Text by Wolf Biermann, Günter Kunert, Eva Windmöller.
In DDR Views, Thomas Hoepker (born 1936) documents life in East Germany from 1959 to the fall of the Berlin Wall: photos of children playing along the wall, party rallies, propaganda posters, ramshackle old façades from the Imperial Era and new apartment blocks, images of Sunday outings and empty supermarket display cases, all tell the tale of a nation that is no more.
"Views of the DDR--a fine title, given that the word "views" has multiple connotations: Each view of the object documented simultaneously reveals the views of Hoepker as the photographing subject. He is certainly neither an aesthetic formal purist nor a scandal-crazed snapshooter aiming from the hip. He does not serve up impartial, comic snapshots! These photographs are proof: Hoepker defends imperfect, even the worst democracy against the best dictatorship. He prefers uncomfortable freedom to comfortable oppression. Sympathy and even forbearance towards the weaknesses of the people, but tolerance for the intolerance of their oppressors--never!"
Wolf Biermann, excerpted from the foreword to DDR Views.
FORMAT: Hbk, 11 x 10.25 in. / 256 pgs / 117 color / 84 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $55.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $72.5 ISBN: 9783775728133 PUBLISHER: Hatje Cantz AVAILABLE: 10/31/2011 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of print AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: NA LA
Published by Hatje Cantz. Text by Wolf Biermann, Günter Kunert, Eva Windmöller.
In DDR Views, Thomas Hoepker (born 1936) documents life in East Germany from 1959 to the fall of the Berlin Wall: photos of children playing along the wall, party rallies, propaganda posters, ramshackle old façades from the Imperial Era and new apartment blocks, images of Sunday outings and empty supermarket display cases, all tell the tale of a nation that is no more.
