An unusual trip around Germany

On October 25, 2017, at 19:00, the Galerie für Fotografie in Hanover is inviting guests to the vernissage of An Tagen wie diesen (On days like these). It is an exhibition of pieces by Hans-Jürgen Burkard and will be on display at the gallery until December 3.

The reportage photographer, Hans-Jürgen Burkard, took an unusual trip around Germany. It was a trip where new – and some older – German song texts served as the guidelines and associative material for a photographic portrait of conditions in Germany.

German pop music – critical, vitriolic, but also loving and self-confident: what does it reveal about the country, what does it show? Burkard took the lyrics of songs such as Mädchen von Kreuzberg (Girls from Kreuzberg) by Prinz Pi, Rotlichtmilieu (Red Light District) by Haftbefehl, Eppendorf by Samy Deluxe and Hinterland (Back-country) by Casper, and translated them into large-format images: free, askew, disturbing, light-hearted, enigmatic – and always excellent.

With a big pile of printed lyrics on the passenger seat beside him, he “experienced” them while driving thousands of kilometres around the country. Inspired by the songs, he was searching for moods and situations that fit the lyrics. And he found them, amid stranded whales on the North Sea coast at Dithmarschen, at the traditional Bavarian Gäuboden Festival in Straubing, with Alpine jackdaws circling around the peak of the Zugspitze, and among the residue left behind by visitors to Rock am Ring.

The book An Tagen wie diesen, with texts by Silke Müller and Peter-Matthias Gaede and published by Edition Lammerhuber, will be launched on the occasion of the vernissage. Hans-Jürgen Burkard will be there to autograph copies.

Further information at: Galerie für Fotografie Hannover, Edition Lammerhuber and BFF – Hans-Jürgen Burkard