Astrid Klein: suggestive pictures, 1975–83
Astrid Klein (born 1951 in Cologne) is not only interested in subverting or highlighting power structures and mechanisms of representation—she also seeks to dismantle them and call conventional modes of seeing into question. In the summer of 1983, RealismusStudio organized an exhibition of her work at the nGbK. The catalogue of the same name shows Klein’s early photographic works made with material culled from mass media using experimental photographic techniques like photo(negative)montage, double exposure, photograms, pixelation, etching, and collage. Her choice of motifs often follows the tabloid press obsession with disaster and sensation. “They are coded messages about reality that act like subliminal images, provoking the activity of our own desire to know,” writes Ulla Frohne in her catalogue essay. The book contains reproductions of works including Versager, Aussteiger, Verlierer (Failures, Dropouts, Losers, 1978), Nid de Vipères (Vipers’ Nest, 1980), Die Richter (The Judges, 1981), and Gedankenchips (Thought Chips, 1983).

Ed.: nGbK

Work group: Valdis J. Āboliņš, Michael Elsen, Ursula Frohne, Udo Ropohl, Barbara Straka