Golden Hearts

An exhibition with photographs by Sibylle Bergemann and Martin Parr

Sibylle Bergemann, Martin Parr

“Golden Hearts” contrasts select black-and-white photographs from the series Clärchens Ballhaus (1976) by Sibylle Bergemann and Yate’s Wine Lodges (1983) by Martin Parr. The bar as one of the oldest institutions of everyday life is a space of social relationships of all kinds. Cheerfulness and community alternate with loneliness and tristesse. Political systems and social structures exert their mutual effects on one other.

Each in their own unique artistic way, the photographers aim their cameras at their surroundings. In socialist East Berlin of 1976, Bergemann photographs people in search of love and distraction. The location is Clärchens Ballhaus, a dance hall in Berlin where laborers and soldiers mixed with guest workers from West Berlin, who had to cross back over the border before midnight. In 1983, Martin Parr photographed Yate's Wine Lodges in the Victorian atmosphere of northern England. The founder, Peter Yates, sought to popularize Australian wine in Great Britain and also sold whole-grain flour, canned sardines, and tea for healthy nutrition.