#SaveTheDate Berlin! 15.12.22 – 28.01.23 at ARTCO, Galerie Frobenstr. 1 – 10783 Berlin. For his project Deponie, Tobias Kruse sought out the traces and scars of a time that still casts a lingering shadow on the present: the years subsequent to the reunification of East Germany.
www.instagram.com/artco.gallery
www.instagram.com/tobiaskruseberlin
www.tobias-kruse.com
A wild and paradoxical time, rich in opportunities, but one which also brought disappointment, anger and bitterness. Kruse began his journey in Ihlenberg landfill (Deponie), near Schwerin, where he grew up. A decade previously, in the eighties, hazardous waste from Western Europe was routinely disposed of in this landfill. Thirty years on from the fall of the Wall, the photographer and native of Mecklenburg, drove 8,000 kilometres through Eastern Germany. A psycho-geographic exploration, Kruse documented everything from the desolate countryside and rural villages to packed football stadiums and nighttime demonstrations.
This period which followed two German dictatorships in the East might also result in the residual anger that continues to throb in the temples of East Germans today. The insecurity and loss of control are echoed sadly in our current time, boldly reimagined in the echo chambers of the New Right. Tobias Kruse has filtered out his discomfort with this during his travels and amplified it in his black-and-white photographs. They act as a hinge between the past and present, expressive of how deep the wounds still run – a yearning for healing that still feels a long way off. In the end, his dark images leave a sombre and poignant uneasiness, one for the viewer to reflect on and sit with far beyond the gallery space. (L. Benz) The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue published by Spector books that the artist will be signing on Dec 17 as of 5 pm after a panel talk with Thomas Gust. @thomas.gust
