The exhibition Arno Fischer: Eine Reise (Arno Fischer: A Journey) will offer insight into Arno Fischer’s photographic practice and the various roles he played – photographer, mediator, and teacher – during his career. With over one hundred black-and-white and colour photographs taken between the early 1940s and late 2000s, some of which are being shown for the first time at Schloss Kummerow, the exhibition will highlight the important place Fischer holds in the history of German photography.

Arno Fischer (1927–2011) spent his career working across photographic genres, documenting fashion models on the streets of Eastern European cities and ordinary citizens and their everyday lives in cities in the Eastern Bloc, Equatorial Guinea, India, and the United States. When not traversing the streets with his camera in hand, Fischer was exchanging ideas with members of DIREKT, a group that formed around him in East Berlin in 1965 and that would contribute to the diversification of East Germany’s visual culture in the 1970s and 1980s. He also hosted artist gatherings with his wife, photographer Sibylle Bergemann, in their apartment on the Schiffbauerdamm in East Berlin. These get-togethers included their circle of friends, Fischer’s students, and international photographers Robert Frank, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and René Burri, among others, who had been invited by the Centre Culturel Français and the Amerika-Haus to Berlin.

Fischer also mentored students, first at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig and later, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, at the Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie und Gestaltung, and photographed his garden with a Polaroid camera, an endeavour that took him three decades.

Accompanied by an exhibition catalogue with over 70 illustrations, Arno Fischer: Eine Reise will place a spotlight on one of the most important German photographers of the 20th century and take visitors on a journey across photographic genres, continents, and decades.

Arno Fischer: Eine Reise was made possible through the support of the NORD/LB Kulturstiftung, the Arno Fischer Estate, the Loock Galerie and Galerie Berinson in Berlin, and private lenders.

Candice M. Hamelin (PhD, University of Michigan) is Chief Curator at the Stiftung Reinbeckhallen in Berlin. As a specialist of photographic practices in the GDR, Hamelin joins the growing list of art historians and curators invited to realize exhibitions at Schloss Kummerow.

Publication

The book “Arno Fischer: Eine Reise” accompanying the exhibition can be bought exclusively from Schloss Kummerow.

Castle tour – focus on art
From June 2022 you can discover Schloss Kummerow together with one of our guides. During the guided tour you will get detailed information about the exhibited works and artists as well as about the architectural features of Schloss Kummerow. Our tours are in German. For English guided tours please contact us.

Audio Guide of the Photography Collection
A free audio guide (in German) will lead you through our photographic collection. All you need is your smartphone and the function to scan QR codes. Please remember your headphones.

Historical tours / Individual tours / Guided tour for groups
On request

Accommodation nearby
You would like to visit Kummerow Castle and need accommodation? We suggest here a selection of accommodations in the vicinity.

May 8 — Oct 31, 2022
+ Framework program: please see above

Schloss Kummerow

Am Schloss 10 · 17139 Kummerow [Vorpommern]

Opening hours: SEP: Wed – Sun 11 am – 5 pm, OCT: Fri – Sun 11 am – 5 pm

Admission: 12 € / reduced 5 €, details see website