Long left on the margins of the major narratives of European photographic history, the work of women photographers from East Germany is now the subject of a major rediscovery with Unprecedented – Women Photographers from the GDR. Presented at the Museum of Modern Art, Hayama, in Japan, the exhibition looks back at the work of several generations of photographers who documented East German society through deeply personal perspectives, far removed from the official representations imposed by the regime.
Through the works of major figures such as Helga Paris, Sibylle Bergemann, Ute Mahler and Gundula Schulze Eldowy, the exhibition reveals a photography attentive to individuals, social change, intimacy and the everyday realities of the GDR (and Tina Bara, Christine Becker, Christiane Eisler, Margit Emmrich, Eva Mahn, Elisabeth Meinke, Evelyn Richter,bMaria Sewcz, Gabriele Stötzer, Brigitte Voigt, and Renate Zeun). Portraits, street scenes and documentary approaches come together to form an alternative narrative of East Germany, built by women who often worked in complex artistic and political contexts.
Organised with the aim of reassessing this photographic history, long underestimated, the exhibition underlines the importance of these artists within the European photographic landscape of the second half of the twentieth century. An essential exhibition for understanding how photography became a space for freedom, memory and resistance in a divided Germany.
Grégory Herpe
Exhibition organised with the support of LOOCK Galerie, Berlin.
The Museum of Modern Art, Hayama (Japan)
June 13 – August 30, 2026
2208-1 Isshiki, Hayama, Miura District, Kanagawa 240-0111, Japan
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