SPREE CUTS. PORTRAIT OF A CITY_RIVER_LANDSCAPE BY GÖTZ LEMBERG

On the 100th Anniversary of Greater Berlin 1920–2020

Götz Lemberg

Berliners today barely register the Spree as an urban waterway. Yet during the development of the Greater Berlin metropolitan area, it played an important role both in recreation and as a key transportation route.

SPREE CUTS heightens public awareness of the river. In three municipal galleries in Friedrichshain, Moabit, and Spandau, art photographer Götz Lemberg offers his take on the urban Spree. From Müggelsee to where it meets the Havel, at intervals of one kilometre, he shot a three-part photographic section of both banks at water level: Berlin, as seen from the moving river.

With a round panorama in the alte feuerwache, a 60-meter-long outdoor frieze at Galerie Nord, and a dual-bank open-air display at Zitadelle Spandau, SPREE CUTS opens up wholly new perspectives on the forgotten fluvial lifeline. Here, Lemberg brings to a conclusion his long-term portrait of the Berlin-Brandenburg region, taking its main rivers as his point of departure for this citywide exhibition.