As part of EMOP Berlin – European Month of Photography
With his exhibition Mineriada, Anton Roland Laub embarks on a journey into Romania's recent past. The focus is on the violent unrest of 1990, when pro-regime miners from the Jiu Valley were brought to Bucharest to brutally suppress pro-European protests – a collective trauma that remains unaddressed legally to this day.
Image gallery
Haus am Kleistpark
Anton Roland Laub – Mineriada: A Visual Search for Traces
Laub combines historical research, personal memories, and photographs of his father from June 1990 with his own images. He explores the sites of the events and traces the invisible scars in the collective memory. The title Mineriada – a sarcastic portmanteau of "miner" (miner) and the Olympic ending "-iada" – refers to the cynical staging of the violence.
Central works in the exhibition play with symbolic motifs: A mirror covered with fine drops of water distorts the image. In the reflection, a spotlight emerges, approaching from the darkness – as if time were flowing back and forth. Other images show bent bars and light-piercing nets – metaphors for limitation and permeability.
Laub's photographs are characterized by aesthetic precision and philosophical depth. They open up spaces of thought without prescribing answers. The myth of Saturn, who devours his children to avoid being overthrown, resonates as a symbol of oppressed societies.
Anton Roland Laub, born in Bucharest, lives and works in Berlin. He studied at the Berlin Weissensee Art Academy, the New School for Photography, and media and communication studies at the University of Bucharest.
PROGRAM
Opening: Thursday, March 27, 7 p.m.
Introduction: Sonia Voss, author and freelance curator
Thursday, May 22, 7 p.m.
Artist talk: Anton Roland Laub and Julia Rosenbaum
