Taking Pictures - Event: "Celebrating Festivals in the East: A Grand Celebration"
Kunsthalle Rostock brings you an exhibition titled "The Big Swing - Celebrating in the East" featuring over 300 large-format photographs taken from 1950 to the end of the 1980s. The showcase features images captured in restaurants, discos, private rooms, and public buildings. The 1980s photographs specifically capture a time when the GDR's facades were deteriorating, many people were moving away, and a new, self-assured generation was exploring their own existence.
According to Petra Göllnitz, the exhibition's curator, "This exhibition is a photographic fête of memories: of carefree revelry in a bygone land. Of its vibrant subculture, which expressed its essence - above all assumptions." The show opens on Saturday and runs through September 8th.
The photographs display people in numerous states of partying. Dancing, sober, drunk, standing, lying, kneeling. Images from Clärchens Ballhaus in Berlin and the Carnival in Dresden are also displayed, as well as a striptease event. Pictures from the Palace of the Republic are exhibited, but most parties took place in living rooms, kitchens, or attics. Some West German parties in the 1980s resembled this, with miniskirts and steel-toed boots.
Nonetheless, there were significant differences in private celebrations. "We improvised more in the East," said Göllnitz. People had to be more discreet, as smartphones were not widespread then. It was easy for someone snapped in a disco to be accused of spying for the Stasi. Therefore, the DJ always announced when a photographer was present.
Similarities and differences in private party life between East and West in the 1980s were also seen in another photo exhibition of parties from the West. Cultural scientist Göllnitz is working on this project and plans to title it "In the West, there was more tinsel."
For Göllnitz, the impact of these photographs is different each time they're presented. The exhibition was previously shown in Jena and Cottbus. There was a significant presence of young people among the viewers. The photos served as a glimpse into how people used to party. It's also about mutual understanding, sharing experiences from the past.
Kunsthallen director Uwe Neumann also mentioned the accompanying program of the exhibition, which includes a book reading "Rock Legends" and music with Toni Krahl, frontman of the East German band City, on August 28th. Krahl has achieved cult status. "If there was a song we liked to hear and sing along to, and at the same time dance to, it was definitely 'At the Window' by City," said Neumann.
