Take a Walk on the Wild Side

Artists

Annette Frick

Press release

Contemporary Fine Arts is pleased to present the exhibition Take A Walk on the Wild Side by Berlin-based photographer and filmmaker Annette Frick at their Basel gallery. The exhibition offers a unique insight into a Berlin that, in its original form, barely exists anymore. In the heart of Basel’s old town, Annette Frick invites visitors to discover Berlin of the 80s, 90s, and 00s – a city shaped by its architecture, its people, and its subcultures.

The exhibition is divided into two intertwined cycles of work: one cycle is dedicated to the architecture of Berlin. The photographs, mostly taken in the 90s and 00s, tell of the traces left by several dictatorships and the historical division of the city. It becomes clear how the Berlin cityscape not only serves as a witness to its own history but also reflects the social tensions and dynamics of a queer underground scene. The second part focuses on the actors of exactly this Berlin queer scene and underground, brought to life in Frick’s intimate portraits. These images feature drag queens, activists, and other queer figures who shaped the nightlife and AIDS activism of the 80s and 90s.

Since the 1990s, Annette Frick has established herself as an indefatigable portraitist of a unique and rebellious Berlin subculture. While American drag icons around Andy Warhol were already being celebrated as superstars in the 70s, the equally vibrant and wild queer scene in Berlin, which was in no way inferior to the American scene, remained largely unknown in international media. In Frick’s photographs, this scene receives the attention and dedication it deserves – a queer subculture shaped as much by political will as by joie de vivre and fun.

In Walk on the Wild Side, Lou Reed sings of the tramp Holly, who transforms from a “he” into a “she” on her journey from Miami to New York, and then laconically says, “Hey Babe, Take a Walk on The Wild Side.” In Frick’s exhibition at CFA, Holly Woodlawn appears with a loving yet challenging look into the camera – as if inviting the viewers to say, “Hey Honey, Take A Walk On The Wild Side”