josef chladek

on photobooks and books

Johannes Groht - Insight Grindel, Self published, 2025, Hamburg

Hardcover.

"The Grindel Quarter is a district of Hamburg characterized by small shops and international cuisine. Just as in days past, Jewish life once again pulses here amid a diversity of academic, cultural, and religious influences.

Johannes Groht has lived and worked here for many years. In his photographs, he is less concerned with appearances than with insights, less with attractive façades than with what lies behind them. He discovers foreign worlds in the half-transparent, half-reflective shop windows, exposes the fractures in seemingly perfect advertising surfaces, and contemplates the magic of the everyday.

Within a radius of only a few hundred meters, the Grindel becomes a dazzling labyrinth. In some of the surreal, daydream-like images—with their shadows, mirrors, and reflections—there echoes both the district’s eventful history and today’s social debates. Printed on softly shimmering matte photo paper, they take on a suspended, poetic quality.

Yesterday and today, inside and out, are mystically intertwined. And what is hidden can also be understood as a metaphor for the unconscious. It is always there—walking with us, seeing with us, laughing with us. What can we see? What do we want to see? And what do we choose not to see?"

Order at: www.johannesgroht.de

Pages: 116
Place: Hamburg
Year: 2025
Publisher: Self published
Size: 18 x 23 cm (approx.)