“Berlin 1945–2000: A Photographic Subject” examines how German and international photographers depicted Berlin between the immediate postwar years and the end of the twentieth century. The book is edited by Reinbeckhallen Berlin and published by Hartmann Books to accompany a major exhibition at the Reinbeckhallen in Berlin. Curator and art historian Candice M. Hamelin selected the exemplary works and contributes an essay; the book is not the work of a single photographer but a group presentation of more than twenty photographers.
The volume opens with black-and-white photographs of Berlin in ruins and closes with images of urban development projects after the fall of the Berlin Wall, often in color and made with exposure times of up to several years. Between these sections, the selected images belong to street, subjective, architectural, conceptual, portrait, and experimental photography. Photographers represented include Wilfried Bauer, Sibylle Bergemann, Kurt Buchwald, Arno Fischer, Nan Goldin, Herbert Hensky, Max Jacoby, Karl-Ludwig Lange, Will McBride, Rudi Meisel, Roger Melis, Evelyn Richter, Andreas Rost, Michael Schmidt, Gundula Schulze-Eldowy, Maria Sewcz, Michael Wesely, Anno Wilms, Ulrich Wüst, Werner Zellien, Harf Zimmermann, and Miron Zownir.
The hardcover edition measures 24 × 28 cm and has 144 pages with approximately 100 illustrations. It is clothbound with a banderole and contains German and English texts. The design is by 75 W/T.S. Wendelstein, Berlin. ISBN 978-3-96070-049-4. The exhibition at the Reinbeckhallen was extended until May 30, 2021.
