Thomas Billhardt
Spartakiade ABC-ÜbungHalle, 1978
© Thomas Billhardt / CAMERA WORK
The Spartakiade series by renowned photographer Thomas Billhardt documents the large-scale sporting events of the former German Democratic Republic in Halle in 1978, where thousands of children and young people demonstrated their athletic prowess in choreographed competitions. The Spartakiade was more than just a sports festival: it was part of a system that combined physicality and discipline with state ideology. Here, sporting performance served the symbolic defensiveness of an entire state. Billhardt's photographs document this ambivalence - between pride and compulsion, community and control, ease and staging. His pictures show young people at the moment of commitment, expectation, triumph and exhaustion. But beyond the documentary, they also provide a critical view of today's developments.
Thomas Billhardt was born in Chemnitz in 1937. After studying applied arts, he worked as a factory photographer in opencast lignite mining and as a publishing photographer for the postcard publisher Bild und Heimat. While still studying to become a photographer and photo designer in Leipzig, he became a member of the Association of German Journalists. As a reportage photographer, Thomas Billhardt has traveled to 49 countries. His pictures have been published worldwide. His photographs from the Vietnam War in the 1960s achieved international fame. Thomas Billhardt died in 2025.