Borchert Photographs Kolbe

Reconstruction of a book project

From 1987 to 1990, Christian Borchert (1942–2000), born in Dresden and lived in East Berlin, worked extensively for the Dresden publication of Art: in this time, he photographed more than 150 sculptures by Goerg Kolbe for a planned artist monograph, which was however never to be released. Like the actor in Brecht’s epic theatre, Borchert is also concerned with revealing his attitude to what is portrayed in his photographs. With wit and sensitivity, he manages to unfold his theme both conceptually and sensually through black and white photographs. The lecture outlines the course of the project as well as the circumstances of his failures and analyses Bochart’s visual strategies in dealing with Kolbe’s politically charged work.

Since 2021, Dr. Bertram Kaschek has been curator for the German and Netherlandic Art before 1800 at the graphic collection of State gallery, Stuttgart. From 2016 to 2020, as a scholarship holder of the Volkswagen Foundation at the Dresden Kupferstich-Kabinett, he has published the four-part retrospective “Christian Bochart. Tectonics of Memory” in addition to editing the identically named catalogue (Spector Books, Leipzig 2020).