Exhibition about one of the most important photographers of the GDR, Evelyn Richter.
In April 2012, Evelyn Richter (1930 Bautzen - 2021 Dresden) traveled to Moscow for the last time to document Orthodox Easter in the Pafnuti Monastery in Borovsk. This was the fulfillment of a long-cherished wish. Since her first trip to Moscow in 1957, the photographer had been overwhelmed by the people in Moscow's museums and exhibitions. The intensity with which the visitors devoted themselves to the works of art from different eras impressed and moved her deeply. It was not possible to take photographs in the churches where she wanted to meet people during services or prayers. In museums, however, she saw people in front of icons and religious images. Richter captured her devotional encounters with the altarpieces, which had become museum exhibits in glass display cases. These photographs were the impetus for her long-term project of so-called museum visitors.
In 2012, five decades later, Evelyn Richter was able to move freely around the new and restored churches and monasteries of the early modern period and, with official permission, attend an Easter service. Having grown up in a Protestant environment herself, she was fascinated by the deep and intensely lived religiosity. Richter deliberately photographed in color and not in black and white. She wanted to capture the exuberant, almost painterly variety of colors of the (gilded) icons, the magnificent priestly vestments and the simple clothing of the faithful. From the extensive film material, Evelyn Richter created a group of works entitled Light in the Darkness, which is one of the last of her works. It was purchased by the Ostdeutsche Sparkassenstiftung for the Evelyn Richter Archive of the Ostdeutsche Sparkassenstiftung at the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig. While the exhibition "Evelyn Richter. A Photographer's Life" in 2023/24 at the MdbK, the singular photograph from Borovsk from 1957 was still shown without its context, works from over fifty years of creative work are now being brought together.