This is an image from the new exhibition über leben (On Living) at the German Historical Museum in Berlin.
It was not surprising to read that it is an exhibition of West German photography of the East. Why? Because West Germans still run the majority of the country’s institutions and still favour their own tribe.* But the image itself bears the trace of a Western view of the East. It is a visual cliche. I don’t deny that for a Westerner like me, it still remains powerful in its strangeness. But I don’t recall any photos like this in the exhibition of East German photography, Ostzeit, held in 2009.
*Angela Merkel is an East German, I’ll give you that. But she’s a Christian Democrat, so……..
