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NEWS

Peace and war

1.05. – 10.07.2016

Photography by:

The Emsland in the 60s: Pictures of people in their peaceful everyday life and landscapes full of stoic tranquility and austere beauty. Directly next to these are images of people in dire need, in the midst of destruction and alarming violence: Baghdad during the first Iraq war. Some images are in plain black and white, the others in vibrant color. These two very different series by journalist and photographer Gerhard Kromschröder are now shown in the Berlin photo gallery Silber&Salz.

 

Twenty-five years after the outbreak of the first Iraq war, gallery owner Chris Schmid decided to deliberately present the photos from Baghdad together with the pictures from Emsland. An idyllic world from the early days stands abruptly next to the seat of fire from this day and age. Total peace stands beside total war. Schmid sees no contradiction in the extreme contrasts of the simultaneously presented photographs: "In both cases, someone very close gave particular attention to the situation, captured it, and transmitted it to us through photography.” The photographs are timeless: Kromschröder's pictures from the Bombing in Baghdad 25 years ago are strikingly similar to current television recordings, whether from Aleppo, Kobane, Kabul or Mosul. "We live in a deceptive peace," adds

Kromschröder, "there is a constant war in the Middle East and a thousand good reasons to leave home."

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