Vincent Kohlbecher

Over a period of four years Vincent Kohlbecher visited Poland numerous times. He found motifs that took him back to his childhood, to the Catholic faith, to German history, in Gdansk, Warsaw, Kraków, Plaszów, Majdanek, and Auschwitz. Kohlbecher’s pictures are texts that beg to be read carefully. The places he describes in his pictures are only accessible to the viewer through the interplay of what he has seen, what is associated with it, and historical memory. The photographer, who always remains at a distance and never becomes part of the narrative, succeeds in taking a rare analytical and sharply focused look at Germany’s neighboring country that remains unknown to most Germans. Vincent Kohlbecher (*1960, Hamburg) was a photojournalist working for German and international magazines in the 1990s and has taught photography at Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW) since 2003. Its Flower Is Hard to Find is his first publication.

»Poland is seen from a personal viewpoint. The 55 images that Kohlbecher [...] has selected and interwoven in a multi-layered dramaturgy show a Poland as we do not know it.... A quiet, a great book.« Gerhard Mack, NZZ 28 February, 2021