People and Places

Places where Ernst Barlach, Bertolt Brecht & Helene Weigel, Wilhelm Busch, Ernst Jünger, Georg Kolbe, Alfred Kubin, Karl May, Arno Schmidt and Hermann Sudermann lived.

Angelika Fischer has been documenting the places where artists and writers live and work since 2002. In magical black and white photographs, she has captured what can still be felt there – from the labours of artistic production to the self-isolation of creative people.

The title of this exhibition and the brochure series of the same name may be confusing at first glance, as Angelika Fischer’s pictures rarely show people. However, the people who are the subject of her work are highly present, as they have left unmistakable traces. Visual artists and writers, strong and unconventional characters, have left their mark on the place where they live or work, just as they have been moulded by it.

Angelika Fischer has been visiting such places again and again for several years and tries to capture the substance of life that can still be found there. Classic black and white photography seems to be the most suitable medium for this, as it captures the essence, the light, the forms and the surfaces of things and avoids the reportage character and false topicality of the ubiquitous colour images.

Angelika Fischer is fascinated by the intrinsic life of things, by the aura of creative personalities. The houses, studios and workspaces have become time machines that tell the steady gaze about the labours of artistic production, self-isolation and the personal crises behind the well-known works.

His indispensable reference library can still be found at the desk of writer Arno Schmidt in Bargfeld. The heavy horn-rimmed glasses with thick lenses tell of his short-sightedness. Ernst Jünger’s beetle boxes and his numerous nature specimens reveal the obsessive collector and naturalist. Even during his lifetime, the illustrator Alfred Kubin transformed his morbid little castle in Zwickledt into a dream place that seems to have been taken from his bizarre pictorial creations.

In 2002, together with Bernd Erhard Fischer and other authors, she decided to publish these works in her own bibliophilically designed booklet series. Here, text and image complement each other in an ideal way. The text author and photographer deliberately work as independently of each other as possible. However, it is always surprising how purely visual impressions and sensitive research naturally combine to form an overall picture. Fifteen booklets have already been published.

Further information to the Edition Fischer:
www.atelierfischer-berlin.de