Vineta

Images of a GDR in decline: Portraits from 1985, Cityscapes from 1990

Andreas Trogisch

In portraits taken in the year 1985 and cityscapes from 1990, Andreas Trogisch, who studied with Manfred Paul, among others, recorded the final years of the GDR, rendering palpable the zeitgeist of a failed political system. Trogisch portrays people in the niches they’ve created for themselves, enabling the viewer to experience the urban space with a transparency that opens a door reaching far into the past.
The classic black-and-white photographs evoke an array of feelings and challenge the discourse over the inherent nature of processes of social change. Content and aesthetic are inseparable. The photographer’s sensitive eye reflects the fragility of the given situation in nuanced tones and a markedly formal composition. The title is a reference to the myth, widespread in the GDR, of the legendary city of Vineta, which was said to have sunk in the Baltic Sea – the Atlantis of the East, so to speak. The Vineters, who had become alienated from their own country, paid no heed to the warnings, and so the flood swept the city away, down to the bottom of the sea.