Insight : Last chance

Hardly any other photographer got as close to the politicians of his time as Volker Hinz (1947 - 2019). Since the early 1970s, the stern photographer accompanied them during election campaigns, trips abroad, conferences, major speeches - and sometimes even into their own homes. His view of personalities such as Willy Brandt or Deng Hsiao Ping, Helmut Kohl or Joschka Fischer followed his keen sense for the key or symbolic moment, for tense relationships, power and powerlessness, tragedy, but also comedy in front of and behind the scenes. "Hinznah", as the Hamburg native himself said. His portraits of politicians reveal human sides that remain hidden when staged in front of television cameras. These pictures always reflect the relationship between the media and politics.

The "EinBlick" exhibition provides a glimpse into the Volker Hinz photo archive, which the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (Bavarian State Library) took over in 2021. In addition to the portraits, selected reportages encourage visitors to reflect on four politically turbulent decades - and their impact on the present day. At the marches of the Ku Klux Klan or the street battles of the Irish conflict, in the shower cubicles of the Ruhr miners or the meetings of East German civil rights activists after the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification: Volker Hinz was there. The faces of the people he observed with great empathy reveal how decisions made by politicians change the lives of each individual.

Last edited on 10.10.2024