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Creatives, investors, developers and the right-wing all sought to mould the German capital's future following its unification. In an exhibition spotlighting the archive of the city's prevailing photo agency, these stories come together.
Annette Hauschild, Wrapped Reichstag, the final night, Berlin, 1995 © Annette Hauschild/OSTKREUZ. For the wrapped Reichstag: Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 © Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2024
Words ANDREW WRIGHT
There was only one place to begin Dream On – Berlin, the 90s, the retrospective shedding new light on the long 90s in the German capital, via the vital photojournalism of OSTKREUZ. And that would be, the moment that changed everything. November 9th, 1989 – the night the wall fell.
Words, whether hearsay, genuine anecdotes or reportage, can only go so far in conveying a moment in history of such unquantifiable magnitude. But, thankfully, Werner Mahler and his lens were on the ground on that transformative night, 35 years ago. The photographer would co-found Berlin’s OSTKREUZ the following year, instrumental in turning it into one of Europe’s most critically cherished photo agencies, renowned for its documentary-driven, austere vignettes of life in the changing city and beyond.
On November 9th, he accompanied crowds as they surged towards the wall’s checkpoints, following an equivocal government announcement on changes in border policy. An uncoordinated decision would subsequently be made by guards, under pressure at the scale of the gathering, to lift the barriers dividing East and West. “There was a lot of confusion,” Boaz Levin, one of the exhibition’s curators and Co-Head of Program at C/O Berlin, where it is showing, tells me. “And [Mahler captured] the euphoria but also disbelief in the air when people, for the first time, crossed what was, until a moment before, a death zone.”
While the first beats of the exhibition at the Berlin photography and visual media centre might look to one of the most recognisable junctures in Germany’s modern history, a divergent range of stories are unearthed in the roads that follow. As a society undergoing social and economic metamorphosis, an image of the capital as a nexus of opportunity, counterculture and, of course, techno would form in the minds of on-lookers as the 90s unravelled – and continue to define it in the 2020s. “That was a huge part of this decade, but it wasn't everything,” Levin says. “There’s a certain narrative and I think it's a really interesting moment to reassess that.”
“It wasn't only the squatters and the investors who pushed their vision [for Berlin],” he continues. “There were also the developers who saw a hugely lucrative opportunity in the amount of open free space. And then, of course, the right-wing who banked on the sense of nationalist euphoria and tried to capitalise on people's anxieties and uncertainty.” The presence of these competing propositions, documented in the work featured – spanning over 200 images, many previously unpublished – presents a re-focussed picture. “It's a bit further from the myth that the city was just cheaper and everything was nice. It's more like: ‘Okay, there was actually a whole political dynamic and that came to define how we experience Berlin today.”
Sitting down with Man About Town, Levin details the process of sifting through OSTKREUZ’s vast archive with co-curator and agency member Annette Hauschild, the untold stories that shaped the decade’s legacy on the city and how looking back can aid the protection of Berlin’s cultural dynamism for years to come…
Werner Mahler, Fall of the Wall, Berlin, 1989, from the series, November 9, 1989“ © Werner Mahler/OSTKREUZ
Hi, Boaz. Congratulations on Dream On – Berlin, The 90s. What are you hoping visitors take away from viewing the exhibition?
I imagine we probably have two types of visitors – the Berliners who are eager to revisit the period, people who have experienced these events which really shaped the city and our lives. And the other type is people of my generation who are coming and seeing this for the first time and are maybe learning about a historical period which they knew, but only superficially from the myths or the club culture and the techno. But, that was within the context of huge societal upheaval.
A lot of the societal tensions and a lot of the questions that the city has been dealing with in the last decade have origins in the 90s. That was the defining moment, whether regarding social housing, equity, the radical right or questions around commemoration and the way the unification was dealt with. These are all questions that were fiercely debated, protested and acted upon during that decade.
Take me back to the beginning of the project – what were the early motivations?
Well, it's the 35th anniversary of the fall of the wall. And, the project was initiated by Annette Hauschild, a photographer from OSTKREUZ, and she co-created the project with me. She joined the agency in the 90s and established herself then also in Berlin. She was really keen on revisiting the archives of the agency's members and looking back at the period and material that wasn't necessarily exhibited much, reassessing what's interesting to exhibit now, what photos or series might tell us a different story that we might not necessarily have focused on in the 90s, or which weren't a priority but now seem important. So, for her, that was part of the drive.
And the 90s was such a formative time for the agency because they were founded shortly after the fall of the wall, by seven East German photographers. It was a coming of age for them as well as for the city. So looking back at this period also involved looking back at the period in which they, as photographers, found their footing and established this very special organisation. It's an artist-owned photo agency, it's collectively managed and it became, over the years, one of the most important, if not, the leading photo agency in Germany, despite the fact that many of [its photographers] came from Eastern Germany. East Germans often had the short straw in unification, but this is one case in which they banded together and organised an incredibly successful cooperative.
And for us, in C/O Berlin, 2025 will be the year in which we celebrate our 25th anniversary. Over the years, we've done several important projects with OSTKREUZ and, like OSTKREUZ, we're also a photo institution that is initiated by artists, by photographers and was independently founded and run. So it’s also a moment for us to take stock.
Sibylle Bergemann, Fallow land by the Berlin Wall at Potsdamer Platz, Berlin, 1990 © Estate Sibylle Bergemann/OSTKREUZ
It feels like a perfect moment for reflection on all fronts. In terms of looking back, working with Annette so intimately on the project must have been amazing, because you had someone at your disposal who experienced the era firsthand and could guide you through the images from that perspective. Are there any stories of going through the archive with her that really stick out?
There are over 30 series in the exhibition, so there's so many stories. But, for me, one which I find really, really stuck with me was Annette’s own series called “Unser Haus”, which would translate as “Our House”, also a quote from a famous song about a famous squat in Berlin. It’s a series that she had also previously, as far as I know, never shown, and it documents her time in a squat, living with close friends and comrades from the time. It’s an intimate portrait of the squat, of the apartment, but also of the protest and the societal upheaval around the question of housing and urban development. It was during the time when there were a lot of protests against the plan to have the Olympics in Berlin. Her portrait of her own intimate group is something very youthful and beautiful but, at the same time, acute and prescient in how it foreshadows a lot of these questions that have remained incredibly important for the city and have animated public debate ever since.
The process of sifting through such a wealth of work and whittling it down must have, at times, felt insurmountable. How did you do it?
The group worked very closely together over the years and everyone had his or her opinion of what they thought were the best series, so [deciding which to include] was a really long ongoing conversation that we all had. Annette was the one who first went through the archives and made the first suggestions, knowing the archives best, and we just discussed which we would like to include. That was something that was really going on until the last minute.
I think what was helpful was that we set a chapter structure quite early on. We have four chapters, and each one is roughly organised around a certain tension or contradiction. So, for instance, the first one is titled “Departure and Farewell”, and then we have “A City Disappears”, “A City Emerges”, “New Liberties”, “Odd Convictions” and the last is “Welcome To Utopia?”. They're all in a sense [focused] around a certain tension, certain questions that came with each change. And once we had that structure of the chapters and narrowed it down to four, because prior there was more, that came to define what belonged and what didn't contribute to the narrative.
Thomas Meyer, from the series “Tresor“, Berlin, 2000 © Thomas Meyer/OSTKREUZ
You mentioned how re-visiting the images in this day and age has been so fascinating because it shines a light on new narratives that were present amid the city's transformation, but were less understood at the time. What do you think the modern day tells us about the era?
I think what I came to understand through the exhibition, and it’s what I love about working on these type of shows, is that, through the process, you have a hypothesis, but you slowly learn something more about the subject. And, in this case, what for me became clear is that it's true that this was an age of lots of possibility and change and flux. But what is often neglected is that there were competing visions for the city at the time. For instance, on the one hand, there were people pushing for social use of public space for counterculture, for the founding of the Berlin Bienniale, there was the proliferation of squats after 89 and all of these things that play a huge role. But, at the same time, there were also these developers coming and managing to do something like Potsdamer Platz, the first privately owned, public space project, which came to define this era also. So I think that's really interesting.
With regards to the cultural explosion (the emergence of the techno, punk, queer and art scenes, in particular) that took place – do you think modern-day Berlin holds those contributions in high enough regard?
I think politically there's a tendency to neglect the legacy or maybe not value just how important it has been and how much of a contribution it has had to the city, and the fact that it is really what's attracted so many people to the city and what's made it what it is and what the majority of its inhabitants like about it. I do think that's still under-valued. And I don't think it's acknowledged enough, at least by the political class and the other visions that undermine that [cultural vision].
What do you think looking back, via the images of OSTKREUZ, can teach us about nurturing and protecting the Berlin culture that people love so much in the years to come?
I hope people think not just in a nostalgic way and see [changes in the city] as something that has been inevitable, something that just happened because that's just the way inevitably it would have happened anywhere else. But, rather, look at these processes and look at them as an ongoing struggle, as a fight for values over values. I hope they look also at the present and think of what our priorities are, how we want the city to look and the things we value about it. And not resign ourselves to thinking that the way the city develops is something that just happens, but rather see this as the result of conscious decisions and priorities that are set on a political level, but also on a public and discursive level, and it's on all of us to engage and really make our voices heard or vote or protest, write about it or take photos and engage with these competing visions of the city and make sure that it's not something we just are resigned to accept.
Dream On – Berlin, The 90s is showing at C/O Berlin until January 22nd 2025
