Annette Kelm:
Die Bücher

The artist Annette Kelm (*1975) photographed the covers of those books that were banned and publicly burned in 1933 for her series Die Bücher. The photographs shown at the Projektbüro DFI e.V. form a counternarrative to the images created by the perpetrators.

When the National Socialists carried out the first book burnings in the spring of 1933, the individual titles remained largely invisible within this propagandistic staging. In Kelm’s series, they not only become visible again, they also unfold a new visual intensity through her presentation. 

After the National Socialists’ seizure of power, the Deutsche Studentenschaft (German Student Union) organized the persecution of Jewish, as well as Marxist or pacifist, writers as part of the campaign “Aktion wider den undeutschen Geist.” The subsequent book burnings took place in the spring of 1933 at many locations across Germany; Bebelplatz in Berlin later became the most well-known site. Among the books destroyed were titles by authors such as Erich Kästner, Erika Mann, Kurt Tucholsky, and Else Lasker-Schüler. On 11 April 1933 — thus even before the action in Berlin—one of the first book burnings took place in Düsseldorf, in front of the former Planetarium, today’s Tonhalle in the Ehrenhof, in close proximity to the Kunstakademie and to the present Projektbüro des DFI e.V.

Many of these covers were designed in the late 1920s and early 1930s, a period in which publishers increasingly worked with artists, typographers, and graphic designers. The designs draw on the visual languages of modernism — Expressionism, Constructivism, Bauhaus, Dada, photomontage, and experimental typography. Names such as Werner Beucke, John Heartfield, Käthe Kollwitz and Georg Salter stand for this development. The design of the books reflects a liberal, urban spirit that came to a violent end in 1933. Many of the themes addressed in these books — democracy, women’s rights, or questions of sexual identity — remain relevant today.

By enlarging the covers photographically and rendering them with precise clarity, Annette Kelm releases them from their handheld format. The photographs reveal details and the smallest material traces that are barely perceptible in the originals. At the same time, the uniform scale and consistent formal criteria create relationships between the works — a clear and comparable sequence. The series opens a view onto the diversity of their design and the different traces of their use.

Kelm uses the conditions and possibilities of photography to show how the medium directs attention, assigns meaning, and makes history visible. Her images guide the gaze not only toward what is depicted, but also toward the way in which the depiction comes into being. Photographic images are never neutral; they establish perspectives and shape how historical reality is perceived. Kelm’s series offers an alternative form of visibility to the established imagery of depicting history. It is not the staging of the fire that stands at the center, but the books themselves — preserved objects with their own history and temporal depth.

In the photographs, the books appear as vulnerable testimonies — objects that carry traces of their use and their history. In the enlarged and precisely executed images, the smallest material signs become legible: folds, abrasion, edges, or slight discolorations. Subtle shadows and minimal elevations create an objective plasticity; the surface reveals itself as a three-dimensional object.

Each of these books was meant to be destroyed and yet continues to exist. Here, the books do not appear as annihilated or lost objects, but as carriers of this history. In this way, they regain something of the force and dignity that the National Socialists sought to take from them forever. It may not console, and it certainly does not heal, yet it may still be understood as a tender act of historical justice.

The series was created in 2019 as part of the project Tell me about yesterday tomorrow at the NS-Dokumentationszentrum München, curated by Nicolaus Schafhausen and Mirjam Zadoff.

Annette Kelm was born in 1975 in Stuttgart and lives and works in Berlin.

Solo exhibitions have been presented at ICA Milano (2023), Kunsthalle zu Kiel (2022), Kunsthalle Wien (2018), Fosun Foundation, Shanghai (2018), Kestner Gesellschaft Hannover (2017), the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (2016), and KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin (2009). She also participated in the 54th Venice Biennale and in numerous international group exhibitions.

Her works are held in major collections such as the Centre Pompidou Paris, the Museum of Modern Art New York, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum New York, Tate Modern London, the Sammlung zeitgenössischer Kunst der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, and the Museum Ludwig Köln.

Annette Kelm was Visiting Professor in the photography class of Christopher Williams at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in the past semester.

The exhibition is realized with the kind support of the Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf and Esther Schipper, Berlin/Paris/Seoul.