Stefan Holtz (1985-) is a photographer from the German Democratic Republic (GDR) who uses everyday scenes and events as the theme of his work. Many of the photographs in this exhibition were taken in Berlin around 2019, and depict the present state of GDR from subway stations, squares, parks, and public facilities and buildings established under the socialist regime. After the reunification of the East and West, Berlin is not only the capital of Federal Republic of Germany, but also the center of the tourism industry with techno music and rave events as its flagship, and the center of IT venture and freelancer activities second only to Silicon Valley. Different from the impression conveyed by the mass media, the work focuses on the "degrowth" (as advocated by Serge Latouche) aspects of Berlin's former socialist system, such as its social institutions, aesthetic sense, daily tranquility, and symbiosis with nature. The concurrent exhibition, "Publications from GDR" is curated by Maximilian Schön, a Berlin-based semi-pro writer of science fiction novels, and introduces literary books, catalogues, and textbooks published between the 1960s and 1980s. The concept of the exhibition is to focus on the differences in design based on ideology and the design of books that implement the communists countries' principles of "pragmatism and functional beauty" and "elimination of ornamentation as a luxury item or consumer product.
