In 1971, photographer Beate Rose took portraits of couples from all over Germany and published the photographs as a book the following year. The now legendary project is now a unique contemporary document. Exactly 40 years later, Nadine Preiß and Damian Zimmermann have continued the concept and repeated it under the same conditions: all couples were photographed standing in front of a neutral, white background.

Gestures, facial expressions and choice of clothing were left to the portrayed. The only condition: they had to look directly into the camera. The photographers photographed around 250 couples in 13 towns and villages. The result is a kind of long-term study that, in combination with the historical photographs, reveals a lot about the social upheavals in the FRG over the last 40 years. This can be seen in the choice of clothes, in the professions, but also in the simple observation of how couples literally "relate" to each other.

The book presents a selection of more than 100 photographs and historical images. In his accompanying text, art historian, critic and curator Klaus Honnef not only classifies the project in terms of photo history, but also explores the question of what the photographs say about the development of our society or the couples' self-image. In an interview, Nadine Preiß and Damian Zimmermann talk to Beate Rose about their concept, their experiences and similarities and differences between then and now.