Bittersweet Symphony

_“I can change, I can change, I can change — but I’m here in my mold.” The Verve, Bittersweet Symphony (1997) _Bittersweet Symphony_ brings two photographic positions into a quiet but powerful dialogue: Stefanie Moshammer (_Each Poison, A Pillow_) and Eric Meier (_Vaterland_) approach the subject of alcohol addiction in very different ways—poetically encrypted and documentarily confrontational, always with an eye on the personally unspoken and the socially repressed. Stefanie Moshammer has developed a multi-layered work consisting of photographs, objects, and video works that approaches her mother’s alcohol addiction from a personal perspective. Her visual and material language oscillates between closeness and distance, control and vulnerability. Fragmentary arrangements, texts, and moving images open up a space in which shame, responsibility, and care become visible without being rigidly defined. Eric Meier, on the other hand, portrays alcoholic men from a residential facility in Eisenhüttenstadt—many of whom have been marked by the upheavals and exclusions of the post-reunification period. His photographs are not voyeuristic, but rather imbued with great closeness and respect. They show people who have become socially invisible, with a dignity that has a quiet impact. Meier’s works reflect images of masculinity, social isolation, and a language in which social clichés echo, but there is little room for genuine encounter. The exhibition does not create a false reconciliation. It asks questions—about responsibility, about origins, about failure and repetition. Between intimate imagery and structural analysis, _Bittersweet Symphony_ opens up a space that does not provide answers, but rather enables reflection on the unspeakable.