Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper
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<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/rene-burri-22358" aria-label="More by René Burri" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">René Burri</a>
Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church Bombed During War and Never Restored Berlin Germany 1959
Presented by Pierre Brahm 2015
adults
advertising
architecture
Berlin, Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church
bomb damage
Capone, Al
church
cities, towns, villages (non-UK)
countries and continents
documentary
emotions, concepts and ideas
formal qualities
Germany
lifestyle and culture
man
named individuals
people
photographic
places
religious
ruins
scaffolding
society
townscape
townscapes / man-made features
transformation
universal concepts
<p><span>The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church Bombed During the War and Never Restored, Berlin, Germany, 1959 </span>1959, printed 2014, is a black and white photograph by the Swiss photographer René Burri. The damaged steeple and main structure of the neo-Romanesque church are visible in the distance in the gap between the roof and large pillar of a modern building. On the right, a builder crouches on scaffolding in the foreground. The decision was taken not to rebuild the church, originally built in the 1890s, following severe bomb-damage sustained during the Second World War, and instead to leave it as a memorial of the conflict. The signs of new building contrast directly with the ruins in the background. The striking inclusion of advertising using the image and name of the American gangster Al Capone in the bottom left-hand corner further underlines the temporal shift from the old to the new.</p>
paper print photograph gelatin silver
The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church Bombed During the War and Never Restored, Berlin, Germany, 1959
image: 346 × 524 mm
Presented by Pierre Brahm 2015
<div class="text">
<p>
<i>The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church Bombed During the War and Never Restored, Berlin, Germany, 1959 </i>1959, printed 2014, is a black and white photograph by the Swiss photographer René Burri. The damaged steeple and main structure of the neo-Romanesque church are visible in the distance in the gap between the roof and large pillar of a modern building. On the right, a builder crouches on scaffolding in the foreground. The decision was taken not to rebuild the church, originally built in the 1890s, following severe bomb-damage sustained during the Second World War, and instead to leave it as a memorial of the conflict. The signs of new building contrast directly with the ruins in the background. The striking inclusion of advertising using the image and name of the American gangster Al Capone in the bottom left-hand corner further underlines the temporal shift from the old to the new.  </p>
<p>This image is part of a portfolio of twenty-seven prints (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/burri-inauguration-of-the-chapel-of-notre-dame-du-haut-france-1955-p14301" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P14301</span></a>–<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/burri-poster-of-che-guevara-1993-p14327" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P14327</span></a>), selected and compiled by Burri as a cohesive group shortly before his death in 2014. The selection spans his sixty-year career and includes a number of his best known black and white works, as well as a group of lesser-known colour works. The portfolio was printed by Burri in 2014 and this copy is number three in an edition of five plus one artist’s proof. It contains fourteen black and white gelatin silver prints and thirteen colour C-prints, highlighting Burri’s diverse use of light and shadow alongside his experimental use of colour. Although predominantly known for shooting in black and white, Burri often travelled with two cameras, switching between them to capture images in both colour and greyscale. This was a progressive approach at the time, when colour photography was generally only used in advertising or for commercial practices. Burri revisited his archive of colour images later in his career and published the monograph <i>René Burri: Impossible Reminiscences</i> in 2013 as a decisive examination of this work.</p>
<p>Burri is most famous for his work as a member of the photojournalism agency Magnum Photos and the portfolio includes images produced in this context from projects in Brazil, Egypt, Lebanon, East Germany, China and South Korea, as well as an iconic image of Cuban revolutionary leader Che Guevara taken in Havana in 1963. The young Burri was introduced to Magnum by fellow Swiss photographer Werner Bischof and began working with the agency first as an associate in 1955, before becoming a full member in 1959. His extensive career encompassed a wide variety of photographic practices, including documentary, reportage, street photography and the photo-essay, as well as portraiture, architecture and landscape. He often worked on press assignments and personal projects simultaneously, building a varied portfolio of work in both black and white and colour. Burri’s use of both bird’s eye and worm’s eye views and his attention to the effects of light and shadow created by architectural forms are reminiscent of techniques used by modernist photographers in the early twentieth century.</p>
<p>
<b>Further reading</b>
<br/>Hans-Michael Koetzle, <i>René Burri Photographs</i>, London 2003.<br/>Hans-Michael Koetzle, <i>René Burri: Impossible Reminiscences</i>, London 2013.</p>
<p>Shoair Mavlian<br/>January 2015<br/>Arthur Goodwin<br/>October 2018</p>
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Summary
2019-01-18T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
adults advertising architecture Berlin, Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church bomb damage Capone, Al church cities, towns, villages (non-UK) countries and continents documentary emotions, concepts and ideas formal qualities Germany lifestyle and culture man named individuals people photographic places religious ruins scaffolding society townscape townscapes / man-made features transformation universal concepts