L’Europe du silence
“When I decided to photograph West Berlin in 1979, I wanted to understand Germany, the country that gave birth to Nazism, the phenomenon, unique in history, generated by such a perfectly civilized people. This extraordinary place captivated me for 10 long years. As early as 1961, the wall prevented the erasure of traces, and Berlin became a vast studio where the decor gave the same reality to the present and the past. Berlin fixed the two faces of German civilization, one extremely refined, the other monstrous.
The set was dismantled on November 9, 1989, the anniversary of Kristallnacht.
After these ten years I was very curious to discover the eastern face of Germany, to cross this rurality almost unchanged since 1933, to see how the progressive culture of Weimar could cohabit with Buchenwald.
In 1992, the Polish journey revealed the great economic deficiencies of the region, but above all the immense horror of the human slaughterhouses of the Third Reich.
As I decided to end my trip at the Polish-Russian border, I had the feeling that if I retraced my steps, I would be able to break through the aseptic shell of the powerful West Germany, as well as the seventy years of totalitarian pressure from the other, the East.
The reverse chronology continued; it was not until 1997, in Verdun, in the landscape still scarred by the fierce battles of 1914-1918, that I understood the coherence of this long history. »
Stéphane Duroy
DETAILS
20 framed prints from 18×24 cm to 60×80 cm.
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Hôtel Paul Delaroche
58 rue Saint Lazare, 75009 Paris
+33 1 53 01 85 85
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