The Haus am Kleistpark presents a retrospective of the life’s work of the great photo enthusiast and publisher Hansgert Lambers. In pictures spanning seven decades, taken in Barcelona, East and West Berlin, London, Ostrava, Paris, and Prague, Lambers’ humanistic and curious interest in people is palpable. He depicted a world that has to large degree disappeared, overbuilt and overwritten by the now.
Image above: © Hansgert Lambers, West-Berlin, Kreuzberg, Friedrichstraße, 1975
In his work happiness, eroticism, sadness, and the hardships of life appear as states of existence belonging to the human condition. Whether capturing the great discrepancy between the anonymity of massive housing complexes and the lonely presence of a child playing, or a small moment of intimate happiness in a rather inhospitable environment in Ostrava in the former Czechoslovakia, the stories his photographs tell unfold in viewers’ minds.
Although Hansgert Lambers never devoted himself to photography professionally, he has taken photographs nearly all his life, and, for many, his work remains to be discovered. He took his first pictures at the age of 14, and at 19 owned his first Leica. Lambers describes himself as a “lover of photography” and has devoted himself to it not only as a photographer, but as a publisher and reviewer as well. As an author, however, he has dedicated himself to his pictures alone. His photographic interest has always been people, mainly in cities. Lambers’ profession as an IMB employee also took him to socialist countries, where he was able to photograph quite a bit, especially in the ex-Czechoslovakia. As a publisher he made a name for himself with books such as Photographing Women in the DDR (1991), which he brought out with cultural scientist Gabriele Muschter.
On the occasion of the exhibition, FOTOHOG Salzburg will be publishing a monograph. For the venue a 32-minute filmic portrait of Hansgert Lambers was produced.
Curated by Matthias Reichelt.
Hansgert Lambers was born in Hanover in 1937; 1957 university studies in Berlin (Dipl.Ing.); between 1965–1993 systems analyst at IBM, including six years in eastern Europe; he has been taking photographs since 1951, from 1956 onward with a Leica. Image and text publications on photography; beginning in 1974 exhibitions of his photo- graphs in Berlin, Hanover, Klimkovice (Czech Republic), Lwówek Śląski (Poland), Moravská Třebová (Czech Republic), Ostrava (Czech Republic), Tallinn (Estonia), Toronto (Canada), and Vienna, among others; in addition, exhibition curator and founder in 1986 of the publishing imprint ex pose (www.expose-verlag.de); Lambers lives in Berlin.
WHEN?
Opening: Thursday, 9. June 2022, 6 bis 9 pm (Talk circa 7 pm)
Exhibition dates: Friday, 10. June to Sunday, 7. August 2022
Dialogical tour with Julia Rosenbaum and Hansgert Lambers: Wednesday, 22. June 2022, 7pm
Discussion between Dr Matthias Harder and Hansgert Lambers: Thursday, 14. July 2022, 7pm
WHERE?
Haus am Kleistpark
Grunewaldstraße 6–7
10823 Berlin
