Public Opening
Saturday, February 15, 2025
2–6 p.m.
Exhibition
February 18–March 28, 2025
Usual Opening hours Tue–Fr, 2–6 p.m., Saturdays vary
Various events are being planned. Detailed information will be available here on the website shortly.
Shortly before the (this time really) decisive elections in Germany, we are opening an exhibition with political portraits by STERN photographer Volker Hinz (1947 - 2019). Since the early 1970s, he has accompanied the chancellors and the wider political apparatus gathered around them in Bonn with his camera in public, semi-private and very private situations. Hardly any other photographer got as close to the politicians of his time as he did. His view of personalities such as Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, Helmut Kohl or even Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan and Deng Xiaoping followed his keen sense for the key or the symbolic moment, for tense relationships, power and powerlessness, tragedy, but also comedy in front of and behind the scenes.His pictures are unthinkable in today's media world. Nowadays, the appearances and public image of politicians (and female politicians!) are meticulously planned by an army of advisors and assistants, especially during election campaigns. Hinz was lucky enough to photograph at a time when there was still a trust between politicians and journalists regulated by unwritten laws, so he often ended up with photographs that are astonishingly private from today's perspective. These images always reflect the relationship between the media and politics. The exhibition and the book of the same name are also a small memory check for those old enough and a history lesson for those born later....
Biographical information
Photographer Volker Hinz (b. 1947 in Hamburg-Blankenese, d. 2019) sold his first photographs to newspapers at a young age. At 24, he managed the “Sven Simon Bild Agentur” in Bonn until he joined STERN magazine in Hamburg in 1974. His entire photographic legacy, which includes both political reportages for for STERN as well as freelance work, was acquired by the Bavarian State Library in Munich in 2023.