Closed for Inventory

The poster campaign for the Berliner Philharmoniker orchestra interprets the summer break the musicians take between June and the start of the new season in September as a moment for taking inventory – just as retailers do when they close for a period of time. Accordingly, everything that characterises the orchestra and its concert venue is submitted to a fictitious evaluation and photographed. The outcome is a series of posters that depict either individual instruments over the entire expanse of the poster or show all the violins together, all the musicians, all the microphones, or the tables and chairs in the foyer. And they are always presented in rank and file, photographed with the same objective style without distinction, as is right and proper for an inventory. At the same time, this also accentuates the objects, likewise without distinction, and gives them the aura of a work of art. The resulting campaign attracted a good deal of attention due to the great variety of different motifs, which are nonetheless identifiable as being part of the same original concept.