Visual Arts in Germany: Exhibitions and Artist Portraits

Diashow 1: Heinrich Heidersberger

There are few individuals who personify 20th century German photography as does Heinrich Heidersberger. Born just a few years later than the avant-gardists of the Weimar Republic, he witnessed the impact they had as the era of modern photography arrived in Germany. And after the war, as a photographic community began to re-emerge in the now divided Germany, he became a kind of elder statesman, passing on avant-garde traditions and urging his fellow photographers to remember the importance of form even as they experimented with new approaches.

The art critic Ursula Bode once labelled him a “notorious dilettante”, a description that he was quite happy with. As somebody who never stopped experimenting with different techniques and every possible medium, he had a horror of being trapped in a certain way of working, let alone a defined style, and would vigorously evade any such categorisation. However, a look back at his work reveals that, in becoming an exponent of a uniquely German style of functionalism, he followed a straighter path than almost any of his contemporaries.

A photographer of industry and architecture

Born in Ingolstadt in 1906, Heinrich Heidersberger grew up in Linz (Austria) and Aarhus (Denmark) before briefly studying architecture and then attending a few painting classes given by Fernand Léger in Paris. There he acquired a camera to make reproductions and, like many of his contemporaries, became a convert to photography. His first independent photographs were produced in Copenhagen and included the image of a street in which cyclists cast long shadows, typical of the new artistic direction in the 1920s. Like many of his fellow artists and photographers he was forced to return to Germany in 1937 and took up industrial and architectural photography as a means of earning money; his first major work was a set of images to commemorate the opening of an aircraft factory in Oranienburg.

Rhythmogramm Trition

In 1939 Heidersberger became an industrial photographer at the Braunschweig steelworks. For the most part, the Nazis left him alone to pursue his documentary work and his artistic ideas. This gave Heidersberger the opportunity to experiment and develop all the techniques that he would employ with great success after the war as a chronicler of West Germany’s economic miracle. He photographed the new architecture, highlighting form and function, and produced pictures of bright clothing and awnings for use in advertising. What’s more, he demonstrated considerable prowess as an engineer in constructing a machine that filled a whole room and produced abstract images, which he calls “rhythmogrammes”. These images are termed Lissajous figures by scientists and they herald the arrival of the electronic era. They are mounted as wall-sized installations in foyers and lounges.

Precise details in a surreal setting

Jahrhunderthalle, Frankfurt

Heidersberger also writes for textbooks, yet is famous above all for his photographs of architecture. A constant and congenial chronicler of post-war modernity, he has found a unique way of reproducing this architecture in his work. He treads a fine line between a precise representation of detail and a slightly surreal effect created by the strong use of perspective or dark skies. Works such as those depicting the Jahrhunderthalle in Frankfurt am Main-Höchst or the VW power station in Wolfsburg elevate Heinrich Heidersberger to one of the world’s great photographers, alongside the Americans Julius Shulman, Ken Hedrich and Henry Blessing or the Japanese photographer Yukio Futagawa.

Diashow 2: Heinrich Heidersberger

Heinrich Heidersberger was less accomplished at self-publicity, however, and it was a long time before he attained the recognition he deserved. After being rediscovered at the start of the 1980s, he took part in exhibitions around the world before staging a number of solo exhibitions after 1986. On 10 June 2006, Heinrich Heidersberger turned 100. He died only a few weeks after his birthday on 14 July.

From April 26 until September 21, 2008, the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg presents roughly 170 black and white photos by Heidersberger.