Frankfurt Classic 2009 – 2014 / Stefanie Pretnar, Markus Dreßen

In Frankfurt, more construction is underway than there has been for a long time. No one here is getting burned by bold architectural or urban planning experiments: Happy Ugly Frankfurt. Stefanie Pretnar observes the city’s transformation from the perspective of a street photographer. She explores urban space on foot and with her camera.

However, her publication denies the viewer the pleasure of leafing undisturbed through carefully composed sequences of images. The artist interweaves her photographs with catalog pages from the now globally active company Birkenstock, after whose shoe line “Frankfurt Classic” her book is named. In doing so, she draws connections between her movement through the city and the shoe brand, which has long since left its eco-niche and now operates as a global player.