Berlin Stories: artist Ed Broner’s trip through the party city with a camera

Show me your pictures, and I’ll tell you where you were! The new series Berlin Stories presents visual essays of Berlin—the city of art, fashion, parties, and many nations. You’ll find all genres of photography here, from classic street photography to personal sketches to staged portrait series. In a handy pocket-sized format, it's a whole library of images of the capital, taken by the most prominent photographers working in the city today.

Legs Detail, Paris/France, 2013  Legs Detail, Paris/France, 2013 © Ed Broner

Legs Detail, Paris/France, 2013 Legs Detail, Paris/France, 2013 © Ed Broner

Volume Two plunges headlong into life: specifically, Ed Broner’s nightlife, which is presented in a kind of photo album-cum-journal. The photographer and artist, who usually spends his time painting large, very colourful canvases, has reduced his visual vocabulary to a democratic black-and-white.

The brilliant lights of clubs, their outlandish guests, other artists in their studios, eccentric old cars, nude girls, amusing graffiti—everything is equal here in this very personal narrative of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, of macho guys and celebrities, and the façades of buildings and people. It's a cynical, atmospherically intoxicating commentary on the desire for an addiction to pleasure, the presentation of luxury labels, and a selfie culture in love with details.

“Vagabondage Diary is a very personal depiction of sex, drugs, and art—of violence and hidden beauty, a journey through all the walks of life that evade straightforward categorisation, a life full of opposing contrasts and contradictions that happen to make up our post-modern existence,” writes the philosopher Philipp Hübl in the book’s afterword.

Berlin Stories 2: Ed Broner. Vagabondage Diary is published by Hatje Cantz and available for €20, available in both German and English.

Lenny Harlin and a Friend, Alex Home Party, Paris/France, 2012  Lenny Harlin and a Friend, Alex Home Party, Paris/France, 2012 © Ed Broner

Lenny Harlin and a Friend, Alex Home Party, Paris/France, 2012 Lenny Harlin and a Friend, Alex Home Party, Paris/France, 2012 © Ed Broner

Portrait, Paris/France, 2012 © Ed Broner

Portrait, Paris/France, 2012 © Ed Broner

Nele Portrait, Berlin/Germany, 2012 © Ed Broner

Nele Portrait, Berlin/Germany, 2012 © Ed Broner

King Size Bar, Berlin/Germany, 2014 © Ed Broner

King Size Bar, Berlin/Germany, 2014 © Ed Broner

Alexanderplatz, Detail, Berlin/Germany, 2014 © Ed Broner

Alexanderplatz, Detail, Berlin/Germany, 2014 © Ed Broner

Aston Martin DB5, Detail, Paris/France, 2011 © Ed Broner

Aston Martin DB5, Detail, Paris/France, 2011 © Ed Broner

Dinamo Azari DJ Set of Azari and III, Week End Club, Berlin/Germany, 2014 © Ed Broner

Dinamo Azari DJ Set of Azari and III, Week End Club, Berlin/Germany, 2014 © Ed Broner

Bang Bang Graffiti, Berlin/Germany, 2010  Bang Bang Graffiti, Berlin/Germany, 2010 © Ed Broner

Bang Bang Graffiti, Berlin/Germany, 2010 Bang Bang Graffiti, Berlin/Germany, 2010 © Ed Broner

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