Photography Exhibition Barbara Klemm: Helldunkel - Light and Dark

The Goethe-Institut Philippinen is inviting everyone to an exhibition by one of Germany's most distinguished photographers, Barbara Klemm. The exhibition entitled “Barbara Klemm: Helldunkel - Light and Dark” will be held at Ninoy Aquino Library and Resource Center, Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) Manila and is open every Monday to Saturday, 8am to 5pm, from June 21, 2018 to August 3, 2018. Before the exhibition formally opens, an opening program will be held at the same venue on June 20, 2018 at 6:00pm. 
  Barbara Klemm is one of the most outstanding chroniclers of recent Germany. In her Helldunkel – Light and Dark exhibition, photographs taken before and after the unification of East and West Germany will be displayed to give visitors an overview of the last forty years of German history. It includes Klemm’s black and white photographs from every sphere of society: from politics, culture and the economy, photos that capture unique and often tense moments as well as plain everyday life, photos of demonstrations, protests, and of immigrants, of cultural events, mass gatherings, and urban spaces.
 

Exhibition Flyer

Following the opening of the exhibition on June 20 are lectures about “Documentary Photography in Germany” by Dr. Ursula Zeller, the curator of the exhibition. The first lecture will be held at Bulwagang Balagtas, Ninoy Aquino Library and Resource Center, PUP Manila, on June 21, 2pm to 5pm, while the second lecture will be held the following day, June 22, at the School of Design and Arts Campus, De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde, on the same time. 
 

Schedule of events:

June 20, 2018 (Wednesday) | 3rd floor, Ninoy Aquino Library and Resource Center, Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) Mabini Campus, Sta. Mesa, Manila
6:00PM | EXHIBITION OPENING PROGRAM
 
June 21, 2018 – August 3, 2018 | Ninoy Aquino Library and Resource Center, Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) Mabini Campus, Sta. Mesa, Manila
8:00AM to 5:00PM | EXHIBITION RUNNING DATE
2:00PM to 5:00PM | LECTURE ON “DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY IN GERMANY” BY DR. URSULA ZELLER
 
June 22, 2018 | Cinema, 12th Floor, School of Design and Arts Campus, De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde
2:00PM to 5:00PM | LECTURE ON “DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY IN GERMANY” BY DR. URSULA ZELLER

July 5, 2018 | NALLRC Multimedia Room, Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) Mabini Campus, Sta. Mesa, Manila
9:00AM to 10:30PM |  LECTURE ON “VERFREMDUNGSEFFEKT” BERTOLT BRECHT AND THE ALIENATION EFFECT IN THEATRE" BY PROF. BELY YGOT

July 13, 2018 | NALLRC Multimedia Room, Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) Mabini Campus, Sta. Mesa, Manila
2:00PM to 5:00PM | LECTURE ON "THE POST-HEGELIAN MARX AND THE PRAXIS OF PHILOSOPHY" BY PROF. JAYSON JIMENEZ

July 17, 2018 | NALLRC Multimedia Room, Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) Mabini Campus, Sta. Mesa, Manila
2:00PM to 5:00PM | LECTURE ON “SCHELLING’S NATURPHILOSPHIE AND THE NATURE THAT MUST ESCAPE” BY PROF. VIRGILIO S. RIVAS

July 18, 2018 | NALLRC Multimedia Room, Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) Mabini Campus, Sta. Mesa, Manila
2:00PM to 5:00PM | LECTURE ON “THE PHILOSOPHY OF WALTER BENJAMIN” BY PROF. JESUS EMMANUEL VILLAFUERTE

July 24, 2018 | NALLRC Multimedia Room, Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) Mabini Campus, Sta. Mesa, Manila
2:00PM to 5:00PM | PANEL DISCUSSION on PHILIPPINE ENGAGEMENT WITH GERMANY: IN RETROSPECT

August 02, 2018 | NALLRC Multimedia Room, Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) Mabini Campus, Sta. Mesa, Manila
2:00PM to 5:00PM | LECTURE ON "IMMANUEL KANT: HOW MORALITY IS INCITED BY BEAUTY AND PURPOSIVENESS" BY PROF. KRISTOFFER BOLAÑOS

 

About Barbara Klemm and the exhibition:

 
This solo exhibition presents photographs by one of Germany's most distinguished photographers. Spanning forty years, Barbara Klemm’s works bear witness to Germany's recent history, in a country that was divided for decades. Many of her pictures have become “icons of contemporary history”, shaping the cultural memory of several generations. She has created a body of photographs which combine the documentary and the artistic in a manner seldom encountered in German press photography. She adds her own perspective to the documentary genre, following artistic principles of composition.

  Barbara Klemm © ifa Although the majority of these photos were commissioned for the daily newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung they represent far more than coverage of the day's events. Barbara Klemm first joined the newspaper in 1959, working in the photo lab and producing photographic plates, before becoming a photographer on the editorial board for art, culture and politics in 1970. Her commissioned work for the newspaper took her to many of the most important events and places in the Federal Republic of Germany, the German Democratic Republic and in numerous other countries. Photos of East and West Germany before and after unification are clearly the focus of this exhibition. It includes pictures from every sphere of society: from politics, culture and the economy, photos that capture unique and often tense moments as well as plain everyday life, photos of demonstrations, protests, and of immigrants, of cultural events, mass gatherings, and urban spaces. And again and again, Barbara Klemm portrays people in those rare moments of being that make life so special.
 
Barbara Klemm’s photographs stand for concrete social reality. Her sure sense of the true essence of an event allows her to capture moments that tell stories far beyond what the pictures seem to show at first glance. These photos are “action in condensed form”, as Klemm puts it, and thus also a condensed image of history. Her photos of the fall of the Berlin Wall are a dramatic climax to her own narrative of history, and in retrospect, her earlier photos from both sides of the Wall seem to be tracing the two Germanies on their path towards reunification, while her later photos closely observe the consequences of the new order.



The “Barbara Klemm: Helldunkel - Light and Dark” is an exhibition by the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen e. V. (ifa), Stuttgart, Germany, www.ifa.de and is presented by the Goethe-Institut Philippinen in partnership with the PUP University Center for the Culture and the Arts (UCCA). 


Barbara Klemm: Helldunkel Light and Dark

Back