Power and Ritual - Wahlkampfrituale (60 images)

Rituals of the election campaigns in Germany 1984-2009. Vintages available.

The election campaigns for the Bundestag in Germany are an ideal occasion to explore strategies of production and self-production across all political parties. It is a work about the endeavour of shading light on the precisely calculated gestures of the actors of these public orchestration, their success in radiate aspects of power and its fascination. These photographs expose politics as theatre.
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Rituals of the election campaigns in Germany 1984-2009. Vintages available.

The election campaigns for the Bundestag in Germany are an ideal occasion to explore strategies of production and self-production across all political parties. It is a work about the endeavour of shading light on the precisely calculated gestures of the actors of these public orchestration, their success in radiate aspects of power and its fascination. These photographs expose politics as theatre.

Since 1984 i took pictures of the political candidates and the german chancellors in their strategies, rituals and self-production during the election campaigns. These are pictures of Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, Helmut Kohl, Gerhard Schröder, Angela Merkel and the challengers Rudolf Scharping, Oskar Lafontaine, Johannes Rau and Edmund Stoiber. In this context, media scientist Norbert Bolz once referred to the "great quit picture" as a refuge of serenity and concentration in the unending stream of visual data. The classic photograph, in other words, has strength in its weakness. It allows contemplation. An in-depth visual analysis. While television provides distraction with movement, noises and music, and information is degraded to a pastime, conventional photography invites discoveries, which means - in the actual sense of the word - not more and not less that a curtain is lifted and significant content becomes visible and recognizable.
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