Official Opening at the Goethe-Center/NaDS
Fidel-Castro Str. 1-5
Thursday, 22.February 2007 at 19:00hrs
Guest speaker: Dr. Beatrice Sandelowsky
he photo exhibition „Charisma“ by the late Dr Klaus Dierks (2005) will officially be opened at the Goethe-Center/NaDS on Thursday, 22. of February at 19:00 hrs. The main focus of this exhibition are photographic portraits, which Dierks took at the beginning of the 1980 in the former regions Kaokoveld, Ovambo, Kavango and Caprivi. The remarkable exhibition shows magicians and medicine men, as well as Himba and Zemba women in their traditional adornments. Most of the traditions captured in Dierks’ work are difficult to find in Namibia today.
Dr. Klaus Dierks was born in Berlin in 1936. After finishing his studies at the Technical University of Berlin he moved to South Africa and later to Namibia (then South West Africa).
Dierks became a member of SWAPO in the 1980th. From Independence until 2000 Dierks worked as a Namibian Government minister and a member of parliament. His passion for history as well as mountaineering and photography were the thriving forces in his life. One of his achievements was the rediscovery of the „Nama fortress“ Kouchanas in the Karasmountains.
Klaus Dieter Gralow, a publisher from Germany, took over Dierks’ photographic estate. Gralow is currently in the process of compiling an inventory.
The exhibition at the Goethe-Center shows part of the photographic work of Klaus Dierks. The 38 large print exhibits (50x50 cm) will be donated to the Owela Museum Windhoek in due course.