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Parts of Petra Gall’s estate now digitized

22. July 2020

The estate of Berlin-based photographer Petra Gall (1955-2018) represents possibly the largest and a very important part of the Schwules Museum’s archive. Gall is regarded as one of the most noteworthy chroniclers of the lesbian subculture during the 80s and 90s, well-known also for her features about her motorcycle journeys as well as her concert photography. The collection entails an estimate of 200 000 objects, mostly negatives and photographies – more than the museum could ever physically exhibit.

For this reason, we are delighted that over 1000 works by Petra Gall are now accessible in digital form. SMU’s members of staff Anne Krause and Michael Bucher were able to digitalize the first 1073 images and make them available on the webpages of museum-digital, thanks to the financial support of the Forschungs- und Kompetenzzentrum Digitalisierung Berlin (digiS).

Fans of punk and new wave legends of the 1980s will be especially happy: They can discover unique, unpublished concert pictures, from artists like Einstürzende Neubauten, Cookie Crew, Hole, Skid Row, Depeche Mode, Doro Pesch, Run DMC, and Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – some photos were taken in Berlin’s small punk joints like Ectsasy, others on huge festivals in Moscow.

Photo: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds during a concert in Berlin-Weißensee, October 5th, 1993, photo taken by Petra Gall.