“I can change, I can change, I can change —
but I’m here in my mold.”
— The Verve, Bittersweet Symphony (1997)
Bittersweet Symphony brings two photographic positions into a quiet but powerful dialogue: Stefanie Moshammer (Each Poison, A Pillow) and Eric Meier (Vaterland) approach the subject of alcohol addiction in very different ways—poetically encrypted and documentarily confrontational, always with an eye on the personally unspoken and the socially repressed.
Stefanie Moshammer has developed a multi-layered work consisting of photographs, objects, and video works that approaches her mother’s alcohol addiction from a personal perspective. Her visual and material language oscillates between closeness and distance, control and vulnerability. Fragmentary arrangements, texts, and moving images open up a space in which shame, responsibility, and care become visible without being rigidly defined.
Eric Meier, on the other hand, portrays alcoholic men from a residential facility in Eisenhüttenstadt—many of whom have been marked by the upheavals and exclusions of the post-reunification period. His photographs are not voyeuristic, but rather imbued with great closeness and respect. They show people who have become socially invisible, with a dignity that has a quiet impact. Meier’s works reflect images of masculinity, social isolation, and a language in which social clichés echo, but there is little room for genuine encounter.
The exhibition does not create a false reconciliation. It asks questions—about responsibility, about origins, about failure and repetition. Between intimate imagery and structural analysis, Bittersweet Symphony opens up a space that does not provide answers, but rather enables reflection on the unspeakable.
Curated by Katharina Schilling
Curatorial assistance: Tatjana Rotfuß