concrete photography genera ive photography
concrete photography generative photography
Artists Part 1 Heinz Hajek-Halke Herbert W. Franke Roger Humbert Kilian Breier Pierre Cordier / Gundi Falk René Mächler Hein Gravenhorst Gottfried Jäger Karl Martin Holzhäuser
Part 2 Inge Dick Ewald Maurer Andreas Müller-Pohle Richard Caldicott Claus Stolz Harald Mairböck Marco Breuer
Preface Gunther Dietrich, TomĂĄs Rodriguez
We are pleased to have the opportunity to present the following catalogue based on the specific scope of our gallery and its associated publishing house in the field of Concrete and Generative Photography. Photo Edition Berlin was established in 2008 and has committed to this significant form of Concrete Art ever since, including research as well as the distribution and communication of the overall context of this type of photography, which for many years was not fully recognized. Thanks to the ongoing efforts of artists, researchers, museums, and collectors, a new stage has started for its appreciation and its profound poetic relationship with the medium, as well as with its dedicated philosophical reflection on contemporary art today. After presenting the prominent pioneers of Generative and Concrete Photography alongside the European Month of Photography Berlin (EMOP) in 2014, we introduced the following generation during EMOP 2016. The emphasis remains on artists whose works investigate the materiality of light, chemistry, photographic paper and processes. Thus, we wish to encourage a further, deeper, and broader public perception of this art movement. We would like to thank the participating artists for their friendly and generous cooperation. In particular, we would like to thank Gottfried Jäger for his valuable advice and support. Without him, this exhibition would not have been possible. Together with his colleagues he indulged in the freedom of photography as an art form from the onset, when it was still subjected to the purely illustrative and documentary.
Heinz Hajek-Halke * 1898 – † 1983, Berlin, Germany
What László Moholy-Nagy had accomplished for the photography of Bauhaus in the 1920s, Heinz Hajek-Halke achieved for the 1950s and abstract art. Hajek-Halke was a genuine photographic artist: what he created in the darkroom with physical and chemical means can be likened to alchemy. Among the famous photographers of the 20th century Hajek-Halke was a loner who didn’t adhere to any particular school but influenced many other artists. In the early 1930s he had already reached fame as a poster artist, however, it was in the 1950s when he fully matured as an artist. In 2010 the works of Heinz Hajek-Halke and his entire archive of negatives were donated to the collection of the Academy of Arts in Berlin, which dedicated a solo exhibition to him in 2012. Heinz Hajek-Halke was born in 1898 in Berlin und grew up in Buenos Aires. From 1948/50 on he lived in Ehrenbreitstein near Coblenz, focusing on experimental and abstract photography, which was exhibited in the context of the Subjective Photography movement. In 1955 Karl Hofer appointed him a lecturer for Photography and Graphic Design at the University of the Arts in Berlin where he worked until 1967. After photography had been established as an art in its own right around 1965, Heinz Hajek-Halke’s fame increased. By the end of the 1970s he had realized numerous solo and group exhibitions and received various awards in photography and art. Heinz Hajek-Halke died in Berlin in spring 1983.* * Jäger, Gottfried: Fotografie konkret / Photography Concrete, Ed. Linschinger, Josef, Ritter Verlag: Vienna / Klagenfurt, 2007.
Untitled, ca. 1965 Lightgraphic Silver gelatin baryta paper 53.5 x 41.8 cm Vintage
Untitled, 1965 Soot-Luzidogram Silver gelatin baryta paper 28.3 x 14.4 cm Ed. 7
Nature Morte Silver gelatin baryta paper 60.8 x 51 cm Ed. 2/12
Blumen fĂźr Andrea, 1969 Silver gelatin baryta paper 60 x 45.5 cm Ed. 1/4
Herbert W. Franke * 1927, Vienna, Austria
Herbert W. Franke is a philosopher and science fiction author, cave explorer, symmetry and bionics researcher, physicist, and mathematician as well as an art historian and pioneer in computer and machine generated art. He was born in Vienna in 1927 and lives and works near Munich. In 2010 the ZKM Media Museum in Karlsruhe presented an extensive exhibition about the life and the oeuvre of this traveler between the worlds. Herbert W. Franke’s interest in imaging systems began early on. He is one of the most important representatives of information aesthetics and computer art. As a co-founder of ars electronica in Linz he dedicated his work to the question of how scientific imaging systems and technical apparatuses are related to art and aesthetics from the late 1940s on. He was fascinated by the creative possibilities of machines for the production of aesthetic images. From the 1950s on he carried out experiments with oscillographs which he used to create his artistic Oscillograms (1956) and Electronic Graphics (1961/62) shown here. Franke trained as a physicist and it was the images in scientific photography that evoked the idea to use the instruments at hand for experiments in photography. Thus, it was only natural that he utilized electronic computing systems for his photographic creations. A friend built a simple analogue computer for him and soon after he had the opportunity to generate images with a digital computer. In 1959 his works were presented in an exhibition at the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna. It was the first time that electronically generated images were discussed as works of art in Europe. Over time he switched to more efficient systems. His oeuvre thus also reflects the technical evolution. A paramount philosophical question and theme that motivates Franke as science fiction author is the hopeless situation of individuals in increasingly technically organized and totalitarian worlds of the future.* * Herbert W. Franke – Wanderer zwischen den Welten. ZKM / Medienmuseum. October 2014. http:// on1.zkm.de/zkm/stories/storyReader$7195 (Retrieved on September 14, 2014).
Bandform, 1953 Together with Andreas Hübner Silver gelatin baryta paper 16.9 x 23.1 cm Vintage
Pendeloszillogramm, 1955 1st workgroup: “Analogue Calculator” Silver gelatin baryta paper 24.1 x 18 cm Vintage
Wellenform154, ca. 1953 Together with Andreas HĂźbner Silver gelatin baryta paper 22.9 x 17.2 cm Vintage
Raumform, 1956 Silver gelatin baryta paper 22.7 x 17.3 cm Vintage
Dance of Electrons, 1961/62 2nd workgroup: “Electronic Graphics” Silver gelatin baryta paper 23.9 x 18.2 cm Vintage
Roger Humbert * 1929, Basel, Switzerland
Roger Humbert, born in 1929, is a Swiss pioneer of Concrete Photography. Since the 1950s Humbert has created an extensive collection of photographs. In his work he disengages from objects or representative reality, treating photographs as concrete objects by using sources of light in an experimental and dramaturgic manner. His Photograms do not represent reality, but create a new form of reality on the photographic paper in the moment of exposure: form elements are arranged in a way that the light itself draws and produces shimmering geometric constellations. His Luminograms are characterized by their technical design. Forming elements such as stencils, punch cards, and punching waste are arranged under a light source and reduced to their geometric structures. The light rids them of their materiality and evokes the impression that they are vibrating and waving. Humbert’s experimental, camera-less photography roots in a context of ideas generated from Constructivism and Existentialism, aiming to renew photography and life fundamentally. Roger Humbert’s participation in the first worldwide exhibition of Concrete Photography is of historical significance. Together with René Mächler, Jean-Frédéric Schnyder, and Rolf Schroeter he presented minimalistic and self-referential compositions of light at actuell gallery in Bern in January 1967. In spring 2014 the Rappaz Museum in Basel dedicated a retrospective to Roger Humbert. Humbert lives and works in Basel, Switzerland. * Roger Humbert. In Rappaz Museum, January 2014. http://www.rappazmuseum.ch/Humbert. html (Retrieved on September 15, 2014).
Photogram, 1972 Silver gelatin baryta paper 25.3 x 25.3 cm Unique
Photogram, 1959 Silver gelatin baryta paper 30 x 40.3 cm Unique
Photogram, 1960 Silver gelatin baryta paper 22.9 x 23.1 cm Unique
Photogram, 1965 Silver gelatin baryta paper 30.5 x 40 cm Unique
Kilian Breier * 1930, Saarbrücken, Germany – † 2011, Hamburg, Germany
Kilian Breier is undoubtedly one of the pioneers of Concrete Photography after 1945. His Luminograms are radical and fundamental works and had a great impact on the genre. The Luminogram would remain his preferred type of photography, both in his early chemical graphics since 1953 as well as the bend works, beginning in 1960, in which the light of a burning match produces forms and traces of light on the material which is folded and manipulated, creating self-referential objects of maximum truth. Breier’s photographs revolve around the context of visual art, always in search of the specific character and methods of photography. The material and its qualities are to speak for themselves, and interventions or changes by the artist are to be revealed. In the works of the late 1950s relations to other representatives of Concrete Art were obvious. In 1960 Breier was invited by Otto Piene and Heinz Mack to participate in the last catalogue of Group Zero for the Zero 3 exhibition in Milan. The photographic object, the motive, became obsolete during his experiments in the dark room. Up to his works in the 1990s, one main interest of Breier was to go back to point zero in the process of creating a photographic image. In his works titled Using Light from the 1980s Breier used normal daylight and office light to expose the photographic paper so that it visualized an accumulation of slow gradual oxidations. Kilian Breier studied Fine Art at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1952 to 1953 and Photography at the Staatliche Schule für Kunst und Handwerk in Saarbrücken (today HBK Saar) with Hannes Neuner and Otto Steinert from 1953 to 1955. In 1966 he was appointed the Chair of Photography at the University of Fine Arts Hamburg and worked at the Department for Visual Communication. From 1966 on Breier was a member of the German Photographic Association (DGPh) and the Gesellschaft Deutscher Lichtbildner. Kilian Breier lived in Hamburg until his passing in 2011. * Reese, Beate: “Zur Stellung und Bedeutung von Fotografie in der Konkreten Kunst”. In Jäger, Gottfried / Krauss, Rolf H. / Reese, Beate: Concrete Photography – Konkrete Fotografie, Kerber Verlag: Bielefeld, 2005.
Knicke, 1960/1965 Silver gelatin baryta paper 23.7 x 22.7 cm
Untitled Phototechnical paper 32.7 x 33.4 cm Ed. 2/5
In Remembrance of Heinz Hajek-Halke, 1983 Envelope with undeveloped luminogram 25 x 17.6 cm Ed. 74/100
Untitled Phototechnical paper 40 x 44.6 cm Ed. 5/5
Pierre Cordier * 1933, Brussels, Belgium
The Chemigram, which is similar to the Photogram and the Luminogram, is a primary form of the photographic image. It is based on the reaction of photosensitive paper with developer and fixer and therefore on photochemical reactions, combining the physical properties of color (oil-varnish, wax, oil) with the chemistry used in photography (photosensitive layers, developer, fixer)—without a camera, enlarger, and via natural daylight. Belgian native Pierre Cordier is the initiator of the Chemigram, the first was created in 1956. In 1963 the term became protected by copyright. Without ever using a camera, Cordier produces photographs merely by utilizing and influencing the process of the photochemical reaction on photosensitive paper in the time of developing and fixing. For Cordier, who locates the Chemigram between the genres photography, painting, ceramics, and gravure, the term Chemigram describes both: the technical process and the resulting image. The principle of randomness, that is of great importance in his oeuvre, opens numerous possibilities for creation. In 1958 Cordier followed an invitation by Otto Steinert to come to Saarbrücken to visit. Steinert noted: The ‘Chemigrams’ are doubtless one step in the development of artistic photography and its history. No painter is able to create structures and colors with as high precision as Pierre Cordier. His works are part of numerous international private and public collections. Most recently the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (2008) and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (2010) bought pieces of art. Since 2011 Cordier has been collaborating with Austrian artist Gundi Falk. Pierre Cordier lives and works in Brussels, Belgium.
Pierre Cordier & Gundi Falk * 1933, Brussels, Belgium / 1966, Salzburg, Austria
Gundi Falk is a painter and sculptor. She studied Dance and Calligraphy in Asia and Europe for several years. Since 1998 she has been exhibiting her own works internationally (Taiwan, France, Estonia, Belgium). When she started working with Cordier in 2011 in a shared laboratory, she was able to realize skills such as directly interacting with the unknown. Intuition and visual acuity, moreover a sensitivity for space and material made it possible to understand and further develop the parameter of the Chemigrams. The joint research of Cordier and Falk initiated a productive collaboration which involved the renaissance of the Chemigrams. New series of Chemigrams were created, such as Fenster ins Unbekannte, Gerade – Ungerade, ZeitgenÜssische Musigramme, Twin and Voltagramme.
Chimigramme 30/8/77 III “Minimal Photography”, 1977 Chemigram 50 x 50 cm Unique
Chimigramme 26/8/77 VI “Minimal Photography”, 1977 Chemigram 50 x 50 cm Unique
Chimigramme 15/2/14, 2014 Chemigram 60 x 50 cm Unique
Chimigramme 8/4/14 “Voltagramme”, 2014 Chemigram 60 x 50 cm Unique
Chimigramme 18/9/13 “Twin”, 2013 Chemigram 50 x 50 cm Unique
René Mächler * 1936, Zurich, Switzerland – † 2008, Rheinfelden, Germany
René Mächler was one of the most important representatives of Concrete Photography in Switzerland. On the occasion of his 70th birthday in 2006 the Photo Foundation Switzerland in Winterthur dedicated an important retrospective to him that was complemented by an ambitiously designed publication titled Am Nullpunkt der Fotografie. Mächler donated his main photographic estate to the Foundation. These last activities crowned an oeuvre that had developed secluded from conventional photography but left its marks on the history of photography. René Mächler’s participation at the first international exhibition of Concrete Photography was of historical significance. Freedom means to play against the apparatus, Vilém Flusser stated. This key phrase of a Philosophy of Photography also applies to the oeuvre of René Mächler. With its precise works and series it positions itself against common directives to generate its own formula. The artist claims freedom from the conventions of a system that aims to reproduce reality. The appreciation of photography as an art in its own right, not in a material but in an intellectual sense, has always been a declared aim of René Mächler. His field is isolated, almost impenetrable, and he has cultivated it and left distinctive traces. What René Mächler has created, fixed and exposed in the isolation of his darkroom over decades, more than half a century, is more than a collection of playful forms. It is a meaningful and brilliant sign of life and the attempt to oppose the chaos of the world with a signal of hope and orientation. René Mächler studied at the Cologne Institute of Applied Sciences from 1958 to 1960 and later worked as a photographer and researcher at the Basel University until his retirement in 1996. During this time he pursued his artistic career through exhibitions and publications.* * Jäger, Gottfried: “René Mächler. Konkrete Fotografie“, in Gasser, Martin / Fotostiftung Schweiz (Ed.): René Mächler. Am Nullpunkt der Fotografie, Niggli Verlag: Sulgen / Zurich, 2006.
Konstruktion, 1990 Photogram Silver gelatin baryta paper 35 x 27 cm Unique
Hein Gravenhorst * 1937, Leipzig, Germany
In 1968 Hein Gravenhorst had an exhibition with Gottfried Jäger, Pierre Cordier, and Kilian Breier at the Bielefelder Kunsthaus. Generative Photography was not only the title of the exhibition but also defined its program. The represented photographers had an aesthetic principle in common that can be described as the generation of aesthetic structures based on defined programs realized by photochemical, photo-optical or photo-technical operations with the aim of achieving an optional and functional reference of all elements involved in the construction of the aesthetic structure. This genre of photography aimed to generate logically comprehensible aesthetic structures and was related to Max Bense’s Generative Aesthetic. With his Generative Aesthetics Bense provided a principle (innovative orders in the sense of original distribution and design) to generate specific operations methodically. Likewise, Gravenhorst explains that the methodical generation of aesthetic structures enabled the visual generation of things that we perceive as a macro-aesthetic order and complexity and as micro-aesthetic redundancies and information on art. Between 1965 and 1972 Gravenhorst created an incomparably impressive oeuvre. Several series with rare unique specimen are presented here. His works are part of international private and public collections. In recent years the Collection Peter C. Ruppert, Würzburg, 2007 and the MoMA, New York, acquired works by Gravenhorst. Since the mid-1970s Hein Gravenhorst has also turned to alternative medicine as a therapist. He lives and works in Berlin. * Reese, Beate: „Zur Stellung und Bedeutung von Fotografie in der Konkreten Kunst“. In Jäger, Gottfried / Krauss, Rolf H. / Reese, Beate: Concrete Photography – Konkrete Fotografie, Kerber Verlag: Bielefeld, 2005.
Light Reflex – Transformation, 1965 Silver gelatin baryta paper 36.1 x 28.8 cm Unique
Light Reflex – Transformation, 1965 Silver gelatin baryta paper 28.5 x 36.2 cm Unique
Light Reflex – Rotation, 1966 Agfa positive film 29.8 x 29.8 cm Unique
Light Reflex – Rotation, 1966 Agfa positive film 29.8 x 29.8 cm Unique
Wave Element Inverse Transformation 1, 1966 − 1967 Silver gelatin baryta paper 49.5 x 49.5 cm Unique
Gottfried Jäger * 1937, Burg bei Magdeburg, Germany
Gottfried Jäger unites many aspects that are characteristic and relevant for German Photography after the Second World War. He is an artist, a mediator, a curator, a scientist, and an initiator of many projects. Gottfried Jäger completed an apprenticeship in Photography. He passed his examination (Gesellenprüfung) in Bielefeld and his examination for the Master Craftsman’s diploma (Meisterprüfung) in Cologne. He studied at the Staatliche Höhere Fachschule für Photographie in Cologne (today University of Applied Sciences). Between 1960 and 1972 he worked as specialist teacher for Photography at the Werkkunstschule Bielefeld, from 1972 to 2002 he was a professor for Photography teaching the Artistic Basics of Photography, and Photographic and Generative Imaging Systems (Generative Bildsysteme). In the year 2011 he was awarded a doctorate at the University Bielefeld for his work on microphotographer Carl Strüwe. Gottfried Jäger founded the Bielefeld School of Photography (Bielefelder Schule der Fotografie) and gave essential impulses for the orientation and the topics of study in Bielefeld for decades. The legendary symposia on photography were known all over Germany and have become an important institution for the development of photographic theory over the course of the last 30 years. Jäger developed the term Generative Photography in the 1960s and worked collaboratively with Herbert W. Franke, Hein Gravenhorst, Kilian Breier, Pierre Cordier, and Karl Martin Holzhäuser. His artistic work, including photographic paper works, photo objects, and installations, is completed by his historical and art historical research on the history of Generative Photography. His oeuvre, which is singular in Germany, was honored with the Cultural Prize of the German Photographic Association (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photography, DGPh) in 2014.
Photo Paper Work 2011-III-1-2, 2011 Silver gelatin baryta paper 60 x 50 cm Unique
Photo Paper Work 1986-VI-1-3, 1986 Silver gelatin baryta paper Each 59 x 49.5 cm (Triptych) Unique
Light graphic. Luzidogram. 1965-6-17, 1965 Agfacolor MCN 111, color paper 42.7 x 30.2 cm Unique
Photo 111104.4, 2011 Data image. Digigraphie 60 x 90 cm Ed. 5 + 2 AP
Lochblendenstruktur (Pinhole Structure) 3.8.14F4.4, 1967/1996 Silver gelatin baryta paper print 24 x 24 cm Ed. 5/5
Karl Martin Holzhäuser * 1944, Gardelegen, Germany
Karl Martin Holzhäuser, member of the international group Concrete Photography (Konkrete Photographie), has created a remarkably consistent oeuvre with his free artistic practices since the end of the 1960s. His art is rooted in two cultures: the culture of Concrete and especially Constructive Art, to which Holzhäuser felt an affinity already at a young age, and the culture of the medium of photography, particularly in its tendency for experimentation and design. Altogether, Holzhäuser’s oeuvre could be seen as a visually convincing experiment on the synthesis of the cultures of art and technology. It reflects the free play of colors, forms, space, and time in the apparatus of the medium, resisting its ambitions time and again. Early works such as the Mechano optischen Untersuchungen from 1965 to 1972 make this evident, as do works of the group Light Painting that carries titles of dates much like a registry or archival documents. These titles represent the artist’s refusal to submit to any metaphysical super-elevation and transfiguration of art. He stages a visual world that did not exist before and realizes the idea of developing an image solely out of the photographic process. His icons are a result of this process. They seem to have rested within the medium —in a system of optics and chemistry, of mechanic and technical production—until someone brought them to light. Holzhäuser is permanently in search for the latent image of time via photographs that don’t want to represent and reproduce the world as it seems or is. His photographs don’t want to make anything visible, instead they want to be visual. Here, the artist intentionally returns to the roots of the medium, searching for the elementary in a world in which the fleeting, fleeing moments have become a nightmare. Earlier connections of a piece of art to the place or space and time of its creation have become obsolete through reproducibility and mass distribution. Globalization has already taken place. Photography supports this process instead of halting it. But it also offers the chance to play this game and produce authentic contemporary pictures, signs that give support to the individual and collective consciousness. Holzhäuser’s works fix the fleeting moments in their own way. He may be working in the dark. But his medium is light.
Serie 3, 1969/1975 Mechanichal optical research Silver gelatin baryta paper 52 x 42 cm Ed. 2/2
Serie 4, 1969/1975 Mechanichal optical research Silver gelatin baryta paper 50 x 40 cm Ed. 2/5
Painting with Light 88.25.2001, 2001 Colored light on chromogenic paper 133 x 133 cm Unique
Painting with Light 88.28.2001, 2001 Colored light on chromogenic paper 120 x 120 cm Unique
Painting with Light 180.29.2003, 2003 Colored light on chromogenic paper 133 x 133 cm Unique
Concrete and Generative Photography Part 2
Inge Dick * 1941, Vienna, Austria
Inge Dick works as a painter, video artist, and photographer. Dick used the Polaroid camera to document her paintings, since 1982 photography has been serving as an autonomous medium for her artistic expression. The monochrome photographs by Inge Dick are not just reproductions of her monochrome paintings, they are studies of light in which the change of natural light on monochrome surfaces in the course of one day is captured in specific intervals. The artist finds these surfaces in her studio or in the Polaroid studios in Boston. The series Black shows monochrome surfaces with slight variations of the black color, with differences in their temperature and the lightness of the shade. The Polaroids offer the possibility to visualize light, space, and time better than any other camera and material. Inge Dick studied Graphic Design at the Vienna University (1962). Since 1971 she has been realizing paintings that reflect her interest and her investment with Concrete Art. Light, space, and time are her most important subjects. Her works can be found at the Museum of Modern Art in Salzburg, Lenbachhaus in Munich, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
English Red, 25.2.1999 Polaroid 95 x 67 cm Unique
Black 14.6.96 14², 1996 Black 14.6.96 14¹4, 1996 Black 14.6.96 1442, 1996 Black 14.6.96 1447, 1996 Polaroid Each 95 x 67 cm Unique
Ewald Maurer * 1947, Fürstenfeld, Austria
The large-format analogue photographs from the series Naked Ilfochrome show filigree, spiral structures, one per picture, on white or black ground. These highly aesthetic forms are in fact rolls of Ilfachrome, photographed from above with a large-format camera, and printed on Ilfachrome, a material known for its typical positive-to-positive photographic process. Since the 1980s it has been Maurer’s preferred medium. The series Naked Ilfochrome presents an homage to photographic paper. Ilfochrome here advances from an anonymous industrial product to an autonomous form with high aesthetic potential. Today, in the digital age, analogue photography seems antiquated and part of the past. The pictures document the vanishing process of the material and the analogue technology of production. The photograph does not just work as a document but also as an indicator for the medial development. Maurer reflects the characteristics of the medium and its finitude. Ewald Maurer was born Fürstenfeld in Austria in 1947. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, where he met Tamara Horáková, his common-law wife, with whom he realizes almost all of his artistic projects. Both founded an atelier named ng40 in Vienna in 1995. The series Naked Ilfochrome is also a joint project. Maurer and Horáková have received important Austrian awards. They have both had numerous exhibitions and issued various publications. Their works were shown at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, the Künstlerhaus Graz and other cultural institutions in Austria and their ouevre helps define the debate about photography, especially in questions of medial immanence, reference, and representation.
Naked Ilfochrome, 2013 Ilfochrome, Diasec 195 x 103 cm
Andreas Müller-Pohle * 1951, Brunswick, Germany
The photographs of the series Cyclograms, made between 1991 and 1994, were created in a process of recycling in which old and destroyed pictorial material generated new pictorial material. First, photographs were shredded into strips or confetti. Then a sheet of photographic paper was fixed in a container filled with developer. Finally, the paper fragments were added to rotating liquid, casting shadows on the photographic paper. A so-called Cyclogram was born, an abstract image that shows and reflects the genesis and destruction of a pictorial process. Another series entitled Digital Scores (after Nicéphore Niépce) is based on one of the earliest photographs, View From His Study, by Nicéphore Niépce from 1826. Because of the long exposure of presumably eight hours it counteracts the human gaze. The photograph was digitized and its information, containing seven million bytes, transferred to alphanumeric signs which were printed over eight squares. The time of representation is thus transformed into the representation of information, according to Hubertus von Amelunxen. Andreas Müller-Pohle is a media artist, scientist, lecturer, and publisher. He studied Economics and Communication Sciences in Hanover from 1973 to 1974, and in Goettingen from 1974 to 1979. Initially, he was interested in film, but from the middle of the 1970s on he focused on photography, practically and theoretically. In 1979 he founded the magazine European Photography. As a publisher he has edited major works by media philosopher Vilém Flusser, available in the ten-volume Edition Flusser, including the seminal Philosophy of Photography which has been translated into over 20 languages. In 2001 Müller-Pohle received the European Photography Prize of the Reind M. De Vries Foundation.
Digital Scores III (after Nicéphore Niépce), 1998 Iris Giclée prints Each 66 x 66 cm Ed. 8 + 1 AP
Cyclograms 5.2.1994, 1994 Silver gelatin baryta paper Each 60 x 50 cm Unique
Richard Caldicott * 1962, Leicester, England
Richard Caldicott is an interdisciplinary artist who experiments with different materials and techniques, including drawing, photography, and sculpture. The artist’s works on paper are created with ballpoint pen or inkjet printers, and bear an austere elegance through minimal drawings (with one or two lines) or buoyant and colorful forms and floating shapes; but all of them are inextricably linked through their minimal aesthetic and focus. Repetition is one of many often used elements in Caldicott’s work—it echoes the art making of the Minimalism period. Caldicott’s use of camera to record collages and constructions has created a unique aesthetic niche that manages to reference iconic modernism without reverting to familiar forms. In 1986 he was awarded the Paris Studio Award of the Cité Internationale des Arts, RCA. Since the artist’s acclaimed series featuring Tupperware in the 1990s, Richard Caldicott has continually challenged photographic codes of representation in favor of new aesthetic and symbolic intentions. Employing traditional analog photography methods, Caldicott imbues his minimalist set of components with rich, vibrant color. The result is stunningly beautiful abstract work that is both self-contained and part of a larger dialogue, with nods to iconic Minimalism, Color Field paintings, and pop reappropriation. Richard Caldicott graduated from the The Royal College of Art in 1987 and currently lives in London.
Program 1, 2006 Laserchrome paper 61 x 50.8 cm Ed. 1/5 +2 AP
Untitled #27, 2016 Paper negative and photogram on silver gelatin baryta paper 17.8 x 25.4 cm Unique
Untitled #29, 2016 Paper negative and photogram on silver gelatin baryta paper 17.8 x 25.4 cm Unique
Black Route, 2004 Laserchrome paper 127 x 101.6 cm Ed. 2/5 + 2 AP
Claus Stolz * 1963, Mannheim, Germany
Claus Stolz practices the most radical type of analogue photography. While other photographers merely take a photograph of objects lit by the sun, he directs his camera directly at it. Through long exposure, pictures of impressive beauty and variety are generated that document the process of burning and destroying photographic material. 15 years ago Stolz established this artistic method. He named it Heliography, in reference to Nicéphore Niépce, the inventor of the Heliography, the worldwide first photographic process. The exhibited Microscopies, created between 2014 and 2015, show inner worlds from a microscopic perspective. The images represent the fascinating process of destruction of the different layers of emulsion, producing colored bubbles which then burst. Stolz uses a special type of microscope in a scientific laboratory in Bayreuth to scan each layer of emulsion at 50x magnification to gain images with great depth of field and a high resolution. The photographs show small blisters with crystalline structures, in color as well as in black and white, in reference to the according material and the exposure time. Claus Stolz, born in 1963, lives and works in Mannheim. From 1988 to 1992 he studied at the Freie Kunstakademie Mannheim. Claus Stolz’s photographs are of great significance both in the digital age and in the history of photography. They have been shown in numerous exhibitions in international museums and institutions.
Sun #226A, 2015 Series 8 Ultrachrome K3 Ink on HahnemĂźhle Photo Rag 305 g 120 x 120 cm Ed. 1/1 + 1AP
Sun #172, 2010 Series 9 Ultrachrome K3 Ink on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 305 g 40 x 40 cm Ed. 2/10 + 1AP
Sun #178, 2010 Series 9 Ultrachrome K3 Ink on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 305 g 40 x 40 cm Ed. 2/10 + 1AP
Sun #220C, 2015 Series 8 Ultrachrome K3 Ink on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 305 g 40 x 40 cm Ed. 2/10 + 1AP
Sun #226C, 2015 Series 8 Ultrachrome K3 Ink on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 305 g 40 x 40 cm Ed. 2/10 + 1AP
Harald Mairböck * 1963, Ried, Austria
The series A Picture Is A Camera Is A Picture deals with the process of photographic reproduction, represented in one act. Mairböck built a pinhole camera out of nothing but photographic paper, aiming not to take pictures of reality but to capture pure light. The image documents the presence of light and includes all traces of the photographic process: the trace of the “objective”, the traces of the constructed “camera” (the creases), and the traces of light sources (light reflecting things) which create the motif in a conventional photograph. Cubes and Tubes are terms from different camera types. They are based on the same principle: the hole functions as an objective. While the square Cubes are characterized by the horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines of the folded paper, the vertical Tubes have less lines and a reduced folded structure. The Light Sculptures present 64 small square photographs. On each picture we see the incidence of light through a slit in the gelatin silver paper. Around the slit there is a black spot that tells us about the time of exposure and the quantity of light during the exposure. Harald Mairböck was born in Ried (Innkreis) in 1963. He lives and works as a freelance artist in Vienna. He studied Philosophy and Ethnology at the University of Vienna and then Mechanical Engineering at the Technical University of Vienna. After having worked as a lecturer at the University and later as an industrial Innovation Manager, he turned to artistic photography. Since 2007 his art has been exhibited and appreciated in Austria and Germany.
Lichtskulptur L.2, 2013 Silver gelatin paper 103 x 103 cm Unique
tube T.d07, 2015 Silver gelatin paper 18 x 6 cm Unique
tube T.d10, 2015 Silver gelatin paper 18 x 6 cm Unique
cube C.d05, 2015 Silver gelatin paper 18 x 18 cm Unique
cube C.d06, 2015 Silver gelatin paper 18 x 18 cm Unique
Marco Breuer * 1966, Landshut, Germany
Marco Breuer is interested in the materiality of the photograph and especially of the photosensitive surface. He is the pioneer of the Photographic Frottage, the Thermogram, and the Photograffiti. His works show evident traces of a mechanical, thermal, and chemical influence, extraordinary in the history of photography and in the digital age. The artist uses different tools like a razor blade or sandpaper to work on the surface. He treats the photograph as a painting and uncovers the separate chromatic layers that emerge. In some pictures Breuer uses a Bunsen burner to create interesting effects. These photographs, produced in an unusual artistic process, impress with their beauty and their suggestion of three-dimensionality. Historically, photographs have always been treated with utmost sensibility, their protection and preservation were of great importance. Contrasting history, Breuer analyses the photographic materiality by working on it, destroying the photosensitive surface layer by layer. The picture that misses a representational motif itself becomes the motif, determining the radical break with the photographic tradition. Marco Breuer was born in Landshut in 1966. From 1988 on he studied at the Lette-Verein in Berlin and later at the University of Applied Sciences in Darmstadt. In 2000 he moved to New York to specialize in photography at the School of Visual Arts, finishing his studies at the Bard College in New York where he lives and works today. Breuer’s art is part of numerous U.S. collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Paul Getty Museum, and the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco. In Germany works are owned by the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart.
Untitled (C-1364), 2013 Chromogenic paper, folded, burned 36.8 x 29.2 cm Unique
Untitled (C-558), 2005 Chromogenic Paper, embossed, scratched 34.8 x 27.1 cm Unique
Untitled (C-660), 2006 Chromogenic Paper, embossed, scratched 33.7 x 29.7 cm Unique
Imprint Concrete and Generative Photography 1960 – 2014 Part I: The Pioneers Heinz Hajek-Halke, Herbert W. Franke, Roger Humbert, Kilian Breier, Pierre Cordier / Gundi Falk, René Mächler, Hein Gravenhorst, Gottfried Jäger, Karl Martin Holzhäuser. 18.10. – 20.12.2014
Concrete and Generative Photography Part 2 Inge Dick, Ewald Maurer, Andreas Müller-Pohle, Richard Caldicott, Claus Stolz, Harald Mairböck, Marco Breuer. 30.9. – 27.11.2016
Curators Gunther Dietrich, Tomás Rodríguez Scientific Advice Prof. Dr. Gottfried Jäger Texts Sandra Behrend, Gunther Dietrich, Tomás Rodríguez Copyediting Lisa Contag Translation Sandra Behrend Design Tomás Rodríguez Photo credits © The artists
© Photo Edition Berlin Gallery and Publisher of Photography Ystaderstr. 14a 10437 Berlin Germany Tel. +49 30 4171 7831 www.photoeditionberlin.com Berlin, 2016