ALEX

Photographs taken from “ALEX”, my fist photobook, self-published in 2010

Text by André Glasmacher for the ALEX exhibition 2009 at Monochrom:

At Alexanderplatz bizarre humor, pure joy and deep sadness are often only a few concrete slabs apart. Between 2008 and 2009 Christian Reister photographed daily life at Berlin’s biggest square, where some 120,000 people pass by daily.

The result is a series of photographs, which in particular show people in a wide-angle close-up perspective. They rush to the subway, come out of the shopping mall with over-sized shopping bags, drink beer, feed pigeons, or just simply hang out. They kiss, they laugh, they smoke, they wear bulky wool hats and navel-free T-shirts, or they look longingly into the distance. Christian Reister brings into focus what remains unnoticed and yet is essential.
The photographs, in 16:9 format, dominate through their cool, “steel” color, much like film stills, which could be set in motion at any moment. The photographs convey an atmosphere that ranges from desolation to unintentional comedy. Which of the two outweighs, lies – which the photographer leaves open – in the eye of the beholder.