BERLINER

Wind of Change – Siebrand Rehberg – Photographs 1971–1976

Siebrand Rehberg

In the 1970s, the divided city of Berlin was an urban landscape teeming with contrasts. Europe was separated in political blocs, and a reunified Germany or a united Europe were no more than pipe dreams. Siebrand Rehberg’s black-and-white street photographs are vivid documents of an era marked by social and political change. The photographer successfully captured the everyday life of people in a sensitive and subtle way – especially in his own Kreuzberg neighbourhood. Photographers Fritz Eschen and Friedrich Seidenstücker were his key role models. Rehberg, born 1943, worked for the newspaper ZEIT, ZEITmagazin, and Spiegel magazine; he not only focussed on politics and the ways in which it’s staged, but also on the real life of ordinary Berliners who didn’t make history. A student of Michael Schmidt’s Werkstatt für Fotografie, Siebrand Rehberg gave these Berliners a space in which they can be remembered – long before the wind of change, and beyond utopia. This exhibition is a continuation of the Collection Regard’s goal to present rarely shown photographs of Berlin.