China, 1985
Nov. 6–Dec. 18, 2026
Barbara Klemm
Galerie—Peter—Sillem
Barbara Klemm’s photographs from China capture a unique moment of upheaval. In 1985, the country was still heavily influenced by the Mao era, yet Deng Xiaoping’s policy of “reform and opening up” had already set a profound transformation in motion.
Barbara Klemm does not focus on major political events, but rather on people and their everyday lives: on fields and markets, factories and homes, on work, meals, and those rare moments of peace. The result is a series of powerful images of a society caught between the past and the future.
More than forty years later, her photographs depict a China that no longer exists in this form—while at the same time preserving the moment when its present reality began.
Barbara Klemm is considered one of the most important contemporary German photographers. She was born in 1939 in Münster, Westphalia, and grew up in Karlsruhe. She has worked for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung since 1959, and since 1970 as a staff photographer specializing in politics and the arts. Her work has been honored with numerous awards, including the Dr. Erich Salomon Prize from the German Society for Photography (1989), the Hugo Erfurth Prize from the City of Leverkusen (1989), the Maria Sibylla Merian Prize for Women Visual Artists in Hesse (1998), the Hessian Culture Prize (2000), and the Max Beckmann Prize from the City of Frankfurt am Main (2009). Barbara Klemm was the first woman to receive the Leica Hall of Fame Award (2012). She has been a member of the Berlin Academy of Arts since 1992, and in 2010 she was elected to the Order “Pour le mérite.” Barbara Klemm lives in Frankfurt am Main.