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Das Jahr 1990 freilegen
Volte Expanded
Jan Wenzel/Alexander Kluge

592 pp.

numerous black-white and colour illustrations

thread-sewn softcover



Leipzig December, 2019
ISBN: 9783959053198
Edition Number: 2

Width: 24.5 cm
Length: 33.2 cm

Language(s): German

Editor
Jan Wenzel

Author
Alexander Kluge

Designer
Wolfgang Schwärzler

Editorial team
Jan-Frederik Bandel, Anne König, Christin Krause, Andreas Rost, Wolfgang Schwärzler, Monique Ulrich, Anna Magdalena Wolf

Photographer
Wilfried Bauer, Christian Borchert, Christiane Eisler, Gerhard Gäbler, Silke Geister, Anselm Graubner, Harald Hauswald, Matthias Hoch, Martin Jehnichen, Harald Kirschner, Sieghard Liebe, Ute Mahler, Jürgen Matschie, Tomki Němec, Jens Rötsch, Andreas Rost, Thomas Sandberg, Einar Schleef, Michael Schmidt, Gundula Schulze Eldowy, Maurice Weiss, Thomas Wolf, Ulrich Wüst, Martin Zitzlaff

A comparison of the years 1989 and 1990 would suggest that their presence in the collective memory takes very different forms. Most people can quickly bring the year 1989 to mind. Even after a gap of almost thirty years, it is easy to recount the sequence of events as they happened that autumn, when everything was condensed into a few highly dramatic weeks. By contrast, 1990 seems like a blind spot in the memory. Our recollections of a year like this are hard to grasp: our attention is claimed by events coming thick and fast and by unfulfilled wishes and unacknowledged wounds. Das Jahr 1990 freilegen deals with the different aspects of the year 1990 and their topicality today. It is a montage of pictorial documents and voices from 1990 mingled with essayistic reflections and stories that look back on this year from the perspective of the present.

With 32 texts by Alexander Kluge.

Photographs by: Wilfried Bauer, Christian Borchert, Christiane Eisler, Gerhard Gäbler, Silke Geister, Anselm Graubner, Harald Hauswald, Matthias Hoch, Martin Jehnichen, Harald Kirschner, Sieghard Liebe, Ute Mahler, Jürgen Matschie, Tomki Němec, Jens Rötsch, Andras Rost, Thomas Sandberg, Einar Schleef, Michael Schmidt, Gundula Schulze Eldowy, Maurice Weiss, Thomas Wolf, Ulrich Wüst, Martin Zitzlaff, and others.

Reviews

“Even though we never actually know what the term coffee table book is supposed to mean – what we do know is that “Das Jahr 1990 freilegen“ belongs on every table—with or without coffee…”
do you read me?!
“Das Jahr 1990 freilegen is a massive book.”
Michael Pilz, Die literarische Welt

“Leipzig publisher Spector Books is now publishing a book whose almost 600 pages should take a lot of time, ideally a whole year.”
Steffen Siegel, taz
“A contemporary historical publication with a comparable variety of voices would be difficult to find.”

Jens Bisky, Süddeutsche Zeitung
“On almost 600 large-format pages, none of which are alike, this suggestive text-image montage literally sucks us into the past - and yet it is highly topical.”
Nils Kahlefendt, MDR Kultur
“the artist has captured a unique perspective on the modernist architecture piece that we are now all so familiar.”
Ellie Stathaki, Wallpaper

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