This content was published on April 29, 2022 – 09:12
Berlin, Apr 28 (EFE) .- An exhibition that opens its doors to the public this Friday at the German Historical Museum (DHM) in Berlin shows three decades of photographs by Angela Merkel, the result of a long-term project by the photographer Herlinde Koelbl .
The project ended in 2021, with the departure of Merkel from the chancellery, and is now being exhibited at a time when the former chancellor is withdrawn from public life and seems to want to make herself invisible.
“Merkel would not say anything now,” Koelbl said at the presentation of the exhibition, when asked if he would not be interested in continuing to photograph the former chancellor now and take the opportunity to ask her about her opinion about the current situation in the world.
The photographer was convinced that, as a private person and retired from politics, she will avoid cameras and microphones, avoid any judgment on her successor and does not believe that she will not even visit the exhibition that has been dedicated to her.
The gesture of the rhombus, the index fingers and thumbs joined to form that geometric figure, emerged, according to Koelbl, during the presentation of the exhibition, in 1998, to later become something iconic.
Koelbl’s project spanned 30 years. It started in 1991 when Merkel became family minister, and continued during the 16 years she was chancellor (2005-2021).
“We agreed that I would not say anything and that I would only publish the photos when she left the chancellery,” said the photographer.
Merkel, according to Koelbl, never wanted to intervene in the choice of photographic motifs and never wanted to review the photos to give them her approval. “Unlike many politicians I’ve photographed, she’s not vain at all,” she said.
Koebl photographed Merkel year after year, with a break in the time she was general secretary of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), between 1998 and 2000, before becoming president of the party.
The exhibition has a section dedicated to her years as minister of the last two governments of Helmut Kohl, first of Family and then of Environment, between 1991 and 1998. Another section is dedicated to the years of the chancellorship.
In the photos, Koebl dispenses with everything that can be interpreted as emblems of power and, instead, opts for a sober set design, with a white background and any chair.
The photo documents an evolution that includes both the physical changes typical of age, and normal in any person, as well as others that have to do with the change of functions.
Thus, for example, with her arrival at the chancellery, as can be concluded from the photos, Merkel begins to control her gestures and, in general, her body language.
The exhibition includes quotes from Merkel, some taken from conversations with Koebl herself at photo shoots.
In those conversations, in the early years, Merkel used to talk about personal matters, which she stopped doing when she became chancellor in 2005.
“What have I learned in these years? Perhaps now it is easier for me to make decisions. But the question about what I have forgotten and lost in these years is perhaps just as interesting,” Merkel said as early as 1994, when she was minister. of Kohl.
The series on Merkel is the continuation of another called “Spuren der Macht” (Footprints of Power) in which she documents the physical transformation of various politicians over the years. Merkel was part of that series, which began in 1999, like former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder or former Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer.
Koelbl maintains that Merkel’s question, about what she forgot and lost in her first years as a politician, is key in that it shows something fundamental in the development of the public function.
A politician gains power, Koelbl argued, but he also loses something and pays a physical and spiritual price.
The series of photographs has been published in book form by the editorial Taschen.EFE
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