Goethe Institute in Saint Petersburg
The State Museum and Exhibition Center ROSPHOTO
German Week in Saint Petersburg, 2014
An Exhibition by Institut fϋr Auslandsbeziehungen, (Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations, Stuttgart)

Sibylle Bergemann. Photographs

April 26 – May 25, 2014
Opening: Friday April 25, 6 p.m.

The retrospective exhibition of works by Sibylle Bergemann (1941–2010), one of the most renowned East German fashion photographers, cofounder of the Ostkreuz photographer agency and member of the Berlin Academy of Arts. The important showcase comprises the rare and unique fashion photos for women’s magazines, real life reportages, landscapes and portraits and covers the history of GDR as well as the one of the united Germany.

Sibylle Bergemann started studying photography in the late 1960s in East Berlin under the prominent photographer Arno Fischer, her future husband. From 1970 to 1995 her photographs regularly appeared in the leading East German periodicals of the time, Sonntag, Das Magazin, and Sibylle. Bergemann was known to work in quite different genres including documentary photography, landscape and city views, and portraits.

She began her rise to fame as a fashion photographer for Sibylle in the 1970s. Developing her own style, she was the first in East Germany to shoot her models in everyday life settings: in cafes and in the streets and squares of Berlin industrial districts. Later she extended her filed of interest and used to succeed in all her endeavors. As a photojournalist for GEO and Spiegel she has traveled the world around, from Greenland to Nepal.

In 1990, Bergemann co-founded Ostkreuz, one of the most influential German photographer agencies, and later taught photography at the agency’s photo school. In 1994, Bergemann became a member of the Academy of Arts, Berlin.

In 2000, Bergemann together with many major contemporary photographers took part in a large-scale social-oriented project Bilder die noch fehlten (Pictures That Were Still Missing) at the Hygiene Museum, Dresden. The group exhibition was dedicated to the disabled people, who were depicted in photographs as fairytale characters thanks for the photographer’s interpretation.

The Saint Petersburg exhibition will be presented by Bergemann’s daughter Frieda von Wild and Ursula Zeller, the Head of the Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen. The showcase will also feature several events and activities: Art and Language, a seminar for teachers of German; a report by Ursula Zeller; a workshop for beginning photographers by Prof. Wiebke Loeper of Potsdam Hochschule.


Sibylle Bergemann. Photographs Events and Activities

25.04.2014, 7:00 p.m.
Panel Discussion with Frieda von Wild (photographer, fashion designer, Berlin)
The State Museum and Exhibition Center ROSPHOTO

26.04.2014, 3:00 p.m.
Excursion with Frieda von Wild
The State Museum and Exhibition Center ROSPHOTO

26.04.2014 (exact time and location to be announced later)
Documentary Trends in Contemporary German Photography
A Report by Ursula Zeller, the Head of the Zeppelin Museum, Friedrichshafen