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Andreas Magdanz: Dienststelle Marienthal (Marienthal Office/Bunker Photographs), Limited Edition (with Gelatin Silver Print, "Gasmaskenprüfgerät" Variant)

Publisher: Aachen, Germany: Andreas Magdanz (self-published), 2000
Edition: 1st Edition
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN: 3000059237
Condition: New / New
Item #: 101667

$1,500.00

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Specifics

First edition, first printing. Limited edition of 75 copies, including an original 14-1/2 x 11-3/8 inch gelatin silver print (image size 12-1/8 x 9-1/8 inches), stamped, signed, titled, dated and numbered in black marker on verso, titled "Gasmaskenprüfgerät" (reproduced in the book), and laid in the book (presented in a protective archival Mylar sleeve). The book is also stamped, signed, titled and numbered in black ink on the title page by Magdanz.

Hardcover. Gray cloth-like covered boards, with graphic cartoon-like image of a B-52 debossed on front cover, with orange and black printed dust jacket. Photographs and text (in German and English) by Andreas Magdanz. Additional text (in German and English) by Christoph Schaden. 160 pp., with 19 four-color and 77 black and white plates, beautifully printed on heavy stock paper by Salto, Belgien. Includes a folded broadsheet laid in (with black and white reproductions and titles of the photographs and a diagram of the enormous bunker facility, numbered to reference locations where the photographs were made). 12-7/8 x 15-1/9 inches. Out of print. Scarce

[Cited in Martin Parr and Gerry Badger, The Photobook: A History, Volume II. (London and New York: Phaidon, 2006).]

Condition

New in New dust jacket (opened only for signature).

Description

An excerpt from a New York Times review by Richard B. Woodward (January 11, 2004): "The Dienstelle Marienthal (or Marienthal Office) is among the most ambitious but least-known monuments to "thinking the unthinkable" ever conceived. This vast underground tunnel complex, built from 1960 to 1972 outside Bonn, was once so secret that to acknowledge its existence could bring charges of treason in West Germany. Designed to house 3,000 of that government's essential personnel in case of nuclear attack, it represented one of the most exclusive fraternities in the world... [Magdanz] was the first person authorized to photograph there... With a precise and clinical eye, Mr. Magdanz shows the 25-ton doors, the miles of cable and the air ducts that connected the underground denizens, through a series of filters, with the upper atmosphere. The décor is spare, the furniture uniformly modern. There are no gymnasiums or libraries. Fluorescent light and gray airlessness are pervasive."