{"id":298,"date":"2024-11-22T18:46:13","date_gmt":"2024-11-22T18:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.picdrop.com\/?p=298"},"modified":"2025-12-17T23:31:24","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T23:31:24","slug":"photobooks-episode-2-ute-werner-mahler-kleinstadt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.picdrop.com\/web\/articles\/photobooks-episode-2-ute-werner-mahler-kleinstadt","title":{"rendered":"Ute & Werner Mahler: “Kleinstadt”"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Appreciating Mundanity<\/strong><\/h2>

Photobook Reviews, Episode 2 \u2013 by Kate Schultze<\/em><\/p>

If you\u2019re interested in contemporary German documentary photography, it won\u2019t take long until you come across Ute and Werner Mahler\u2019s work. The Mahlers have been one of the biggest influences on GDR photography, having worked for the famous GDR fashion magazine\u00a0Sibylle<\/em>\u00a0and for newspapers like\u00a0Stern<\/em>. Together with five other photographers they founded the\u00a0Ostkreuz Agentur f\u00fcr Fotografie<\/u><\/a>, which has remained one of the most influential German photo agencies since German Reunification. If you\u2019re lucky, you might be able to attend one of their lectures at the universities they still teach at. Ute and Werner have been married for over 40 years and since 2009 exclusively publish their work under one authorship. Ute and Werner’s work has become so intertwined that they do not distinguish who took what photograph. Frankly, to them, it doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Hartmann Books<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Linen-Cover, 26x32cm, 144 pages<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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hartmann-books.com<\/a><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\u201cKleinstadt\u201d – \u2018Small Town\u2019 in english – is a collection of photographs featuring German towns that you wouldn\u2019t even accidentally pass exiting the autobahn. They\u2019re too big to be a village, but too small to be a substantial town and have a population between 5,000 and 20,000. In fact, the government recognises this size of settlement as specified in German protection laws. No matter where you live, you will most likely have encountered a place like this. But you probably didn\u2019t pay enough attention to your surroundings as it all seemed to be too ordinary to do so. The Mahler’s photograph exactly this ordinariness.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Ute and Werner’s almost static black and white photographs explore the details of mundanity. They find beauty in normality: meticulously trimmed front gardens; empty shop windows collecting dust over the decades; young adults gathering at a bus stop as if it were the most exciting place to be within close proximity. Their townscapes seem surprisingly dense, their portraits calm and composed yet incredibly intimate. If, like me, you appreciate superbly framed 4×5 inch documentary shots, this is definitely where you will find it. If you\u2019re not from Germany, I envy you, as you might get the same kick out of the Mahler’s work as I did looking at the work of Alec Soth the first time.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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The Mahlers have published four books in recent years. Their first publication together\u00a0\u201cMonalisen der Vorst\u00e4dte\u201d<\/a>, a travel diary\u00a0\u201cLissabon \u201887\/\u201988\u201d,<\/a>\u00a0\u201cKleinstadt\u201d and their latest book that just came out last month\u00a0\u201cEin Dorf\u201d<\/a>. These books explore the peculiarities of everyday life (not to mention they\u2019re all also beautifully printed). Personally think \u201cKleinstadt\u201d is the perfect way to start. Not only is this book a detailed study of seemingly uniformly colourless German small towns, but approaches the subject with humour and wit, which proves we Germans can do it, if we just try hard enough.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Appreciating Mundanity Photobook Reviews, Episode 2 \u2013 by Kate Schultze If you\u2019re interested in contemporary German documentary photography, it won\u2019t take long until you come across Ute and Werner Mahler\u2019s work. The Mahlers have been one of the biggest influences on GDR photography, having worked for the famous GDR fashion magazine\u00a0Sibylle\u00a0and for newspapers like\u00a0Stern. Together […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":1167,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-photobooks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.picdrop.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.picdrop.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.picdrop.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.picdrop.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.picdrop.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.picdrop.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.picdrop.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.picdrop.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.picdrop.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.picdrop.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}