Leipzig Leisure
The Fifties and SixtiesPhotographs by Wolfgang G. Schröter
18th February – 26th April 2009
Studio exhibition
Opening on Tuesday, 17th February, 6:00 pm
Things could only get better in eastern Germany after the absolute zero at the end of the war in 1945. The rubble was removed from the cities, the infrastructure was reconstructed, factories rebuilt.
But the ruling party moved into all fields of public and private life with full force. The people of Leipzig found private freedom in the trendy nightspots, at the legendary Cafe Hennersdorf (“Corso”) – this was where the Leipzig Bohemian circles met - and “Grüne Schänke”, [“The Green Tavern“] which was Leipzig’s main dance hall. The viewers can decide for themselves who of those visiting the “Blaufuchs“ [“Blue Fox“] and Cafe am Naschmarkt belonged to the glitzy or to the rather shady circles of the world. Electronic flash had just been invented and fast movements could be frozen within an ultra-short duration time. The merry-go-rounds of the funfair, ping-pong balls in the students’ dormitory or the mouth of the hippo at the zoo lent themselves as fields for experimentation. City park car and motorbike races were held in the immediate vicinity of the Academy of Visual Arts where W.G. Schröter studied from 1949 until 1953 – and proved to be an ideal field of practice for the portrayal of fast movements for the students. There was tension in the air as the engines were roaring in Clara Zetkin Park and motorbikes and racing cars sped through Anton Bruckner Allee or Karl Tauchnitz Stra�e, where only a few bales of straw provided protection. Only few traces of rubble are to be seen. Schröter’s photographs focus on life. The exhibition shows approximately 60 pictures from his oeuvre spanning almost 60 years. |
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