Curator’s Tour of the Exhibition Architectural Agony in Light and Shadow. Photographs by Christian Sünderwald with Stefan Thiele, Director of the Schloßberg Museum.
The Schloßberg Museum presents sixty large-format black-and-white photographs by Christian Sünderwald as part of its series featuring Chemnitz photographers. The images capture what the city’s transformation left behind – buildings and sites in Chemnitz and the surrounding region that have either disappeared or undergone fundamental change.
Christian Sünderwald (*1968) came to Chemnitz from Munich shortly after German reunification and began documenting buildings and facilities that had fallen victim to the social, political, and economic upheavals of the time: places once full of life that suddenly lost their purpose – so-called “lost places.”
The photographic range is broad. It extends from abandoned administrative buildings and hospitals to former entertainment venues such as the Kulturpalast in Rabenstein, as well as remnants of the East German State Security Service and judicial system, including the Stasi bunkers on Zschopauer Straße and the Kaßberg prison. Sünderwald also turned his lens toward decommissioned industrial sites such as the Germania Works and the former gasworks in Altchemnitz.
His aim is to document the process of “agony” – the slow decline that often ended in demolition. The exhibition offers visitors the opportunity to revisit long-vanished structures such as the Forum in the city centre and the Marmorpalast in Altendorf. In contrast, it also highlights buildings that, after years of decay, have been extensively restored and given a new purpose, including the Hartmann Hall, the Aktienspinnerei, and the former Postal Directorate at Stephanplatz.
Exterior and interior views alternate throughout the exhibition. Strong backlighting and deep shadows lend the photographs their striking visual impact. What began as an artistic project has since become an important document of Chemnitz’s architectural, artistic, and industrial history.
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