What can a body be and what is it allowed to be? The bodies in Anne Morgenstern’s pictures undermine any categorization. Sometimes they are sensual, sometimes brutal. At times they are alive, at times they turn into objects. They are bodies that are in control and controlled by others. They are always irritating. Like the photographer’s gaze, which is as unsparing as it is tender, they take on different characteristics and roles. In an interplay of form, color, and materiality, Morgenstern combines photographs of human bodies with those of objects. In doing so, she relates them to one another and gives them new meaning. Bodies as we think we know them are deconstructed and embedded in new contexts. This raises questions of gender and identity that demand a second look. Morgenstern not only demonstrates great sensibility in her images, but also demands the same quality from us. »Macht Liebe« is a highly political book, an appeal to allow ambivalences and to see each other anew.

Anne Morgenstern (*1976 in Leipzig) studied photography in Munich and Zurich, where she lives and works. Her work has been exhibited at ICP New York, Fotomuseum Winterthur, and FOTODOKS Munich. In 2016 she received the German Photo Book Award for her first book “Land ohne Mitte”. An extensive selection of her project “Reinheit”, published as a book in 2017, is in the collection of the Fotostiftung Schweiz. Morgenstern works as a portrait and reportage photographer, among other publications for ZEIT Magazin, Das Magazin and Vogue Germany.