Fotografie als Kunst der verdrängung (Photography as the Art of Repression)

At the time of the exhibition "Otto Steinert und Schüler
Fotografische Ausbildung 1948-1978" in the Folkwang Museum,
Essen, the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
printed a letter by Jan Thorn-Prikker entitled "Photography as
the Art of Repression". In this letter (reprinted in this issue
of European Photography), the author discusses the personality
and aesthetics of Steinert. Critically examining Steinert's
"subjektive Fotografie", the author states that "Steinert was a
master in repressing reality", that his photographic aesthetics
is marked by blindness, ultimately stating that Steinerts
aesthetics is "ideology, in the precise Marxian meaning:
necessary false consciousness". The author locates the cause of
this blindness in Steinert's biography and his authoritarian
personality.