Erasmus Schröter - Patina – The 80s

The pictures which Erasmus Schröter made during the five years between 1980 and the year 1985, when he left the country, are part of and take up a special role in this discourse. [...] Schröter has withdrawn from the widely dominant romantically influenced GDR world view. From the beginning he utilised his own personal and unemotional visual language which did not observe the people and spaces which he photographed with any sympathy, but instead made them the object of cool and objective analysis. His work remains the same to this day. [...] Schröter took photographs at balls, dancing competition tournaments and at artists parties, at the fairground and backstage in circus arenas. Images cropped in a peculiar way, low angle views as well as the infra-red effects which cause green leaves to appear white and which submerge the depths of the picture in darkness, these all create an atmosphere of surreal theatre. 

from Flügge, Matthias. "In the Moonlight - about the Photography of Erasmus Schröter." Ed. Galerie Kleindienst. Erasmus Schröter-Im Mondschein. Fotografien aus der DDR. Nürnberg: Verlag für Moderne Kunst, 2009.