Introduction

Menschenbilder | Zeitgeschichte. Der Fotograf Joachim Giesel

For over fifty years, the Hanover-based photojournalist, freelance author, and commercial advertising photographer Joachim Giesel (born in 1940 in Breslau) has been documenting the political, social, economic, and cultural development of the Federal Republic of Germany through his photo essays, series, portraits, and advertising photographs. Through its historical turning points and social transformations. Through its prosperity and its narrow-mindedness. Through its beauty and diversity. And at the center of it all is always the human being. Giesel accompanied Queen Elizabeth II during her 1965 visit to Hanover, mingled with the mourners at Benno Ohnesorg’s funeral in 1967, was present at the legendary soccer match between East Germany and Brazil at the Niedersachsenstadion (Lower Saxony Stadium) in 1974, created a gallery of chancellors from Konrad Adenauer to Helmut Kohl, photographs a series featuring people with mental illness, and stages captivating portraits ranging from Franz Beckenbauer to Udo Jürgens, from Max Frisch to Doris Dörrie, from Louis Armstrong to Rudolf Augstein.

Following in the tradition of August Sander, his photographs offer us today, across generations, fascinating insights into West German society—between prefabricated apartment blocks and single-family homes, between assembly-line workers and drag queens, between Swan Lake and nudism. They are thus historical documents of German history. By searching for the “image behind the image,” Giesel’s portraits captivate viewers with their aesthetic diversity, technical brilliance, and unmistakable presence, establishing the photographer as a significant figure in post-1945 German photographic history.

Giesel is actively involved in various roles—as a curator, teacher, publicist, and official—in promoting photography in the Federal Republic of Germany and has participated in over 75 exhibitions both domestically and abroad. In 1972, he founded the spectrum Photogalerie in Hanover with fellow photographers, one of the first photography galleries in Europe, which has staged nearly 100 exhibitions. Since 2022, his work has been systematically cataloged in the Joachim Giesel Archive. In this retrospective, Giesel’s oeuvre is presented for the first time in all its thematic and aesthetic diversity and analyzed against the backdrop of current discourses. An accompanying catalog is being published by Hirmer Verlag.

Concept

The exhibition “Menschenbilder | Zeitgeschichte. Der Fotograf Joachim Giesel” was first shown in 2024 at the MÄDLER ART FORUM in Leipzig. It was curated by Rickie Lynne Giesel (Joachim Giesel Archive) and Prof. Martin Schieder (University of Leipzig) in collaboration with students from the Institute of Art History at the University of Leipzig, including Mathilde Blum, Enya Elinor Felix, Jonathan Fulda, Katrin Kaiser, Farina Kolbe, Jule Lang, Marietta Mann, Emilia Pfeiffer, Laura Zoe Rosenthal, Konrad Schopplich, Charlotte Stobbe, Zoe Jarmila Warmbrunn, and Lea Weiß.

Project Director

Rickie Lynne Giesel

Assistant

Marla Kaminsky

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Madsack Foundation, the Kulturwerk Foundation of VG Bild-Kunst, the Rudolf Augstein Foundation, Sparkasse Hannover, Dirk Rossmann GmbH, the University Foundation of Leipzig, the Stadema Foundation, the Museum of Fine Arts in Leipzig, the Sprengel Museum Hannover, and all other donors.