Dr. Kris Scholz
German Analytic Photography

     When photography was invented in 1839, it was related to the common portrait paintings of the early 19th century, mainly produced for the upper classes. The painterly stile of these pictures where not meant to document the real outlook of the portrayed persons, but they transported automatically details of their physiognomy. In the early 20th century many photographers used the medium to express their interpretation of reality. In Germany two diverting tendencies evolved, Neue Sachlichkeit/New Objectivity and Neues Sehen/New Vision. Photographers like August Sander, Alfred Renner-Patsch, Karl Bloßfeld tried to document the reality from a distanced, matter-of-fact view, whereas artists like Alexander Rodchenko, László Moholy-Nagy, Hannah Höch experimented with the medium, in order to create photography as an independent art form.

The movement was directly related to the principles of the Bauhaus. New Vision considered photography to be an autonomous artistic practice with its own laws of composition and lighting, through which the lens of the camera becomes a second eye for looking at the world.

New Objectivity had a strong influence to the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher, founder oft he so called Becher school or Düsseldorf school of photography. Together, the Bechers went out with a large 8 x 10-inch view camera and photographed buildings from a number of different angles, but always with a straightforward & objective point of view. Objects included barns, water towers, coal tipples, cooling towers, grain elevators, coal bunkers, coke ovens, oil refineries, blast furnaces, gas tanks, storage silos, and warehouses.

In 1976, Bernd Becher started teaching photography at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf where he remained on the faculty until 1996. Before him, photography had been excluded from what was largely a school for painters. He influenced students that later made a name for themselves in the photography world. Former students of Bernd's includedAndreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth, Candida Höfer, Elger Esser and me. Although New Vision still was present in the work of Otto Steiner, Ludwig Windstosser or Gottfried Jäger, the Becher school dominated the art scene for nearly three decades. Now, especially younger photographers turn away from the influence of New Objectivity and rediscover the experimental stile of Bauhaus and New Vision. The works of Andreas Gefeller, Corina Gertz, Michael Reisch, Michael Schnabel, Daniel Tobias Braun, Antje Hanebeck, Stefanie Seifert, Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs are not representing reality any more but are creating a new aesthetic universe.

Claude Estèbe
Between Japonism and auto.exoticism

     When photography was invented in 1839, it was related to the common portrait paintings of the early 19th century, mainly produced for the upper classes. The painterly stile of these pictures where not meant to document the real outlook of the portrayed persons, but they transported automatically details of their physiognomy. In the early 20th century many photographers used the medium to express their interpretation of reality. In Germany two diverting tendencies evolved, Neue Sachlichkeit/New Objectivity and Neues Sehen/New Vision. Photographers like August Sander, Alfred Renner-Patsch, Karl Bloßfeld tried to document the reality from a distanced, matter-of-fact view, whereas artists like Alexander Rodchenko, László Moholy-Nagy, Hannah Höch experimented with the medium, in order to create photography as an independent art form.

The movement was directly related to the principles of the Bauhaus. New Vision considered photography to be an autonomous artistic practice with its own laws of composition and lighting, through which the lens of the camera becomes a second eye for looking at the world.

New Objectivity had a strong influence to the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher, founder oft he so called Becher school or Düsseldorf school of photography. Together, the Bechers went out with a large 8 x 10-inch view camera and photographed buildings from a number of different angles, but always with a straightforward & objective point of view. Objects included barns, water towers, coal tipples, cooling towers, grain elevators, coal bunkers, coke ovens, oil refineries, blast furnaces, gas tanks, storage silos, and warehouses.

In 1976, Bernd Becher started teaching photography at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf where he remained on the faculty until 1996. Before him, photography had been excluded from what was largely a school for painters. He influenced students that later made a name for themselves in the photography world. Former students of Bernd's includedAndreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth, Candida Höfer, Elger Esser and me. Although New Vision still was present in the work of Otto Steiner, Ludwig Windstosser or Gottfried Jäger, the Becher school dominated the art scene for nearly three decades. Now, especially younger photographers turn away from the influence of New Objectivity and rediscover the experimental stile of Bauhaus and New Vision. The works of Andreas Gefeller, Corina Gertz, Michael Reisch, Michael Schnabel, Daniel Tobias Braun, Antje Hanebeck, Stefanie Seifert, Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs are not representing reality any more but are creating a new aesthetic universe.