our website: www.beth.oelscher.net
In 2003, Paris-based German photographers Eva Beth and Torsten Oelscher approached me, asking if I could help them organizing a photo shooting in Berlin. Their request seemed tempting: Unlike so many other photographers, they weren’t interested in the usual famous faces. Rathermore, they wanted me to cast them the movers and shakers of the Berlin subculture. Together we went into the deep, down and dirtiest late night bars that I could think of, often located in ex-brothels or run-down squats. In other words: We went to the places that were off the tourist routes. Places, that evoked the spirit of Andy Warhol’s Manhattan in the late 60’s, or, more precisely, the ghost of a different Berlin where people stay up all night and sleep all day, recording music, painting pictures or writing books. To make a long story short: After a week, Eva and Torsten had the most amazing selection of pictures of a creative scene that I thought I knew so well – but the pictures somehow ennobled these proud and beautiful people. That was the very moment where I understood: It deserves a vision to see the world differently. From then on, we often worked together professionally. In the meantime I had become editor in-chief of the German Spex magazine for pop culture. In 2007 I did an interview with the French director and late husband of Simone de Beauvoir, Claude Lanzmann, about his film Shoah. Eva and Torsten simply captured the face of this extraordinary (and certainly most difficult to portrait…) man in a stunning picture. But not enough: After having seen his film, they proposed to fly to Treblinka, Poland, and to photograph the remainders of the Nazi death camp for Spex magazine. I worked with many photographers through the years. How could I refuse an offer from this obsessed, humorous and imaginative couple? The haunting interview with Lanzmann which appeared in March 2008 ranks among the all-time best articles in Spex magazine.
Max Dax, editor in-chief @ Spex magazine