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All About Photo Presents 'Street Photography At The End Of The 80s' by Henk Kosche, on view throughout July 2025.
All About Photo is pleased to present Street Photography At The End Of The 80s, a solo exhibition by German photographer Henk Kosche, curated by Sandrine Hermand-Grisel. The exhibition will be featured in the online gallery space throughout July 2025, as part of All About Photo’s commitment to showcasing historical and contemporary voices in photography.
With raw candor and poetic restraint, Henk Kosche’s photographs offer a rare window into life in Halle an der Saale—a city at the heart of the industrial region of the former GDR—just before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Shot in the late 1980s and long stored away in a small cardboard box of 35mm negatives, these images were recently rediscovered after nearly four decades. Now digitized and shared for the first time, they capture a fleeting historical moment with a timeless sense of observation.
“At some point the past catches up with you,” Kosche reflects. “And the little box revealed its treasures.”
In these evocative black-and-white photographs, Kosche documents the unique atmosphere of a city marked by contradiction—gritty yet vibrant, resigned yet full of life. The smoke of chimneys from tenements, chemical plants, and coal-fired power stations cloaks the streets, shaping a visual texture that reflects both the physical and emotional environment of the time. The images portray a population caught in quiet tension, their lives shaped by improvisation, fatigue, and enduring spirit.
More than nostalgic reflection, Street Photography At The End Of The 80s serves as a visual testimony of a society on the verge of profound transformation. Kosche’s work captures “the atmosphere of those years one last time,” before Western consumerism and global branding would redefine the cityscape and everyday culture.
This exhibition stands as a powerful reminder of photography’s role in preserving personal and political history, elevating the ordinary, and documenting the silent poetry of transitional times.
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Artist:
Henk Kosche is a product designer and photographer who lives in the heart of Germany, the Ruhr region.
In his work as a product designer, observing human activities is an important part of thinking about solutions through design. This includes understanding the needs of the people involved, but also the interaction in which their decisions are made.
Photography can play an important role here, and over the years he developed a deep passion for this subject. Unlike words, a picture can deliver a dense, emotional impression and a personal statement within seconds. A good photograph is a point of view frozen in time.
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