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The Kunsthalle Göppingen is currently presenting a solo exhibition by Sibylle Bergemann, organized in cooperation with the Estate Sibylle Bergemann, titled “Sibylle Bergemann. Photography 1966–2010.”

Sibylle Bergemann (1941–2010) developed a multifaceted body of work over more than four decades, encompassing cityscapes as well as fashion and portrait photography, alongside essayistic reportages. Her images move between dream and social reality and are characterized by a precise, often poetic visual composition. Recurring themes such as the city and portraits of women, as well as her photographic travels to Dakar, Moscow, New York, and Paris, structure her work.

As part of the exhibition, a talk will take place with Frieda von Wild and Lily von Wild, the photographer’s daughter and granddaughter, who manage the Estate Sibylle Bergemann.

Talk with the Estate: June 11, 2026, 7 pm

Duration: until June 28, 2026

Location: Kunsthalle Göppingen

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The Museum of Modern Art, Hayama will present the exhibition “Unprecedented: Women Photographers from the GDR” from mid-June, featuring Ute Mahler.

Women who built careers as photographers in the GDR before its dissolution in 1990 and created outstanding artistic works embody a perspective that has often been overlooked in the study of the history of German photography.

The exhibition presents fifteen East German women photographers whose work continues to have an impact today. It invites not only Japanese audiences to reflect on the role their works played in shaping visual culture in the former GDR.

Opening: June 13, 2026

Duration: June 13 to August 30, 2026

Location: Museum of Modern Art, Hayama

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The exhibition “Human Topographies. Art Collection Deutsche Börse” brings together around 60 works from the 1950s to the present by more than 25 international artists, including Sibylle Bergemann as well as Ute Mahler and Werner Mahler.

In the exhibition curated by Cornelia Siebert, selected works are presented that make visible the diverse facets of human-shaped living environments. These range from densely built Asian megacities to North American metropolises and small towns on the German and French periphery, to the vast expanses of sparsely populated landscapes in the American Midwest—as well as the many variations in between. The works on display illustrate the wide range of ways in which landscape, architecture, and human presence can interact.

Duration: until August 16, 2026

Location: Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, Eschborn

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Jörg Brüggemann's three-part series ‘Tres Viajes’ is on display at the Robert Morat Gallery in Berlin until the end of May. It is an exploration of Chile, its nature and its people, as well as an examination of the complex relationships that develop between individuals. 

The exhibition consists of the series ‘Mi madre tiene novio’ (2018), ‘El derecho de vivir en paz’ (2019) and ‘Aguas que no has de beber’ (2022). As part of the exhibition, Ingo Taubhorn will hold an artist talk with Jörg Brüggemann about his work. 

The book Tres Viajes is published by Hartmann Books.

Artist talk: 7 March 2026, 4 p.m.

Exhibition: until 21 March 2026

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In 2024, Espen Eichhöfer was selected by the jury of the Norwegian Journal of Photography as one of eight photographers to receive a grant from the Fritt Ord Foundation to realise his series Deep Black Well. Excerpts from this work are now being published for the first time in the new issue of the Norwegian Journal of Photography. 

For this project, Eichhöfer has been photographing in Norway for two and a half years, based on his examination of the changes in Norwegian society after the country was able to build up immense oil wealth. He asks himself what happens to the people and identity of a country that actually exudes simplicity and sobriety.

Book presentation: 6 March 2026, 6 p.m.

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Anne Schönhartings fotografisches Langzeitprojekt „Habitat“ ist Teil der von Pia Goebel kuratierten Ausstellung „Zuhause / at home“ im Osthaus Museum Hagen. Diese widmet sich aktuellen künstlerischen Perspektiven auf

Anne Schönharting's long-term photographic project ‘Habitat’ is part of the exhibition ‘Zuhause / at home’ curated by Pia Goebel at the Osthaus Museum Hagen. The exhibition is dedicated to current artistic perspectives on living, shelter and accommodation. Paintings, photographs, drawings, sculptures, video works and installations by 20 contemporary artists revolve around the home as a place, but also around being at home as a feeling. 

In 2012, Anne Schönharting began photographing the residents of Berlin-Charlottenburg in their natural habitat. Over a period of 10 years, she portrayed and staged people and their homes in this traditional Berlin neighbourhood. In her carefully composed images, we see people and their homes in wondrous situations.

The book of the same name, ‘Habitat / Berlin-Charlottenburg’, published by Hartmann Books, can be purchased at the OSTKREUZ Shop.

Opening: 27 February 2026, 6 p.m.

Duration: 28 February to 21 June 2026

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Coinciding with the Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina, Galerie Springer Berlin is presenting a solo exhibition of Sebastian Wells' works on the Olympic Games since 2016. In ‘ARENA,’ Sebastian Wells examines the Olympic Games as a global mass spectacle and questions the media, spatial and social mechanisms that shape this event. His work deliberately opposes heroic, nationally charged visual traditions of sport and draws attention to the structures that give rise to perception, attention and meaning in the first place.

At the same time,  Spector Verlag is publishing the first volume of the two-part publication ‘ARENA, Take 1: Facing the Spectacle,’ designed by the Scrollan collective. A performative lecture with Sebastian Wells will take place as part of the exhibition.

Opening: 20 February 2026, 6 to 9 p.m.

Performative lecture: 27 February 2026, 7 p.m.

Duration: 21 February to 4 April 2026

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Excerpts from Ute Mahler and Werner Mahler's long-term project ‘Ein Dorf 1950-2022’ (A Village 1950-2022) are part of the exhibition ‘Community. Photography and Community’ curated by Linda Conze at the Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, which highlights the multifaceted relationship between photography and community in history and the present. 

Early works by Ludwig Schirmer, Ute Mahler's father, are also part of and the starting point for the extraordinary project ‘Ein Dorf’ (A Village), which spans 70 years and paints a multi-layered portrait of a village in Thuringia: Berka. Three perspectives, three generations – and a family history that tells of change and continuity, of leaving and returning, of the familiar and the new.

Duration: until 25 May 2026

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On January 2, 2026, the new edition of Ost-Berlin was delivered as one of the first books released in the new year. It is the 15th printing of the 7th edition of the volume jointly curated by Harald Hauswald and the writer Lutz Rathenow. For more than 20 years, the book has been a perennial bestseller of Jaron Verlag, repeatedly succeeding in generating new resonances in the present day.

In the autumn, Harald Hauswald presented two successful exhibitions in Chile and the United States. His solo exhibition featuring 87 photographs from the book—taken in East Berlin in the late 1980s and smuggled from East Berlin to Texas, USA—is still on view until the end of January at the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus in the German Bundestag.

On Monday, January 26 at 6:00 pm, Brotfabrik Berlin will screen the documentary film “Zärtlich kreist die Faust”, followed by an introduction and a discussion. The film is a diary-style documentary from February 1990 about the writer Lutz Rathenow, first broadcast by ARD at the time, and includes a striking scene showing a conversation between Harald Hauswald and Lutz Rathenow. After the screening, Lutz Rathenow will give a reading.

Date: January 26, 2026, 6:00 pm

Venue: Brotfabrik Berlin

Further information: brotfabrik-berlin.de/veranstaltung/und-zaertlich-kreist-die-faust-filmtagebuch-von-lutz-rathenow-schriftsteller-ostberlin/

From the end of November until the beginning of next year, the Freelens Gallery in Hamburg will be showing the series “Monalises of the Suburbs,” the first joint project by the two photographers, which was created between 2008 and 2010, in the exhibition “Ute and Werner Mahler x Freelens Young Professionals” (provisional working title).  

In the suburbs of Reykjavik, Liverpool, Minsk, Berlin, and Florence, the two young women encounter women who have outgrown childhood and are searching for themselves and their place in the world. In front of streets and squares in their everyday surroundings, the women sit on a chair with a headrest to have their portraits taken. They are focused on themselves, and a deep and enigmatic beauty becomes visible in their faces. The backdrop of the periphery and the seemingly interchangeable backgrounds reinforce the individuality and power of those portrayed.

Opening: November 27, 2025  

Duration: November 28, 2025, to January 29, 2026

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Annette Hauschild and Ute Mahler are each represented with several series in the group exhibition “Das Weite suchen. Fotografien der späten DDR und frühen 1990er Jahre” (Seeking the Wide Open Spaces: Photographs of the Late GDR and Early 1990s) at the Brandenburg Museum in Potsdam. The exhibition presents images from a decade of transformation in East Germany that is now remembered and discussed controversially. The photographs by the twelve selected photographers offer individual perspectives on everyday life, protest, and change during those years and take an intimate, critical, or even unsettling look at this decade, which continues to have an impact today.  

In addition to Annette Hauschild and Ute Mahler, Tina Bara, Christiane Eisler, Christian Fenger, Anselm Graubner, Jürgen Matschie, Peter Oehlmann, Ludwig Rauch, Joachim Richau, Merit Schambach (Pietzker), and Barbara Wolff are also represented in the exhibition. “Das Weite suchen” is an exhibition by the Leibniz Center for Contemporary History Research Potsdam (ZZF) and was curated by Dr. Isabel Enzenbach and Dr. Anja Tack.

Date: November 27, 2025, 7 p.m.

Duration: November 28, 2025, to March 22, 2026 

Location: Brandenburg Museum, Potsdam

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Photo: Annette Hauschild, from the series Wesendahl, a village in Brandenburg, 1992 

The magazine Solomiya, co-founded by Sebastian Wells after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, will publish its fifth issue in November 2025 with SHIFT BOOKS and a design by the Skrollan collective. In addition to Sebastian Wells from Berlin, the editorial team includes Ivanna Kozachenko, Andrii Ushytskyi, and Vsevolod Kazarin from Kyiv. 

With voices from Yemen, Bosnia, Ukraine, Georgia, and Germany, among others, Solomiya No. 5 — After Now" turns its gaze to the present—to the conditions that shape the paths the future could follow. What does it mean to talk about peace when peace feels like a manipulative projection imposed by distant observers? What does it mean to talk about an inclusive future when our imagination itself is limited by moral superiority and sanctioned narratives? How can we dream of days to come when we might say we were wrong?

Until October 31, the magazine can be ordered from SHIFT BOOKS at a discounted pre-sale price of €18; after that, it will cost €22.

The magazine launch will take place at KVOST — Kunstverein Ost . 

Date: November 27, 2025, 7 p.m. 

Location: KVOST — Kunstverein Ost, Berlin

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DASA in Dortmund, Germany's largest exhibition on the world of work, is showing Frank Schinski's series “Aiming High,” for which he accompanied various application processes in different European countries.

Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, capitalism has been the dominant economic model in Europe. Having a job promises individuals security, freedom, and social status. Frank Schinski has repeatedly explored the world of work and has produced several photographic works on the subject. For “Aiming High,” he observed participants at job fairs, job interviews, castings, and assessment centers as they entered into a seemingly fixed choreography of imaginary expectations. The agreed locations and procedures appear standardized, normalized, and as uniform as the applicants, who are to be tested, assessed, evaluated according to economic criteria, and assigned. The interactions between the world of work and the individual are the focus of this work by Frank Schinski. 

Date: November 20, 2025, 6 p.m.

Duration: November 21, 2025, to March 31, 2026  

Location: DASA, Dortmund

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Parallel to the presentation of works by Ute Mahler and Werner Mahler at the Stadtmuseum, the Hesse Cabinet in Tübingen will show an exhibition of color photographs by Ute Mahler from her 2002 series “Auf den Spuren von Hermann Hesse” (In the Footsteps of Hermann Hesse). For her series, she followed in the footsteps of the well-traveled writer and created free, associative images related to the works of Hermann Hesse and the places where he lived and worked. 

The Hesse Cabinet is housed in part of the rooms of the Heckenhauer antiquarian bookshop, where Hesse began his apprenticeship as a bookseller in 1895 and later founded the literary circle “le petit cénacle.” 

Duration: November 20, 2025, to January 11, 2026 

Location: Hesse Cabinet, Tübingen  

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The Tübingen City Museum is also showing the exhibition “Über Dörfer und Städte” (About Villages and Towns) with selected photographs by Ute Mahler and Werner Mahler from the projects “Ein Dorf” (A Village) and “Kleinstadt” (Small Town). 

Small town—an empty square, hardly anyone around, and if so, then only old people or young people, no sights, empty downtown shops, slow decay, and, in the best case, the charm of the morbid—you only happen to pass by here and wonder: Who is here when I'm not, and why? After “Monalises of the Suburbs” (until 2011), “Where the World Ended” (until 2012), and “Strange Days” (until 2014), Ute and Werner Mahler chose to explore small towns as their fourth joint project. From 2015 to 2018, they traveled through Germany with a small car, a large camera, and a supply of black-and-white film, searching for images that document the mood, the attitude toward life, and the spirit of these places. 

As part of the exhibition opening, there will be an artist talk with Reinhard Johler, Professor of Empirical Art Studies at Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen. 

Opening: November 20, 2025, 5 p.m., starting at 6 p.m., Reinhard Johler in conversation with the Mahlers

Duration: November 21, 2025, to January 11, 2026  

Location: Tübingen City Museum

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Ute Mahler and Werner Mahler are guests at the University of Tübingen as part of the 38th Tübingen Poetry Lectureship, which this year is held by Jenny Erpenbeck and Peter Wawerzinek. The writer Jenny Erpenbeck will talk to Ute Mahler and Werner Mahler about their joint work on the project “Ein Dorf” (A Village). She is the author of the text “An der Schwelle der Zeiten” (On the Threshold of Time), which appears in the book “Ein Dorf. 1950–2022” (A Village. 1950–2022) by Ute Mahler, Werner Mahler, and Ludwig Schirmer, Hartmann Books. 

“A Village 1950–2022” is a long-term project by the three photographers. It focuses on the Thuringian village of Berka, yet reaches far beyond its borders. In the 1950s, Ludwig Schirmer, Ute Mahler's father, was a master miller in Berka. As a self-taught photographer, he began documenting everyday life, festivals, and his own life. Without knowing about his father-in-law's pictures, Ute's husband Werner Mahler decided in 1977 to photograph his thesis in Berka. A good 20 years later, in 1998, Stern magazine asked him for an update, which was never published. In 2021/22, Ute Mahler took photographs in Berka. As a family legacy, the result was a personal work about her home village.  

Date: November 18, 2025, 7 p.m.

Location: University of Tübingen, Old Auditorium

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The German House at New York University is presenting an exhibition by Harald Hauswald in the USA for the first time. The show “Harald Hauswald: Life in East Germany” was curated by New York-based German photographer Martin Schoeller. In the late 1970s and 1980s, Harald Hauswald captured everyday life in the GDR with empathy, humor, and precision. The exhibition at the German House offers an unadulterated view of life in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall and contrasts an often ironic view of public space with an intimate insight into the private and inner world of GDR citizens. As a self-proclaimed “chronicler of the East,” Hauswald constantly observed the system, which in turn also monitored him. From 1978 until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Hauswald was under constant surveillance by the Stasi. On the evening of the exhibition opening, there will be an artist talk between Harald Hauswald and Martin Schoeller.  

Date: November 13, 2025, 6 p.m., in the presence of the photographer

Duration: November 14, 2025, to January 16, 2026

Location: German House at NYU, New York

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The LOOCK Gallery is also presenting Werner Mahler's well-known long-term project “Die Abiturienten” (The High School Graduates) at Paris Photo.

Werner Mahler began photographing for this project in 1977 and continues to work on it today. In 1977, he photographed the graduates of a high school in Oranienburg who were facing their future after graduating from high school. In the years that followed, Werner Mahler photographed each of them at regular intervals, tracing the lifelines that share this common starting point. Over time, quite a few have disappeared from the ranks: nine of the former classmates remain and have repeatedly opened their doors to the photographer to pose for his camera in their changing life situations. 

In this long-term project, the empty spaces as well as the images tell of what life brings, both big and small: of hope, success, failure, or death, and in this generation, also of the collapse of a value system. 

Duration: November 13 to November 16, 2025 

Location: Paris Photo, LOOCK Gallery booth, A19

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To mark Sibylle Bergemann's solo exhibition at the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson in Paris , Kerber Verlag is publishing a book of the same name, Das Denkmal, edited by Frieda von Wild & Lily von Wild (Estate Bergemann) and independent curator Sonia Voss. 

The publication brings together for the first time Sibylle Bergemann's complete photographic series on the creation of the Marx-Engels Monument, which was erected in 1986 on the initiative of the GDR government not far from Berlin's Alexanderplatz. It presents numerous previously unpublished photographs and offers a new perspective on one of the photographer's most important bodies of work. Bergemann's long-term documentation, created between 1975 and 1986, is not only presented as an impressive photographic narrative, but also contextualized historically, socio-politically, and in terms of photographic theory through accompanying essays by Christian Joschke, Heiner Müller, Steffen Siegel, Sonia Voss, Frieda von Wild, and Lily von Wild. During Paris Photo, there will be a book launch at the LOOCK Gallery  booth in the presence of the editors; the gallery will also present works from Sibylle Bergemann's monument series.  

Book launch: November 13, 2025, 3 p.m. 

Presentation duration: November 13 to November 16, 2025

Location: Paris Photo, LOOCK Gallery booth, A19 

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Harald Hauswald will be participating in a panel discussion at Fotografiska during the symposium “Cultural Resistance in the GDR,” which is dedicated to the book launch of “UR Tacheles” by Rafael Insunza, musician and co-founder of the legendary Tacheles art house. The book, which features numerous photographs by Harald Hauswald, forms the starting point for an examination of forms of artistic resistance in the GDR. The program will be complemented by a screening of the documentary film “Fragments of Yesterday” (2025) by Jan Henselder about Leo Kondeyne, who played a key role in the initial occupation and later founding of the Tacheles cultural center. Afterwards, Rafael Insunza, Michaela van den Driesch (managing director of the Kunstforum Biennale Lausitz), and Harald Hauswald will discuss the role of art, music, and photography as expressions of social opposition and cultural self-assertion in a panel discussion. A project with and supported by the German Embassy in Chile, the Goethe-Institut Chile, the Aninat Gallery, Santiago de Chile, the Ministry of Culture of the Government of Chile, the OSTKREUZ agency, and the production company El Capitan, Chile.

Date: November 7, 2025, 7 p.m., doors open at 6:30 p.m.

Location: Fotografiska, Berlin

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