To mark his 75th birthday, Browse Gallery Berlin is presenting an exhibition of original works by Rio Reiser, pioneer and most influential poet in the history of German-language rock music: fragments of his creative cosmos – drawings, photographs, notes, diary entries, song lyrics – much of it from the Rio Reiser Archive.
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The curatorial approach follows the perspective of the travelling exhibition WENN DIE NACHT AM TIEFSTEN – TON STEINE SCHERBEN IN IHRER ZEIT (currently on display at the Küstenmuseum Wilhelmshaven), also conceived by the Browse Gallery: Rio Reiser's work and its enduring relevance are revealed in personal references to and political engagement with the social context – both contemporary and present. For Rio, the personal was political and the political was personal.
On display are photographs (mainly by Jutta Matthess and Rita Kohmann) showing Rio Reiser and Ton Steine Scherben in Berlin-Kreuzberg in the early 1970s, as well as a video that explores the local and contemporary historical context of the youth revolt in the late 1960s and early 1970s (with short interviews with band members and Rio's brother Gert Möbius) and an audiovisual video collage that transports the spirit of George Grosz's relentless caricature work ‘Ecce Homo’ from the Weimar Republic era (1923) and Rio's epic humanistic song ‘Mein Name ist Mensch’ (My Name is Human) into the present day.
‘Ecce Homo’ – ‘Behold the man’ are the words with which, according to the Gospel of John, the Roman governor Pontius Pilate presented the scourged Jesus to the people before his crucifixion.
Over the centuries, the motif became an icon of Christian suffering and redemption in European art. In 1923, the artist George Grosz broke with this tradition and ironically used the title for a portfolio of 100 grotesquely exaggerated caricatures intended to expose the social and moral bankruptcy of Weimar society after the First World War: a sarcastic indictment: Behold what has become of humanity.
In 1971, some 50 years later, Ton Steine Scherben released Rio Reiser's song ‘Mein Name ist Mensch’ (My Name is Human) on their first LP. This too can be read as a subversive variation on the Ecce Homo motif. Rio Reiser shares Grosz's critical view of social realities and his political stance as an artist. His ‘Ecce Homo’ shows us what ‘man-eating people’ (Rio Reiser) have been doing to people since the beginning of time. He does not use this to establish a religious story of salvation. We can only redeem ourselves from suffering.
In the exhibition, we see the world through Rio's eyes. He looks social realities in the eye and beyond, not with critical distance, but with compassionate solidarity, especially with the particularly vulnerable – certainly also from his own torn identity, his personal experience of despair and injustice. As a human being and artist, he seeks truthfulness in the expression of his experience of reality and his dreams – places of longing and refuge and, at the same time, spaces and sources of change. He always courageously holds on to this and to love: Human being, you have the choice and the responsibility!
Today, as we despair of a present in which lies reign and we are losing our sense of what makes us human, Grosz and Rio help us to see clearly and speak plainly. Ecce Homo!
Photo book/catalogue accompanying the exhibition, Wenn die Nacht am tiefsten – Ton Steine Scherben in ihrer Zeit (When the Night is Deepest – Ton Steine Scherben in their Time), published by Browse Gallery, expanded 2nd edition 2025, 336 pages, 250 photos.
- Exhibition dates: 14 September to 12 October 2025
- Location: Browse Gallery (temporary), Bergmannstr. 5, 10961 Berlin, courtyard on the right
- Exhibition hours: Tue–Sun, 2:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
- Admission: £4, reduced £2, free for those under 18
