In 1971, Rüdiger Trautsch was a graphic design student with two main interests: photography, and West Germany’s just-born gay rights movement. By the time of his tragic death in 2021, he was Germany’s most revered – and perhaps most beloved – photographer of queer subjects. This summer, Berlin’s Schwules Museum hosts a tender and touching retrospective on the late photographer’s expansive career entitled “Photography as a Way of Life. Rüdiger Trautsch: 50 years of pictures” (16 June – 18 September 2023). The exhibition follows him from his humble beginnings to the dancefloors of Hamburg’s legendary house clubs to the homes of his closest friends and tracing not only the lifetime of a remarkable man, but the lifetime-so-far of the remarkable communities he photographed, too.
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