Invitation: A World Beyond the Wall

30th anniversary of the Peaceful Revolution and the fall of the Berlin Wall

The Exhibition A World Beyond the Wall features the work of Stefan Roloff and Harf Zimmermann, together for the first time in the United States. Living on opposite sides of the Berlin Wall, Roloff and Zimmermann spent most of their lives not knowing about each other’s work or existence.

Hufelandstraße 1055 Berlin revolves around the street with the same name located in east Berlin’s famous Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood. The photographs were taken in the mid-1980s and were inspired by the American photographer Bruce Davidson, who for two years in the late 1960s documented the people of East 100^th Street in Spanish Harlem. Similar to his role model Davidson, Zimmermann’s work is a powerful statement of his deep respect for his subjects, and like Davidson’s work, Zimmermann’s is done exclusively with large format cameras

Roloff’s video installation MARIO R. is a reminder of East Germany’s persecution of its citizens who were caught and imprisoned because of oppositional activities or in an attempt to escape the GDR. Speaking as a silhouette, MARIO R. haunts viewers with his experiences as a gay man in former East Germany, his thwarted attempt to escape to the West for love, his detention by the Stasi and finally his passage to the free world.

Mario R. will be present at the exhibition opening and available for Q&A.

Born in 1953 in Berlin, German-American artist Stefan Roloff has worked as a painter, video artist and filmmaker. In 1984, Roloff was invited to experiment on prototypes of digital video and imaging computers at the New York Institute of Technology. Roloff received a fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts for his digital work in 1989. He continues to combine his paintings and videos in collaboration with musicians like Martin Rev, Jim O’Rourke and Andrew Cyrille.

German photo artist Harf Zimmermann, who was born in Dresden and grew up in East Berlin, lives and works in Berlin today. After studying photography with Professor Arno Fischer at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig and graduating in 1987, Zimmermann began his career photographing for international magazines, industry and advertising. In 1990, Zimmermann became a founding member of the OSTKREUZ, one of Germany’s most important agencies run by photographers, which he left in 1999.

Location and time:
German Consulate General New York
871 United Nations Plaza
New York, NY 10017
Opening reception: Tuesday, October 22, 2019, 6:00 – 8:00 pm
Exhibition: October 22 through November 2019

Admission is free, but an RSVP is required for the opening reception at: world beyond wall