Buchpräsentation und Künstlergespräch: Jens Klein. Ballons

In West Germany, with the construction of the inner-German border, leaflets, magazines and later books were attached to gas-filled balloons, which were released into East German territory by a time-controlled mechanism when the wind conditions were right. Without contextualization, the balloons could be many things: children's games, land art, performative installations, meteorological measuring instruments or simply a means of disseminating political interests.

The book Ballons (Spector Books) juxtaposes photos from the State Security Archive with protocol-like texts documenting the flight of the transport balloons and the effects of their landing. In the compilation, images of everyday life in the GDR emerge before the reader's eyes; an everyday life full of smashed roofs, torn power cables and destroyed flyers; an everyday life that could have been like this or something similar.

Jens Klein, born 1970 in Apolda, lives and works in Leipzig. His work has been shown in numerous exhibitions, including at Museum Folkwang, Villa Stuck, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden and GfZK Leipzig. He has received the Wüstenrot Foundation's Documentary Photography Award, a working scholarship from the Kunstfonds Bonn and the DZ Bank Sponsorship Scholarship 2021/22.

(Text published by Spector Books)