As part of this year’s Urban Art Week, Street Art Berlin has the big pleasure to host the photo exhibition NO FOTOS, consisting of nearly 3 dozens of photos on the walls and hundreds more to see by the famous street life photographer Petra Branke in our Culture Pop Studio at Potsdamer Platz. It is as well PETRA’s VERY FIRST SOLO SHOW and thus, needed to be inaugurated not only by a classic vernissage, but a BIG PARTY! The „Sternissage“ took place on Saturday, 7th September, and it was wild! The exhibition is still to be seen until Thursday, 26th September.
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About the artist
10.000s of followers in the social media channels, 100.000s comments and likes and almost as many pictures. Petra Branke is everywhere to take photos of Germany’s artists and cities.
Refering to her photos, she doesn’t define herself as an artist, she claims: „I am free to do whatever I like, without anyone judging me. I am like a stray dog photographer!“
– Armed with the priviledge of free development, without having the duty to fulfill certain expectations, she takes her photos mostly with an i-phone which never leaves her side. Her pictures are capturing spontaneous events just in the right moment, she doesn’t use a stative or classical compositions. Petra is a restless character, always on the move, like a raging reporter. She got an eye for special places, human interactions and funny, unique moments.
In the focus of her photography stand the artists and their creative output, the fun and joy of spending time together outside on the streets while artworks are being made. Consequently, her photos present authentic, often ripped-out-of-real-life, unadultered reflections of street life in different places.
Petra has also an eye for the city’s architecture which she highlights in dramatic black and white photos, for volatile, blurry human legs or a pidgeon that flies above metro tracks – atmospheric pictures that invite the viewer to dream and enjoy.
Other photos include slapstick moments, for which Petra got an eye like noone else.
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About the exhibition
For the very first time, as part of the Urban Art Week 2019, her photos are exhibited in a solo-exhibition. Under the title „No Fotos“ – a request that people asked Petra over and over again, Street Art Berlin presents her photos at the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, amongst the Brandenburg gate and the ambassadors districts. – Photos, that invite you to be astonished, to shake your head, to laugh and to feel. The exhibition presents nearly 3 dozens of photos from recent years as high quality dibonds and hundreds more covering our pillars in a tag-style, like on the now almost extinct Litfaßsäule (= an advertising column, mostly to be found outdoors), linking Street Art Berlin’s Culture Pop Studio ever so much to where it all began: The streets. All photos shown are taken by Germany’s most famous street life photographer: Petra Branke.
What makes the exhibition and motives so unique, are actually a lot of facts. Mainly Petra’s eye for these moments and the undoubtable fact that she is a vital part of Berlin’s street art and life scene, she is a first-hand-witness.
In the same time, her exhibition merges into a kind of huge-scale photo album or archive, confronting the viewer with stories from the streets as well as a platform for sharing memories or stories about buildings, places, faces and moments people can identify in the pictures.
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THE BIG OPENING: 7th September 2019,
Petra Branke: NO FOTOS – A Sternissage
The opening event itself turned out to be as packed, crowded, joyful and unique as you would expect it from basically everything, Petra Branke is involved and from one of the main events during the Urban Art Week:
Berlin’s Street Art Scene shook hands here: Street artists, graffiti writers, rappers, private people, even kids – everyone who saw Petra’s photos had a good laugh together, eventually a lot of guests could find themselves – literally – in some of the photos and thus, shared stories and memories.
Lots of artists created a little something especially for making that evening so unique and paying their tributes to Petra.
A massive THANK YOU goes to a bunch of people who First of all, Petra Branke herself. It is a pleasure to host your photos here! The whole team of STREET ART BERLIN is ever so thankful for the MANY GUESTS who filled our CULTURE POP STUDIO showroom that evening – artists, musicians and civilians likewise – you know who you are. It was crowded, colourful and wild, wild, wild!
Last, but not least: We thank the sponsors of the NO FOTO exhibition: Sternburger (because of your product’s appearance, Sternburger beer, aka „Sterni“, in a lot of Petra’s photos the vernissage was called „Sternissage“), fritz-kola, Schulz & Schulz, Miss Nice, The Fly and Spreequell.
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Petra Branke – NO FOTOS
08.09. – 26.09.2019
Culture Pop Studio by Street Art Berlin
Potsdamer Platz Arkaden
Ground floor
Entrance: Gebrüder-Grimm-Gasse
10785 Berlin
Wednesday-Friday 12.00 – 19.00
Saturday 11.00 – 17.00
