22 November 2023
To start off the year 2024, the Akademie der Künste is showing photographs by Gundula Schulze Eldowy and Robert Frank
25 January – 1 April 2024
Akademie der Künste, Pariser Platz
The Akademie der Künste’s first exhibition of the coming year, entitled “Keep a Stiff Upper Lip! Gundula Schulze Eldowy and Robert Frank”, will open on 24 January at Pariser Platz. At exhibition centres around the encounter between two artists who come from different worlds, and the profound dialogue they develop through photography.
In East Berlin, Gundula Schulze Eldowy,born in 1954, stood out with her multifaceted socio-documentary approach to photography and her unsparing yet sensitive nude portraits. On the opposite side of the Iron Curtain, the Swiss-American photographer and filmmaker Robert Frank (1924–2019) depicted a sobering counter-image to the American Dream, as presented in his by now legendary 1958 photo book The Americans. After they met in East Berlin in 1985, a life-long friendship developed, despite the Berlin Wall and the continents separating them.
The exhibition traces Gundula Schulze Eldowy’s artistic path from East Berlin to New York, where in 1990 she spent three years at the invitation of Robert Frank. There she met numerous artists from Robert Frank’s circle of friends: his wife, the painter June Leaf, the photographers Ted Croner and Ann Mandelbaum, the writer Allen Ginsberg as well as other representatives of the beatnik generation.
The 270 photos featured in the exhibition are full of references to Robert Frank and the mythic city of New York. Excerpts from the correspondence between Schulze Eldowy and Frank complement the exhibition. In a video art installation by filmmaker Helke Misselwitz, the correspondence is presented as a diptych and projected onto two screens. Schulze Eldowy and Misselwitz are members of the Film and Media Arts Section of the Akademie der Künste.
The catalogue is published by Spector Books (Leipzig). In addition to the works of Gundula Schulze Eldowy from the years 1990 to 1993, the exhibition will also display photos by Robert Frank, Roger Melis and Helfried Strauß.
On 2 and 3 March 2024, a retrospective consisting of films by Robert Frank, curated by Alexander Horwath and Regina Schlagnitweit, will be shown alongside the exhibition.
Supported with funds from the Capital Cultural Fund
Exhibition information
Keep a Stiff Upper Lip! Gundula Schulze Eldowy and Robert Frank
Press event: Tuesday, 23 January 2024, 11 am
Opening: Wednesday, 24 January 2024, 7 pm, free admission
Exhibition duration: 25 January – 1 April 2024
Opening hours: Tue – Fri 2 – 7 pm, Sat + Sun 11 am – 7 pm
Admission: € 9/6, free admission up to 18 years, Tuesdays and every first Sunday of the month
Akademie der Künste, Pariser Platz 4, 10117 Berlin
Tel. 030 200 57-1000, info@adk.de
Exhibition announcement:
“Gundula Schulze Eldowy. Berlin on a Dog’s Night” in the Bröhan-Museum
The Bröhan Museum is showing early works by Gundula Schulze Eldowy, which also represent the beginning of her friendship with Robert Frank.
20 Jan. – 14 April 2024
More information is available at www.broehan-museum.de
Press contact on behalf of the Akademie der Künste:
ARTEFAKT Kulturkonzepte, Stefan Hirtz and Ursula Rüther
Tel. 030 440 10 686, mail@artefakt-berlin.de