Claus Hänsel

 

Wrozlaw, 1981
6 photographs, b/w, 30 x 40 cm each
Courtesy: Studienzentrum für Künstlerpublikationen, Weserburg, Bremen

The pictures taken in 1981 – approximately three weeks before martial law was instated in Poland – display the struggle between the Solidarity and the ruling regime: The Solidarity movement flooded the streets with its messages and declarations, whilst the government tried to remove them just as quickly, which was followed by even more posters put up by the members of the Solidarity, and so on. The pictures were taken when Claus Hänsel was traveling with a delegation from the GDR to the Graphic Biennale in Krakow. Since there was a possibility that there were Stasi informers amongst the members of the delegation, Hänsel often detached from the group with some excuse to take the pictures in secret.