Martin Eberle - Hi Schatz! Die Show zum Buch

About

Press Release

Fantôme Verlag has recently published the extended, second edition of Martin Eberle and Heinrich Dubel's book "Hi Schatz!" (the first edition appeared in 2019 and quickly sold out). The extensive book showcases photographs Eberle took of the city of Berlin between 1997 and 2009; these are supplemented by Dubel's "psycholinguistic miniatures", short texts that can be subsumed under the catchphrase "hearing voices." The new edition comes with a flexi disc (Dubel reads the eponymous letter "Hi Schatz!") and has been expanded by 16 pages (containing all the song lyrics of the Berlin band Jeans Team from 1997 to 2006, as well as additional photographs).

And now, the book is followed by Martin Eberle’s exhibition "Hi Schatz! – Die Show zum Buch". The Laura Mars Gallery is honored that musician Henning Watkinson will perform material from his new album "Channels" at the opening. You are cordially invited to the event.

The photographs in Martin Eberle's book "Hi Schatz!" were taken between 1997 and 2009. They document Berlin exactly as it actually was back then – beyond all official projections: unfinished, provisional, run-down, remaining, free, fantastic. Above all, the public and semi-public spaces of the city at that time also function as carriers of informal communication – slips of paper that someone hangs somewhere, a love letter that gets lost, flyers that are passed on, something someone sprays on a wall. The everyday and no longer consciously perceived surface of the city becomes a foil for the most private mini-messages, idiosyncratic design solutions, or sheer insanity. Much of it cannot be deciphered without insider knowledge – or, more exactly, without being art savvy or familiar with the social environment. Always obvious, however, is an untamed creative force that appropriates the urban landscape in terms of an own interpretation. Niches and empty spaces are occupied, altered, and utilized to convey one's own message, or a joke.
The photographs of these appropriations resurrect the Berlin of those years and portray the city as personal, dirty, vulnerable, and emotional, showing its many niches and lost corners, and the whole craziness of it.

"Hi Schatz!" is supplemented by Heinrich Dubel’s so-called psycholinguistic miniatures of everyday life, short texts that can be subsumed under the catchphrase "hearing voices." They consist of text fragments and utterings seen or overheard in public places – and provide, written down from memory, a special "background noise" to Eberle‘s portrait of a big city.

//
Martin Eberle studied photography at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Dortmund and architecture and urban research at the Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg. Since 1996 teaching photography at various technical and art universities.
Exhibitions a.o. 2021 V&A Dundee, Scotland 2020 Designmuseum Danmark, Copenhagen 2019 c/o Berlin; Centro Pecci, Prato 2018 ADAM - Brussels Design Museum; Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein; SJ-Kunsthalle Seoul, South Korea 2017 Goethe Institut Seoul, South Korea; Goethe Institut Mexico City, Goethe-Institut Taipei, Taiwan; Shujing Tang Art Center, Chengdu, China 2016 Goethe Institut Bogota; Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil in Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte; Deck Art Space, Singapore.