Damaskus: Frizzi Krella

Layers of ancient culture and religion overlap with the present day in Damascus. Frizzi Krella depicts this vibrant city in all its ambivalence in her black-and-white and colour photographs. She focuses on everyday life scarred by war and views the city and its inhabitants with empathy and tenderness. Krella's photographs create a poetic proximity that reveals a unique snapshot of Damascus shortly before the fall of the Assad regime: a backyard ladder that seems to grow skywards; a conversation at the market, between open sacks of spices; a satellite disk on a rooftop. The assumed contradictions of past and present merge into a sensual oneness in Krella's photographs, which do not conceal the ugly or the dreadful yet never lose sight of the dignity of those living here. Text in English, French and German. AUTHORS: Frizzi Krella (born in Dresden/ Germany) studied art history and Romance studies in Berlin and Paris. Krella, is an Art historian and Curator of the Guardini Gallery in Berlin, and has authored publications on Dresden painting, the Dix School and contemporary artistic positions. Stefan Weidner (born 1967 in Cologne) is a German scholar of Islamic cultures, writer, and translator. Due to his contributions to the reception of Arabic and other Middle Eastern literatures, the German scholar of Modern Oriental Studies Stefan Wild described him as a "leading mediator of Middle Eastern poetry and prose into German". SELLING POINTS: . A beautiful portrait of the city of Damascus . A unique snapshot of Damascus shortly before the fall of the Assad regime