THE EAST LONDON YEARS: A Homage to Glamour and Trash (Limited Edition, hand signed)
PRE-ORDER: Classic Edition (signed)
€89,00
Skip to product information
THE EAST LONDON YEARS: A Homage to Glamour and Trash (Limited Edition, hand signed)
€89,00
THE EAST LONDON YEARS: A Homage to Noughties Glamour and Trash.
Have you ever wondered what the queer community and its nightlife in East London looked, felt and sounded like between 2005-2015?
You'll find the answers in this vibrant new limited edition photo book by Ralf Obergfell.
THE EAST LONDON YEARS by artist RALF OBERGFELL is a dazzling portrait of a lost scene.
This limited-edition photobook captures the essence, energy, artistry and friendship of queer East London 2005-2015.
It’s a vital document of a lost subculture captured in real time – a reminder of an era of living in the moment instead of chasing likes online – and, at a time when LGBTQIA+ rights are under threat, a testament to the defiant power of radical queer community.
As co-creator of legendary party GutterSlut, Ralf Obergfell was in the thick of it. He takes us deep inside iconic club nights and venues like Trailer Trash, Gay Bingo and the first Horse Meat Disco at NYC Downlow at Glastonbury Festival. We also go to Wolfgang Tillmans’s legendary studio party at Between Bridges. And to the Dalston back alley that was home to Obergfell’s queer family, his studio experiments, iconic supper club The Pale Blue Door and three lovely chickens.
THE EAST LONDON YEARS features contributions from alt-drag pioneer Jonny Woo, Pale Blue Door creator and set designer Tony Hornecker, cultural critic Ben Walters and East London icons Gilbert & George, plus more than 50 first-hand accounts and memories from the people Obergfell photographed. It’s about a time before gentrification, social media and political turmoil went into overdrive – a world of art, love, DIY community spirit and pleasure – a homage to Noughties glamour and trash.
RARE ITEM
LIMITED EDITION — 350 COPIES ONLY, HAND SIGNED AND NUMBERED.
The East London Years is printed in a strictly limited edition of 350 copies, each signed and numbered by the artist. This is a deliberate choice: the book itself enacts the scarcity of the world it documents.
PLEASE NOTE:
All products offered in our shop are individually signed and/or personally dedicated after your order has been placed.
As these items are made specifically for you, the statutory right of withdrawal does not apply.
BOOK SPECIFICATIONS:
Title:
THE EAST LONDON YEARS: A Homage to Glamour and Trash
Artist / Publisher:
Ralf Obergfell
Release Date:
16 October 2026
Period covered:
2005 - 2015
Foreword:
Jonny Woo
Texts:
Ben Walters, Tony Hornecker, Ralf Obergfell
Art Direction & Design:
Benjamin Wolbergs
Format:
Limited Edition Art Photography Book
Print Run:
350 copies, signed and numbered by the artist
Pages:
240 pp. (4/4 colour)
Illustrations:
240 illustrations (176 photographs - analogue and digital)
Measurements:
21.5 × 29 cm (8.4 × 11.4 in)
Weight:
1,5 kg
Paper:
150 g/m² Gardamatt Art
Printing process:
Offset printing
Hardcover:
Circular die-cut on front cover and title embossing
Cover Cloth:
180 g/m² Wicotex Magic Mag (black)
ISBN:
978-3-00-086180-2
ART EDITION : Classic Edition + Fine Art print (7x5 inch / 17x13cm). Signed on reverse. Paper: Hahnemühle Matt Fine Art – smooth. Photo Rag (308gsm). 100% Cotton. White.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Ralf Obergfell (b. 1971, Freiburg i.Br.) is a German artist living and working in Berlin. His practice centres on long-term documentary projects rooted in queer subcultures, youth, and community — work defined by intimacy, empathy, and a sustained attention to identity, sexuality and transformation.
In 2024–25, Obergfell’s work was presented in Love, Lust & Freedom at Brandts Art Museum in Odense — the first queer photography exhibition in Denmark — alongside works by Nan Goldin, Robert Mapplethorpe and Wolfgang Tillmans.
His photographs from the series Beautiful Freaks are included in New Queer Photography: Focus on the Margins (Verlag Kettler, 2020), an award-winning publication by Benjamin Wolbergs that has become a landmark reference in contemporary queer image-making. Beautiful Freaks has been exhibited internationally, including at the Royal College of Art, London (2010).
In 2008, his first solo exhibition Last Stop Routemasters was mounted at the London Transport Museum, accompanied by a monograph published by Breedon Books. That year, Obergfell was also nominated for the Hasselblad Masters Award. The project is permanently archived by the British Library on behalf of UK National Heritage.
From 2004 to 2010, Obergfell was a founding member of photodebut, a London-based collective that launched the careers of a generation of photographers — among them also Alys Tomlinson, Jan von Holleben and Richard Mosse. In parallel, he co-created the clubnight GutterSlut (2007–2014), which left a lasting mark on East London’s underground culture and forms the biographical core of his forthcoming book.
Obergfell studied at the London College of Printing (now London College of Communication, University of the Arts London), graduating in 1999. He lived and worked in London from 1991 to 2010, before relocating to Berlin.
His works are held in private collections in the UK, France and Japan.
Beyond his artistic practice, Obergfell is an activist for Survival International and the Paul Watson Foundation. In 2004, he survived the Indian Ocean tsunami — an experience subsequently reported by The Guardian and the BBC, and one that has shaped his understanding of community, fragility and witness.