Upcoming Photographic Exhibition with Ben de Biel: Elegantly Wasted — Ritter Butzke Berlin

Urban Spree Galerie is proud to announce its upcoming & last exhibition of the year - Elegantly Wasted — Ritter Butzke Berlin - a flagship photographic exhibition curated by Max Dax with black-and-white and color photographs of Ben de Biel. 

A companion photobook of the same name is being co-published by Snoeck and Urban Spree and will be released for the show together with a Special Collectors’ Edition of 125 signed and numbered copies and an original c-print by Ben de Biel (5 different limited edition prints' run of 25 each).

Curated by Max Dax from over 13,000 photos taken from 2009 to 2015, the images depict the true story of one of Berlin’s most influential clubs. 

They capture the last nights of the initially illegal club and tell the story of its transformation.

At the invitation of its then owner, Johannes von Jena, de Biel spent almost seven years photographing at Ritter Butzke. He was there so often that the guests no longer perceived him as an outsider with a camera, but as one of their own.

De Biel, himself a former club owner in the early 90s and beyond (Maria am Ostbanhof) achieved what probably no other photographer had before him: his pictures, shot behind closed doors, document not only a time and place, but also a hedonistic attitude toward life that seeks excess and, more often than not, can end in melancholic exhaustion.

The exhibition will be on display from 14.11.2025 to 20.12.2025 at Urban Spree Galerie.

Vernissage:

Friday, November 14th from 18:00 in presence of Ben de Biel, Max Dax, and Johannes von Jena

Urban Spree Galerie

Revaler Str. 99

10245 Berlin

Info & Catalogue: pascal@urbanspree.com