FANTASTIC, STRONGLY LIMITED exhibition catalogue book by Gundula Schulze Eldowy, one the most important photographers from East germany. Gundula Schulze Eldowy (born 1954 in Erfurt) is a German photographer. In addition to her photographic and film work, she has created stories, poems, essays, sound collages and songs. The artistic importance of her photography has been compared to that of Diane Arbus. Signed by the artist. Signatures by this artist are scarce. I GUARANTEE THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE SIGNATURE. New, mint, unread. Still originally shrink-wrapped in publisher's plastic foil; only opened once for signature. "Meeting the American photographer Robert Frank in East Berlin in 1985 became a key moment for Gundula Schulze Eldowy. Frank and Schulze Eldowy instantly discovered the artistic affinity they shared: their eye for misfits and outcasts, their coupling of social documentary photography and poetry and their absolute independence." (Akademie der Künste) Welcome to the "GERMAN PHOTOBOOKS" auction by Ecki Heuser (5Uhr30.com, Cologne) - with more than 100 fantastic lots. IF YOU WIN MORE THAN 1 BOOK IN THIS AUCTION, YOU WILL PAY ONLY 1 X SHIPPING COSTS - WORLDWIDE. Akademie der Künste, Leipzig. 2024. First edition, first printing. Hardcover. 232 x 320 mm. 288 pages. Photos: Gundula Schulze Eldowy. Editor: Akademie der Künster, Berlin. Editorial supervision: Cornelia Klauß. Photos editor: Boris Friedewald. Editorial assistance: Mechthild Cramer von Laue, Denis Baumeister. Coordination: Uta Grundmann. Editing of the German texts: Martin Hager, Uta Grundmann. German translation: (Sara Blaylock): Nora Kronemeyer. English translations: Simon Cowper, Jan Caspers (correspondence), Christopher Haley Simpson (Diamond Street poem). Editing of the English texts: Wendy Wallis. Printing: Gutenberg Beuys Feindruckerei. Text in German. Great photobook in perfect condition - signed by the artist. "A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig (HGB), who had been born in Erfurt in 1954, Schulze Eldowy refused from the outset to be shoehorned into any dogma. Her pictures were provocative: on the one hand, East Berlin neighbourhoods, where the vestiges of the war were everywhere to be seen, and, on the other, nude portraits, which were unsparing yet sensitive and full of dignity. On the other side of the Iron Curtain was the Swiss-American photographer Robert Frank (1924–2019) – regarded to this day as a pioneer of documentary photography – whose 1958 volume of photographs, The Americans, presented a sobering counterimage to the American Dream. Together, they embarked on an intensive exchange of letters that crossed borders and spanned continents. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the young photographer took Frank up on his invitation to New York. There, in the Mecca of the avant-garde, she experienced the free-spiritedness of the art scene and the world of the beatniks, which led to a radical shift in her visual aesthetics. She used new techniques, experimenting with Polaroids, video, double exposures and different ways of processing the material to give form to her impressions and sense of Manhattan visualised as a hall of mirrors. Her photographs are no longer bound to unmediated reality; instead, they go in search of expanded ways of being and fluid forms of consciousness. The exhibition reconstructs Schulze Eldowy's career as she moved from East Berlin to New York, from straight photography to a poetic visual vocabulary that is expressed in the blending of photography, film, painting and poetry fused into an artistic cosmos. It presents the dialogue between the two artists Gundula Schulze Eldowy and Robert Frank as conveyed in their photographs, films and diary entries. In the film installation The Beast in Me is Germany director Helke Misselwitz maps out a portrait of Gundula Schulze Eldowy based on her artistic development since the 1980s. The exhibition also presents us with another opportunity to focus on the work of Robert Frank, who would have celebrated his 100th birthday this year. A two-day programme – to be held in the Studio (Hanseatenweg) on 2 and 3 March, curated and presented by Alexander Horwath and Regina Schlagnitweit (Vienna) – will introduce his extensive film oeuvre." (Akademie der Künste) "At the age of fifteen, Schulze Eldowy travelled to Prague and Pilsen and was influenced by the Prague Spring. Between 1972 and 1982 she undertook extensive journeys across Eastern Europe. In 1972 she moved to East Berlin. From 1979 to 1984 she attended the Academy of Fine Arts (School of Visual Arts) in Leipzig for photography, studying with Horst Thorau. Her photographs from the 1970s and 1980s are considered some of the most important visual testimonies to East German daily life. Many of her photographs capture the private lives of others with a direct and unsparing gaze, including the living conditions of those living on the margins of society. She is known to capture everyday life through intimate exchange with her subjects. By documenting counterculture as well as elderly and disabled members of the community, she called to attention those that had been disregarded by official media, which for the most part was with idealized images of those benefiting from socialist society. From 1977 to 1990, Schulze Eldowy worked on various photo series, which occasionally earned disapproval from the authorities. Among those received negatively were her nude portraits, which she chose to photograph in their homes in order to highlight their status in society and also retain their individuality. During this period, she created the black and white cycles Berlin on a Dog's Night, Work, Nude Portraits, Tamerlan, Street Scene, The Wind Fills Itself with Water, and two color cycles The Big and the Little Step, and The Devil Take the Hindmost. Despite both solo and group exhibition opportunities and inclusion in photography journals, the Stasi still attempted to impede her practice due to the opinion that her work negatively portrayed socialist society. In 1985 she met American photographer Robert Frank, who encouraged her and invited her to go to New York in 1990, where she lived from 1990 to 1993. During this time she was included in the New Photography 8 exhibition at MoMA. Starting with her time in New York, Schulze Eldowy increasingly turned to poetry, which, for her, represents "the language of the spirit. She continued to travel and live in different countries across the world: Italy (1991), Egypt (1993–2000), Japan (1996/97), Moscow (1997), Turkey (1997) and finally in Peru and Bolivia in the 2000s. During her time in Egypt, she discovered a previously unknown shaft in the west wall of the Queen's Chamber of the Great Pyramid. She used aerial photography to find what she claims is the location of the legendary Hall of Records. In a series of sound works entitled "Songs/Cheops-Pyramide" she recited poems, chants, and songs in the pyramid chambers. In 2010 she became a member of the Saxon Academy of the Arts and in 2019 she became a member of the Academy of Arts, Berlin. In 1996 she was awarded the Higashikawa Prize. Schulze Eldowy lives in Berlin and Peru. (Wikipedia)