Karl-Ludwig Lange. The Photographer in His Time. Berlin Years 1973–2004

Along the Wall Between Wedding and Prenzlauer Berg 1973–2004

Karl-Ludwig Lange

Bernauer Straße is the site of the ‘memory of the West’, as Karl-Ludwig Lange put it. The street was divided in two when the Berlin Wall was built in 1961. A few hundred metres away as the crow flies, on the Böse Bridge in the Prenzlauer Berg district, was the border checkpoint Bornholmer Straße. It was the first to open to the flood of East Berliners on November 9, 1989.
In 1973, the young photographer took pictures from a viewing platform in Bernauer Straße across the death strip and in the direction of Prenzlauer Berg. Later, from the same spot, he documented the shifting of the border, the dismantling of the old train station, and, in a sequence that extends to the Böse Bridge, the demolition of the Wall.
Wedding is the exhibition’s second theme. With his barren and grey images of the district, Lange tells the story of Berlin’s history as a workers’ city.

Over the course of five decades, Karl-Ludwig Lange independently created an artistic body of work. Visitors are advised to see all exhibitions of the ten-part project The Photographer in His Time to fully understand his world of imagery.