Catalogue in conjunction with the exhibition COCKTAIL PROLONGÉ: F. C. GUNDLACH SPECIAL at Deichtorhallen Hamburg / Haus der Photographie from June 5, 2026 through September 22, 2026 as part of the 9th Triennial of Photography Hamburg 2026.

F.C. Gundlach (1926–2021) was famed between the early 1950s and the mid-1980s as a fashion photographer for women's magazines in Germany such as 'Film und Frau' and 'Brigitte'. He photographed Sophia Loren, among other sitters, and his photographic style was influential in the area of fashion design and tailoring.

In addition to pursuing his successful career as a fashion photographer, Gundlach cultivated the extensive private collection that is currently on view at the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg. This collection afforded Gundlach a way to pursue his interests in humanity and express himself as a gay man beyond the idealised and perhaps even sanitised world of glamour: the outcome is a collection which necessitates a notice 'at the door' which says, 'Please note: This exhibition contains works that are not suitable for children and that some visitors may find disturbing'.

It includes photographs by Oliviero Toscani for the controversial Benetton campaigns of the 1990s: the bloodied khaki kit worn by a soldier killed in Bosnia, a just-born baby, and a dying AIDS campaigner. It also features images of the human body by Jimmy De Sana, whose photograph 'Panty Hose', 1978–1979, is shown on the catalogue's front cover, along with works by sixty-six more photographers, Herb Ritts, Robert Mapplethorpe, Wolfgang Tillmans, Cindy Sherman and Diane Arbus among them.

The exhibition's focus in on the portrayal of people and the human body in photography and on the route from an objective typological approach (as represented by August Sander, for example) towards the capturing of an individual presence. It also inspires wider thinking about the relationship between the photographer – or the message the photographer seeks to get across – and the sitter(s). For example, the contribution that features in this video, as I translated it at the time, originally touched on the title of Diane Arbus's 1960s series 'Freaks', which features identical twins and people of short stature, a title which of course would not have been accepted today. A portrait of Marilyn Monroe, taken at her last sitting for Vogue in 1962 and superimposed with a blood-red cross (by Bert Stern), hints at exploitation and objectification, and the portrait of Carmen-Zénobia Visconti, the model for Rodin's sculpture 'The Kiss', in old age also conveys its message on the presentation of women and the passing of time (Erwin Blumenfeld, 1937).

https://www.perlentaucher.de/fotolot/triennale-der-photographie-in-den-deichtorhallen.html?highlight=Cocktail+prolong%C3%A9#highlight

Peter Truschner, Fololot, on perlentaucher.de

Man Ray. Hans Bellmer. Erwin Blumenfeld. Irving Penn. Richard Avedon. Diane Arbus. Helmut Newton. Gundula Schulze Eldowy. Cindy Sherman. To name just a handful of the big names from photography history that are brought together here.

[The themes of Gundlach’s collection]: nakedness, erotica, sexuality. Now playful, now staged, now casual, now tender, now raw – virtually all conceivable facets along this theme are presented, except perhaps the explicitly activist gesture (female gaze, body positivity) that has dominated debates and exhibitions in this field for some time.

Sabine Schnakenberg’s courage […] in thrusting these works on an of-age public with no trigger warning and no critical historical revision is notable. I mean: this exhibition would have been impossible to hold in the Anglo-American sphere, or it would have led to a veritable shitstorm.

https://www.ndr.de/kultur/kunst/hamburg/queer-bunt-brutal-triennale-der-photographie-in-hamburg,triennale-100.html

Website of Norddeutscher Rundfunk

Deichtorhallen unpack Gundlach’s private collection
Hamburg-based fashion photographer and collector F. C. Gundlach (1926–2021) founded the Triennial in 1999. Under the title, ‘Cocktail Prolongé’, the Deichtorhallen are showing photos from Gundlach’s private collection, curated by Sabine Schnakenberg, the director of Gundlach’s collection there. ‘Gundlach spent every day of at least thirty-five years of his life throwing clothes over thin women and then photographing them,’ explains Schnakenberg. ‘This man collected photographs by famous photographers from the mid-1970s and I wondered: what does he prefer about physical stagings of other people?’

Brutal, candid and not for children

The answer to that, hung on the walls, is resounding: queer, colourful, sometimes brutal and extremely candid and physical. This exhibition is definitely not for children. But otherwise: You must go and view [all exhibitions in the Triennial] with an open mind! It’s worth it!

Alexandra Cox (MSc in Translation, 2001) has been living and freelancing in Germany since 2003 (French and German into English).

Nominated for the 2006 Prix de Découvreurs and 2005 Prix Helikon, Alparegho, Pareil-à-rien by Hélène Sanguinetti (Editions Comp’Act, 2005) is a seven-part, 93-page poem. Drawing on her native Provence’s troubadour tradition, the poet weaves a surprisingly contemporary tale about Alparegho, a mysterious creature with a flute, on a journey to find his identity. A cast of cats, snails and bears—as well as a central fable—pay homage to La Fontaine. The nimble layering creates what Jean-Marie Perret calls—after Bartok—an “imaginary folklore.”

To order: https://beautifuldayspress.bigcartel.com/product/alparegho-like-nothing-else-by-helene-sanguinetti-trans-ann-cefola-preorder

[Alparegho is] “more chanted than inspired”[ and its characters] “seem to emerge from some primordial tribe or the imagination of a little girl dreaming of an ogre at night.” -- Yves di Manno, Vient de paraître, September 2005

“[Alparegho’s] impulsive and astonishing writing … launches in bursts, through musical effect and shape of language, rockets of meaning,” -- Jean-Marie Perret, Blue de Paille, August 2005

“We have no desire to be anywhere else, if not in Hélène Sanguinetti’s elusive musical movements.” -- Gaspard Hons, Le Mensuel Littéraire et Poétique (Brussels), October 2005

About the translator:

Ann Cefola’s translations of Sanguinetti have appeared as Alparegho, Like-nothing-else (Beautiful Days Press, 2025), The Hero (Chax Press, 2018), and Hence, this cradle (Seismicity Editions, 2007). She is the recipient of an MFA in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College, a Witter Bynner Translation Residency, and the Robert Penn Warren Award for Poetry selected by John Ashbery. Her most recent book, Séquence Long Island (L’Harmattan), co-authored with French poet Jean-Luc Pouliquen, recently made its debut in France, and Once, Poïena is forthcoming from Chax Press in 2027.

About the author:

A contemporary French poet who lives in Arles, Hélène Sanguinetti has also published Do not cross / ne pas franchir (Lurlure, 2026), Jadis, Poïena (Flammarion, 2025), Cargo Bleu Sur Fond Rouge (Lanskine, 2025), Et voici la chanson (Lurlure, 2021), reprinted from L'Amandier, 2012; Le Héros (Flammarion, 2008), Alparegho, Pareil-à-rien (Comp’Act, 2005 ; second edition L’Amandier, 2015), D'ici, de ce berceau (Flammarion, 2003), and De la main gauche, exploratrice (Flammarion, 1999).

Tania is a young Bengali living in Calcutta in the 1980s. Hated by her mother and shunned by her peers, she seeks solace within the pages of Russian books she reads in her mother tongue, Bengali. In a bookshop, she stumbles upon a Russian book published in the USSR in the 1920s by Raduga, a once-prestigious publishing house that was closed in 1930 on Lenin’s orders. Intrigued by the mysterious publisher behind the book, Tania perseveres through numerous frustrating detours until she finally tracks down Adel, the publisher's octogenarian daughter residing in a St. Petersburg nursing home, and corresponds with her. Through this connection, she ultimately uncovers the tumultuous destiny of Raduga’s founder, a Jewish journalist named Lev Moisevitch Kliatchko, who narrowly escaped execution under Stalin thanks to the intervention of Maxim Gorky and who died in 1933 from tuberculosis, shortly before the Moscow Trials.

BUY THE BOOK: https://www.hoperoadpublishing.com/books/russian-testament

'Shumona Sinha’s singular voice takes us into the nauseating world of bureaucracy, without heroes or pure-hearted victims. She does not condemn anyone, or perhaps she condemns everyone. Welcome to the real world.’ – Grazia, for Down with the Poor! ‘Indian poet Shumona Sinha has transformed Baudelaire’s poetic provocation into a strange and blazing reflection on violence.’ – Marianne, for Down with the Poor! ‘A seasoned novelist, Shumona Sinha travels between past and present, public unrest and private histories.’ – L’ Express, for Calcutta

About the translator:

Subhashree Beeman is a US-based literary translator. Winner of the 2024 PEN/Heim Translation Grant for the translation of an excerpt from Le Testament Russe by Shumona Sinha and 2024 SALT/ALTA Emerging Literary Translation Mentorship for Saigon Puducherry by Nagarathinam Krishna, she is currently translating Bain de Lune by Yanick Lahens into Tamil. She was the 2026 Laureate of Villa Swagatam, a 2-month French literary translation residency granted by the French Institute of India to translate Maylis de Kerangal's novel into Tamil. Her works have been supported by French Institute of India, Bangalore Science Gallery, Words Without Borders, The White Review, USAWA literary magazine, Weavers Literary Review, oneating.in, Kalachuvadu Magazine, etc.

About the author:

Shumona Sinha is the author of novels and anthologies of French and Bengali poetry, including Assommons les pauvres, Prix Eugène Dabit du roman populiste, Prix Valéry-Larbaud, Internationaler Literaturpreis in Berlin, adapted into plays in Germany and Austria, and Calcutta, Prix du rayonnement de la langue française de l’Académie Française, Grand Prix du Roman de la SGDL. Shumona Sinha’s books have also been the subject of various academic studies in France, Germany, and the United States.