Ursula Böckler: Generation Uscha, Hohenthal und Bergen • Köln, Germany
In spite of the fact that I am sometimes
looked at as a macho-girl (or maybe because of this), I am very shy and
don’t want to bother strangers with my camera. As much as possible
I therefore photograph my friends. (1) Uscha is the most exciting one
of them and she likes having her picture taken. In this way, over the
years, a substantial collection of pictures has built up which I would
like to make accessible to my other friends (the public).
The reason I take pictures has something to do with the fact that I am
interested in so-called “private moments,” in which the object
of capture behaves like a small animal in the wilderness. This is possible
with friends (children) who trust you a lot. Over the years I had to realize
that Uscha is never doing what I want her to do anyhow. Even pretending
to pose for the camera, she just remains herself. (3)
A generation is often identified with its cultural icons. Madonna for
the 80s, Kurt Cobain for grunge, or Captain Picard for “The Next
Generation,” are typical examples. While somehow being grateful for
these characters to identify with, we must confess that essentially, or
even as a tendency, these lifestyles don’t have anything to do with
our own experiences. Most generational icons have normative character.
They create the Zeitgeist which they are supposedly reflecting. With “Uscha”
I went the other way around. If she changed her place of work, the way
she looked, her friends or the country she lived in, so did the places
we met and the pictures I took. The thousand faces of uscha correspond
probably to the richness of any real person whose image is not charged
with particular messages. (4) Maybe therefore she is just as suitable
for a realistic representation of her generation as the media idols whose
significance is already fixed.
The New Year of 1985—we get to know each other at a party organized
by so-called “Poppers” (Popper is an expression of that time
referring to brand-conscious pop music fans with well-parted hairdos)
from Hamburg. (5) Uscha is admiring the confirmation suit I got from Martin
Kippenberger (my boss at the time). I don’t know anyone and am very
happy to have found a kindred spirit in this rich-kid world. First we
meet rarely; Uscha’s addresses change and I am rather lazy to write
and keep in touch. Only later we develop a friendship that is carried
further by “shared projects.” These correspond to our tendency
to upgrade private incidents to professional projects. Once they have
fulfilled their main purpose, amicable meetings, these projects are abandoned.
Uscha lives in the fast, cosmopolitan, ding-a-ling-world of fashion (6)
while I try to find my way forward in the comparatively slow and inebriated
art scene of Cologne. Joint journeys and international parties create
the positive vanishing point of our existence. We travel, go to openings,
to parties or to visit friends—and if an image appears at these occasions
I record it instantly. (7)
A particular insight into this world is offered by the photo edition including
Uscha’s letters from that time. She even shows a celebrity profile
on some pictures in spite of the fact that these are mostly snapshots.
What she writes on love, in grief and in joy, on career wishes and friends,
are the reasonings of a modern woman somewhere between girlism and a romantic
Effi Briest. (8) Yet “Uscha” is not only a retrospective on
a character, but also on the different stages of my work. For a certain
time I was fascinated with the action-tracker: a camera which within 1.5
seconds exposes four pictures on one 35mm negative, creating a study in
movement. But whether I work with the action-tracker, slide installations
or with more-than-life-size blowups, the constant factor of “Uscha”
remains. (9) Yet the image of my girlfriend is going to reverse itself
with the new exhibition of “Uscha.” Maybe this constant revolving,
this “experiencing of many different things with different people
from different spheres” is the true sign of our generation—the
generation “Uscha.” (10)
Georg Graw
Köln, Germany
1996