Gabriele und Helmut Nothelfer
Unter Menschen gehen
03.05. – 09.06.2013

We wrote about the first exhibition of our photographs, which took place in 1974 in the Bali cinema in West Berlin:

We show festive moments: moments in which people rise above their everyday lives, whether to edify themselves in the indivisibility of the nation in the company of all well-wishers, or to bask in the glory that falls from a prize-winning dog onto its owner, or to reassure themselves in a solemn procession on the feast of the Eucharist that they are among the redeemed.

If anyone nevertheless senses a moment of sadness in our pictures, then they should not blame us. Perhaps it is the poverty of everyday life, of production and working conditions, that still shines through in these festive moments.

Today, when we reread this text, we are amazed at our confidence at the time: the clearly defined concept of “alienated leisure” guided us in finding and selecting the subjects; however, swept away by the maelstrom of history and our photos, we now see that these images cannot be locked into a concept.

So our project has evolved, unpredictably and difficult to explain. Nevertheless, we firmly believe that we are still working on the same thing. We are now guided above all by the magical space created by the gaze and posture of the people photographed, their charisma: a tension of repulsion and attraction that simultaneously includes and excludes us (as well as the viewer), thus assigning us our place.

The political and social climate inevitably appears in our images. Like everyone else, we have our opinion on this. But we believe it is better to let the viewer enter here alone and unguided, where he can perhaps discover himself.

Gabriele and Helmut Nothhelfer

Curated by Klaus Becké.