• Art Features
  • How-To
  • Culture
  • Interviews
  • Best Of
  • On View
  • Cosmic Calling
  • Fresh Take
  • Sex Advice from an Artist
  • Art Living
  • Retrospect
  • This Artwork Changed My Life
  • Elephant 100

OUT NOW ISSUE #48

OUT NOW ISSUE #48

  • Art Features
  • How-To
  • Culture
  • Interviews
  • Best Of
  • On View
  • Cosmic Calling
  • Fresh Take
  • Sex Advice from an Artist
  • Art Living
  • Retrospect
  • This Artwork Changed My Life
  • Elephant 100
21 Sep 2021
Culture / Snapshot

A Peek through the Iron Curtain with Sibylle Bergemann’s Wintry Duo

The German photographer rebels against both the East German state and fashion clichés. Words by Madeleine Pollard

Annette and Angela, Lustgarten, 1982. Courtesy Sibylle Bergemann/OSTKREUZ

Tension is ever-present in the fashion photography of Sibylle Bergemann. The East German photographer documented the reality of life in the GDR, while capturing the output of artists and designers who tested the boundaries of censorship and carved out spaces to dream within its repressive regime. Taken in the winter, when the historic park lay under a blanket of snow, this image (Annette and Angela, Lustgarten, 1982) combines the striking beauty of its composition with the darker backdrop of the Cold War.

Hair flying behind them in the wind, skirts billowing, the dynamism of the running models appears at odds with the sparse, frozen trees above them. Their playfulness also jars with the harsh cityscape just out of shot: the partially reconstructed Berliner Dom, still bearing the scars of World War II bombing, and the sharp-edged Palast der Republik, which housed the parliament of the GDR. Bergemann’s casual shot of the pair plays out directly under the nose of the state.

Tweet this

“Freed from the need to photograph clothing in order to sell it, Bergemann was able to experiment”

From the late 1960s through to the fall of the Berlin Wall, Bergemann staged photoshoots for East German fashion magazines like Sibylle. Founded in 1956 by Sibylle Boden-Gerstner, the so-called ‘Vogue of the East’ distanced itself from its consumerist counterparts in the West by including sewing patterns alongside designs, rather than brand names. Freed from the need to photograph clothing in order to sell it, Bergemann was able to experiment with a range of artistic and documentary styles.

Throughout her career, Bergemann also photographed the fantastical creations of East Berlin fashion collective Allerleirauh, who attempted to evade censorship by producing avant-garde shows in abandoned chapels and bath houses across the city in the 1980s. As with fellow fashion group Chic, Charmant und Dauerhaft, the economic scarcity of the GDR only fuelled the ingenuity of these collectives: in the absence of traditional fabrics, designers made clothes out of shower curtains, hospital intestine bags, and plastics usually used to cover strawberry plants.

Bergemann’s documentation of these subversive artistic undercurrents, combined with her distinctive compositional craft, left an indelible mark on Germany photographic history. As these two women run through the snow, they evoke the small pleasures of rebellion to be found even under difficult circumstances.

Madeleine Pollard is a Berlin-based journalist specialising in culture and current affairs

OSTKREUZ – Agentur der Fotografen GmbH

Online store launching October 2021; this image by Sibylle Bergemann will be available for purchase as a poster, alongside posters, books and edition prints from all OSTKREUZ photographers

VISIT WEBSITE

Liked this post? Share it on social!

MORE TO READ

Read Next:

Explore Jail Cells, Gardens and Dance Floors in May’s Unmissable Books

Culture

Explore Jail Cells, Gardens and Dance Floors in May’s Unmissable Books

From private plots to prison blocks, pop art to rave culture, these are the books to seek out this month.
Read More
Culture

Is Colourising Archive Images Ever OK?

Do we lose more than we gain by adding colour to historic black and white pictures? It’s a grey area…
Read More
Culture

America’s Crumbling Rust Belt Lives on in Stephen Shore’s Images

The photographer poignantly captures the collapse of US heavy industry in the dying days of the 1970s.
Read More
The Index

Could Art Duo Shanzhai Lyric Fake It Till They Made It in New York?

The pair explain the story behind their pop-up space on Canal Street, the Big Apple’s counterfeit capital.
Read More

Keep in the loop

Get our weekly newsletter straight to your inbox

HUNGRY FOR MORE?

All Editorials
Best Of

Art Crush: All the Things We Want This Month

Sunday Read

Dawoud Bey’s Up-Close Snapshots of a Changing Generation

Article

A Snapshot Guide to the Bristol Photo Festival

Observations

Will Purple Bedroom Walls Wreck Your Relationship?

Picture Gallery

Bringing Painting Back from the Dead

Sunday Read

Behind the Mask: Face to Face with Rashid Johnson’s The Hikers

Essential Art Books

Dive into Cinema, Painting, Photography and Sculpture in June’s Best Art Books

Picture Gallery

Unseen Amsterdam Showcases Photography Worldwide

Artists to Watch

Elephant’s Pick of June’s Essential Artists

Picture Gallery

Shifting the Focus: The Photography Award Reframing Global Upheaval

Showtime

Vive La Différence: Variety Adds Spice to This Bold Group Exhibition

Ming Smith, America Seen through Stars and Stripes (Painted), New York, 1976, from Ming Smith: An Aperture Monograph (Aperture/Documentary Arts, 2020) © Ming Smith, courtesy the artist and Aperture
Article

These Artworks Perfectly Subvert Modern America

Picture Gallery

Time and Tide: Anne Hardy’s Rivers of Light and Dark

Cooking Sections, Climavore: On Tidal Zones, Food Arts Project, Portree, Isle of Skye, Scotland, 2017. Photo: Colin Hattersley
Investigation

Is Scotland Now the Artistic Heart of Britain?

Investigation

Scenes from a Pandemic: How Photographers Found Inspiration in Isolation

Sunday Read

A Dizzying Journey Through the Technicolour Wasteland of Stock Photos

  • About Us
  • Write for Us
  • Stockists
  • Privacy Policy
Follow Us
Instagram Facebook Twitter