t stop banging on about how great the 90s were. Back then, they’ll say, Berlin was so cheap, people could afford to have a different apartment for every day of the week and techno parties would go on for three days straight, with Bowie and Hasselhoff manning the turntables. (They’re usually high.)
That post-wall era of punks and parties has become so mythologised in the city’s collective memory that seeing Dream On – Berlin, the 90s at C/O Berlin, featuring images from the Ostkreuz collective of photographers, comes as a bit of a shock. Instead of wild, carefree energy, the photos show a city and people who look exhausted and careworn, filled with depictions of grey-suited men surveying construction sites and children playing in desolate courtyards. You can’t help but wonder if we dodged a bullet by arriving a bit later. Sure, finding a flat is tricky, but at least Berlin’s now an attractive place to
Like a teenager with an identity crisis, post-Wall Berlin seems torn between conflicting expectations.live.
Founded in 1990, the Ostkreuz collective is by far the most renowned photography agency in Germany. Positioned perfectly to capture the extremes of Berlin’s post-wall transformation, their photos reveal a city split in two. On one side, it’s a burgeoning party capital; on the other, it’s buckling under the strain of urban degradation and rampant redevelopment. Like a teenager with an identity crisis, post-Wall Berlin seems torn between conflicting expectations.
A dominant political class was pressuring it to embrace capitalist ideals and reflect its new/old role as the capital of Europe’s biggest economy. But a counterculture youth scene had other ideas. “Dad,” Berlin implores, “I just want to dance!” In photo after photo, young dancers sprawl out into the city. Fuelled by techno and the success of Love Parade, we see images of clubbers emerge blinking into the bright morning light – even taking over a small canal jetty just to continue the party.
But for every photo of a topless raver leaving Tresor after an all-nighter, there’s a comparative image of right-wing extremism and social decay. In Ute Mahler’s photographic series following the life of ‘Bomber’, a young neo-Nazis father stomping around Lichtenberg, the black-and-white photos could have been taken in the 1930s. The uniform hasn’t changed, still consisting of those thuggish black boots and dark suspenders.
While the western world was settling into the first series of Friends and the struggles of Ross Geller to raise his son, ‘Bomber’ was teaching his toddlers how to Sieg Heil. In what is otherwise a pleasant domestic scene, with a carton of orange juice on the table, we see the children smiling as their little arms flap in the air in front of them.
What became of them, you wonder? By now full-grown adults, did they follow their father’s example? Are they spraying swastikas around Neukölln? Or maybe they turned into model Berlin citizens and, with their clubbing days behind them, are overseeing the closing down of Renate and Watergate, dismantling the dancefloors, ready for a new residential development.
The truth is that tug-of-war for the soul of the city is ongoing. And this exhibition turns it into a simplified equation, an endless generational process of thwarted imperialist ambitions, remodelled and reshaped by idealistic hedonism. Berlin was at a crossroad in the 1990s, scrabbling around for an identity that it seems no closer to finding now. Perhaps it’s the fate of this city to be in a permanent state of transition? Forever transforming into something amorphous and indefinite.
In the penultimate room of the exhibition, Anne Schönharting’s series captures portraits of Berlin’s teenagers in 1999, surrounded by posters of Britney Spears and a Titanic-era Leonardo DiCaprio. This was the first generation to come of age knowing only the beautiful mess of a reunited Berlin. Now in their 40s, they’re no doubt enthralling a new generation of Berliners with stories of the flat abundance of the late 2000s. The cycle continues and, with any luck, the Ostkreuz agency will still be around to document their journey as well.
- Dream On – Berlin, the 90s runs through Jan 22, 2025 at C/O Berlin, Amerika Haus, Hardenbergstr. 22-24, Charlottenburg, details.
