Ute Mahler and Werner Mahler rank among the defining figures of German photography. Through their photographic work, their many years of teaching, and as co-founders of the renowned Ostkreuz photographers’ agency and the Ostkreuzschule in Berlin, they have left a lasting mark on the medium.

Monalisen der Vorstädte (Mona Lisas of the Suburbs, 2008–2010) is their first collaborative work. Taking Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait as their point of departure, they encounter young women in the suburbs of Reykjavík, Liverpool, Minsk, Berlin, and Florence—women in search of identity, belonging, and their place in the world.

Working in a deliberately reduced, classical visual language, the artists create portraits that foreground the tension between the softness and openness of the faces and the starkness of the urban periphery. The series captures a state of in-between—an elusive moment in which everything still seems possible.

Ute Mahler and Werner Mahler have known each other since their school days and studied at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig in the early 1970s. In their photographic work, they have always supported one another while pursuing independent artistic careers—both in the GDR and after reunification. In 1990, they co-founded the Ostkreuz agency in Berlin. Since 2008, they have collaborated on artistic projects as creative partners. Together for over five decades, the Mahlers live in Lehnitz, Brandenburg.

This exhibition is presented in cooperation with Galerie Springer Berlin.