GROUP EXHIBITION: From the heart of the city – Thomas Hoepker, Michael Wolf, Stéphane Duroy, Yasuhiro Ogawa, René Groebli, Roger Ballen

The Buchkunst Berlin Gallery is presenting the group exhibition “From the heart of the city” from January 18 to February 22, 2025. The exhibition brings together selected international photographic positions that deal with the transformation of urban territories. The exhibition goes on a photographic search for traces in Berlin, Hong Kong, New York, Chicago, Paris, Kyoto and on the outskirts of Johannesburg. Works by Thomas Hoepker, Michael Wolf, Stéphane Duroy, Yasuhiro Ogawa, René Groebli and Roger Ballen, which were created between 1952 and 2024, are on display.

_
January 18–February 22, 2025
GROUP EXHIBITION: – From the heart of the city
THOMAS HOEPKER
MICHAEL WOLF
STEPHANÉ DUROY
RENÉ GROEBLI
YASUHIRO OGAWA
ROGER BALLEN

We would like to invite you to visit an exhibition in the heart of the city. We look forward to seeing you again in the gallery, where we would like to start the year 2025 together with you with photographic highlights, events and artist talks!

_
PROGRAM
_
VERNISSAGE
Saturday, January 18, 2025, 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Artist talk & book signing with Yasuhiro Ogawa
Curator’s tour with Thomas Gust

_
ARTIST TALK
Thursday, January 23, 2025, 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Artist talk & book signing with Stephané Duroy
Curator’s tour with Thomas Gust

_
SPECIAL EVENT / Berlin Fashion Week
Tuesday, January 28, 2025, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Artist Talk with Michael Somoroff Astonish me! Brodovitch/Somoroff
The invention of the modern fashion and magazine aesthetic
Please register in advance at presse@nadine-dinter.de.

_
BUCHKUNST BERLIN GALLERY
Exhibition duration: December 19, 2024-22. February 2025 Address: Oranienburger Str. 27, 10117 Berlin
Opening hours: Thu–Sat, 2–6 p.m
Contact: +49.(0)30.218 025 40, info@buchkunst-berlin.de
Info: No prior registration necessary, entry is free

_
With the first group exhibition in our gallery in Berlin-Mitte, we reflect on the past year and look to the future together with our artists. We see the gallery, like our city, as a place of arrival, encounters and cultural exchange.

In an essay, Walter Benjamin called Paris the “capital of the 19th century”. The ruptures and changes that Berlin experienced in the twentieth century are so complex and have changed world history, and they all took place here, here between the Scheunenviertel and the Spandauer Vorstadt, beneath the pavement, an epicenter of history, in the heart of the city: a place of arrival for people, artists, new concepts and trends.

Berlin was the proverbial cultural melting pot where new and avant-garde cultural concepts were presented and tested. The echoes were felt in both parts of the city until the 1990s, even during the decades of separation. In the photographs of this period, the war is still present, inscribed in the architecture, continued in everyday life behind the Wall. Berlin is the “capital of the 20th century”.

Stéphane Duroy
Stéphane Duroy’s lyrical colour photographs were taken in West Berlin in the last two decades of division, often near the Wall. Colour becomes a striking stylistic device here. Everything seems to have sunken, an Atlantis, in times of silent war. People often appear as their own shadows.

Dresdener Str., Kreuzberg, Berlin, Germany, March 1980 / Stephane Duroy / Agence VU

In the hours following the fall of the Wall, the French photojournalist managed to capture intense images that show the beginning of an unprecedented historical upheaval and reorganization of Europe. This year we are celebrating the 35th anniversary of the reunification of Germany. And the images of the fall of the Wall are still a sign of the overcoming of dictatorships and the emergence of freedom under a democratic basic order.

The fall of the Berlin Wall / Erbertstr., Berlin Mitte, Germany, December 1989 / Stéphane Duroy / Agence VU

Bouche Str., corner of Harzer Str., Berlin, Germany, December 1988 / Stéphane Duroy / Agence VU

Duroy has also produced compelling series about people’s social coexistence in New York, England, France and various Eastern European countries. For this he has twice received the World Press Photo Award.

Chinatown, New York City, USA, Mai 2003 © Stéphane Duroy | Agence VU _ Titelbild: Mauerfall – Menschenmassen aus Ost und West treffen sich am Potsdamer Platz / 12. November 1989, West-Berlin, Deutschland © Stéphane Duroy | Agence VU

Thomas Hoepker With the two iconic photographs of Muhammad Ali, we remember Thomas Hoepker, who died in July 2024 at the age of 87. The gallery and publisher Buchkunst Berlin had a long-standing friendship and passionate collaboration with the photographer. The two black-and-white photographs of the exceptional athlete, which became icons of the medium, were taken in the summer of 1966 in Chicago, USA.

Muhammad Ali showing off his left fist, Chicago, Illinois, USA, 1966. © Thomas Hoepker | Magnum Photos

Thomas Hoepker, Chicago, Illinois, 1966, Muhammad Ali Showing Off His Left Fist

Muhammad Ali zeigt seine linke Faust, Chicago, Illinois, USA, 1966 © Thomas Hoepker | Magnum Photos

But the city of his life was New York City. Since 1977, the Magnum photographer lived and worked in Manhattan and documented the vibrant life in Kodachrome color photographs.

Schlittschuhläufer im Central Park, New York City, USA, 1982 © Thomas Hoepker | Magnum Photos

Lovers Lane, 1981, New York City, USA © Thomas Hoepker | Magnum Photos

Roger Ballen The Buchkunst Berlin Gallery is proud to present the internationally renowned photographer Roger Ballen with two of his famous portraits from the “Outland” cycle, as well as the later photograph “Nostalgia” (2010). In his work, documentary photography shifts into the realm of fiction.

Portrait of Sleeping Girl, 1999 © Roger Ballen

The two portraits “Sleeping Girl” and “Study of Boy and Plant” are considered key images for the transition from documentary photography to the surreal and psychological theatricality of the following series.

Study of Boy and Plant, 1999 © Roger Ballen

Roger Ballen, born in New York in 1950, is one of the most important photographers of his generation. His work, which spans five decades, began in the field of documentary photography but developed into a distinctive fictionalized world that also integrates the media of film, installation, theater, sculpture, painting and drawing. His works are represented in more than 50 of the most important international museum collections. In 2022, Roger Ballen represented South Africa at the Venice Biennale.

Nostalgia, 2010 © Roger Ballen

René Groebli And of course, Paris, the centre of the arts, the cradle of the avant-garde and the epitome of romanticism, resonates in everything. In 1952, the Swiss photographer René Groebli combined these two aspects to create his photographic cycle “The Eye of Love”, which was created during his honeymoon in Paris in 1952.

René Groebli, The Eye of Love, #521, Paris, 1952

René Groebli, The Eye of Love, #516, Paris, 1952

The series was conceived as an idea of a poem in pictures, a declaration of love to his wife. The almost cinematic series of images, which combines motion blur and romantic photographic staging, continues to inspire to this day. Just two years later, in 1954, the “Seated Back Nude” was acquired by the Department of Photography at MoMA in New York. We have selected two iconic photographs from the series “The Eye of Love” for the exhibition.

Michael Wolf Like no other, Michael Wolf has captured the specific visual aspects of Hong Kong, one of the most densely populated cities in the world, in breathtaking images. We present two large-format works from the “Corner Houses” series. Michael Wolf integrates social elements into his topographical series and asks the question of how we want to live in cities today and in the future.

Michael Wolf, Corner Houses, Hong Kong, #28

Michael Wolf, Corner Houses, Hong Kong, #29

We are also showing photographs from the series “Architecture of Density Scouts”, which Michael Wolf also took in Hong Kong during this period. The documentation of the urban and social aspects of Asia’s megacities, which lasted for over 20 years, has put Michael Wolf in the forefront of international photography.

Yasuhiro Ogawa In the new works from the series “Lost in Kyoto”, the Japanese photographer continues the abstraction of his photographs. Using light and movement, landscapes and objects transform into materiality before the eyes of the viewer.

Yasuhiro Ogawa, Lost in Kyoto, Kimono Woman, #6, 2024

Yasuhiro Ogawa, Lost in Kyoto, Kimono Woman, #5, 2024

Geheimnisvolle Frauen in Kimonos und leuchtende, vielfarbige Blüten – Fotografien aus dem Kosmos einer spirituellen Realität, die einen abstrakten und zugleich magischen Realismus verkörpern. Wir freuen uns, den Künstler zur Vernissage willkommen zu heißen und gemeinsam mit ihm seine neuen Arbeiten zu präsentieren.

In this group exhibition we travel through the cities and the decades, on the wings of the medium of photography, which will be two hundred years old in just a few strokes of time. We visit the places that have become important to our work and our lives, that inspire and change us. We would like to invite you on this journey of discovery!

All photographs are available in limited editions. We are happy to give you more information about the available works and to assist you in selecting a print. Contact Galerie Buchkunst Berlin by email at info@buchkunst-berlin.de or by phone at +49.30.21802540 to discuss your interests or to arrange a personal appointment.

_
SPECIAL EVENT / Berlin Fashion Week
Tuesday, January 28, 2025, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Artist Talk with Michael Somoroff
Astonish me! Brodovitch/Somoroff
The invention of the modern fashion and magazine aesthetic
Please register in advance at presse@nadine-dinter.de.

BUCHKUNST BERLIN GALLERY
Exhibition period: January 18th – February 22nd, 2025
Address: Oranienburger Str. 27, 10117 Berlin
Opening hours: Thurs – Sat, 2 p.m. – 6 p.m.
Contact: +49.(0)30.218 025 40, info@buchkunst-berlin.de
Info: Keine vorherige Anmeldung nötig, Eintritt frei

_
Restaurant & Bar Hummus & Friends
The exhibition is on display until 22 February 2025 and is open to the public through our partner restaurant Hummus & Friends from Monday to Sunday between 12 noon and 6 pm (with exceptions for special events).
hummus-and-friends.com