Eastern Berlin from the 80s

With ‘Harf Zimmermann. Hufelandstraße. 1055 Berlin’, C|O Berlin shows studies of Eastern Berlin from the 80s. Through 2 July, 2017.

The Hufelandstraße, often called the ‘Kurfürstendamm of the East’ behind closed doors, is not only an example of unedited biographies in the defunct GDR, but from today’s perspective a case study in the rapid gentrification and structural change in the inner-city following 1989 as well. Only a handful of the original residents from the time of Harf Zimmermann’s images continue to live there.

Harf Zimmermann was inspired by US-American photographer Bruce Davidson for his documentary project, which was also his final project as the master student of Arno Fischer at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig. In the 1970s, he spent two years in Spanish Harlem in New York and photographed the life in and around a housing block at East 100th St.

Harf Zimmermann, born in Dresden in 1955, studied Journalism at the University of Leipzig (formally Karl Marx University) until 1979 and later worked as a photo lab technician at ‘Neues Deutschland’. From 1982 until 1987, he studied photography under Professor Arno Fischer at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig and has since worked as a freelance photographer and photo designer. In 1990, Harf Zimmermann counted among the founding members of the photo agency OSTKREUZ, which he belonged to for ten years. He published his photographs in numerous national and international newspapers and magazines—including Stern, Geo, Merian, Die Zeit, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker and Time.

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