Renate von Mangoldt: Berlin Revisited

The exhibition assembles photographic leaps in time in exciting pairings full of wit and melancholy. Black-and-white photographs of West Berlin in the 1970s and 1980s are juxtaposed with colour photographs of the reunited city from 2021 to 2023: It is street photography at its best, fleeting moments and imagery captured amidst a crowd of passers-by.

Sometimes the very same place is photographed anew, most of the time the new photograph freely improvises on a theme stemming from its black and white counterpart. And yet, people are always in focus of Renate von Mangoldt, who has made a name for herself primarily as a portrait photographer of writers.

The photos refer to each other in various ways – not just in terms of content and location but also formally. It is only together that they unleash their power. They tell of a specific time and also narrate a history. How the world has changed, how time has changed, how the city has changed, how people have changed!

Renate von Mangoldt

The Photographer Renate von Mangoldt

Renate von Mangoldt (b.1940 in Berlin) lived in Erlangen during the 1950s. From 1961 to 1963 she attended the Bayerische Staatslehranstalt für Photographie in Munich. From 1964 she worked as a photographer at the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin and has been based in Berlin ever since. Von Mangoldt’s works have been widely published, shown in exhibitions and included in numerous public and private collections.

Publication Accompanying the Exhibition

Accompanying the exhibition, the book „Berlin Revisited“ which includes an essay by poet and political scientist Brigitte Oleschinski, will be published by Steidl in Göttingen.

Curator of the exhibition is Berlin photographer, author and gallerist André Kirchner.