Christer Strömholm at C|O Berlin

Last Friday, C|O Berlin opened its final two exhibitions at their location on Oranienburger Straße: Post Scriptum by Christer Strömholm and Love / Faith / Hope by Ulrich Seidl. By the middle of March, the museum closes down and moves to the Amerika-Haus in Charlottenburg. There, they will re-open by the end of this year. Check out a preview of the retrospective of Christer Strömholm after the jump.

Christer Strömholm (1918-2002) was a Swedish photographer who started his career as a street photographer in the tradition of Cartier-Bresson, capturing extraordinary, funny and sometimes bizarre moments in a spontaneous and vivid way.

„Sei unbequem“ was one of his mottos, and in fact some of his pictures strongly accuse social injustice, for example the series he shot Hiroshima in 1963, not even 20 years after the atomic bomb.

To me, the most interesting part of the exhibition is the series The Friends of Place Blanche, which is a collection of portraits of transsexuals. These pictures were taken in Paris between 1959 and 1968, so more than 20 years before Nan Goldin. Christer Strömholm looks at his subjects in a intimate, personal and respectful way, full of empathy and without any prejudice. This was quite unusual in a time when transsexuals were treated as social outcasts.

Christer Söderholm had a special admiration for his “Friends of Place Blanche”, as they are free and independent of the bourgeois society. „When I look at my pictures more closely, they are all all – each in its own way – nothing but self-portraits, a part of my life“, he once said.

Christer Strömholm Post Scriptum
19 January to 17 March 2013
Admission 10 Euro, reduced 5 Euro

Credits: For all photos: Christer Strömholm/Strömholm Estate. 1) Little Christer. 1955 2) Puta. Palma de Mallorca. 1959 3) The Boys. Montreuil. Paris. 1962 4) Blind Girl. Hiroshima. 1963 5) Martine. Paris. 1968 6) Fétiche. 1960 7) Cobra & Caprice. Paris. 1961

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<a href="https://www.iheartberlin.de/author/jens/" target="_self">Jens</a>

Jens

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