Anno Wilms

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Anno Wilms (born July 21, 1935 in Berlin ; † May 22, 2016 in Berlin) was a German photographer .

Life

After training at the photo school in Hamburg with a state qualification from the Lette School in Berlin, Anno Wilms has worked as a freelance photo journalist on countless trips since the beginning of the 1960s, mainly dealing with marginalized groups and the performing arts . In her search for a comprehensive understanding of identity in the field of tension between reality and vision, her main interest was in people in their individual, self-determined, but also external life.

Anno Wilms lived and worked in Berlin. The artistic estate of the photographer, which includes around 40,000 prints and more than 6,000 negative films, was transferred to a foundation while she was still alive, which has made it its mission to preserve the extensive photographic work and make it accessible to the public. The Anno Wilms Foundation is located in the artist's former living quarters on Xantener Strasse in Berlin-Charlottenburg.

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Berlin

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For Anno Wilms, her hometown Berlin has been a main motif of her photographic work for over 30 years. This includes, on the one hand, the comprehensive documentation of Berlin's art and cultural life, as described separately in the group of works “Stage”. On the other hand, the photographer has provided evidence of the Berlin cityscape for decades. In snapshots and environmental studies, people are captured on the streets, in cafes, pubs, shops, fairs and parks. Beginning in the 1960s, interest was not only directed towards the urban core districts, but also the outskirts of the city. In addition to the street scenes on the lively Ku'damm, there are also pictures from the old towns of Reinickendorf, Spandau and Tegel or excursion and landscape motifs on the banks of the Havel.

The extensive architectural photographs form a completely separate field. Churches, monuments, sights, museum buildings and Wilhelminian style facades are recorded as well as bridges, lanterns and facade decorations made of cast iron and sculptures in public spaces. The major cultural building projects of the 1960s and 1970s, the Neue Nationalgalerie , the Philharmonie , the State Library and the ICC should also be mentioned here. At the same time, the photographs follow and document the infrastructural urban development in Berlin housing. Above all, the large pre- and post-war settlements, Borsig and Hufeisensiedlung in Reinickendorf and Neukölln, Berlin-Gropiusstadt , the Märkisches Viertel and the Rudolf-Wissel-Siedlung in Spandau were documented in architecture studies and photos of lively shopping areas and playgrounds.

Between 1970 and 1977 the photographer published three illustrated books on the subject of "Berlin".

to travel

The early photographic work of Anno Wilms began at the beginning of the 1960s with travel photos from all over Europe. Right from the start, her focus was on people in their specific urban or rural environment. Street and café scenes in the big cities of London and Paris, but also village genre motifs and the living conditions of the rural population in Italy, Spain, Greece, Yugoslavia and Hungary take up the largest part. In addition, there are landscape images and city vedutas, fashion photos and street still lifes, as well as architectural photos that are either captured as a close-up with an unconventional perspective or captured under special lighting conditions as a building sculpture in context, trying to capture the specific characteristics of the building.

At the beginning of the 1970s, the geographic radius was already significantly expanded. In 1972/73 she made her first trips to the Middle East, Israel and Lebanon, but also to North Africa, Egypt and Morocco. Anno Wilms was to visit these regions again and again until 1983. While the groups of subjects generally remain the same, the photographer is increasingly looking for a comparison of traditional ways of life, religious rites or costumes and modern civilization beyond her own cultural area. In 1981/82 the large-format travel books “Traumziel Israel” and “Traumziel Egypt” appeared, which were reissued several times in various editions up to the 1990s with introductions by Middle East correspondents Moshe Meisels and Carl E. Buchalls.

At the end of the 1970s, she also traveled to the USA, especially to New York and New Orleans, where, similar to her hometown Berlin, the art and cultural scene, stage programs and festivals were documented in addition to architecture and the cityscape. Between 1989 and 1992, the global approach was finally rounded off with trips to the Caribbean, Haiti, Guadeloupe, Puerto Rico and St. Maarten.

Marginalized groups

The subject of marginalized social groups occupies a central position in the photographic work of Anno Wilms. As early as the beginning of the 1960s , she made her first contact with the Roma environment in France , which she followed throughout Europe in the following years. The illustrated book “Gypsies”, created in 1972, brings together photographs from Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy, Hungary and Istanbul. The regionally specific living conditions of the Roma, everyday life, earning a living and family life are documented as well as music, dance, pilgrimage and religious festivals.

Ten years later, an illustrated book appears about the life of the Rastafari , with whom the photographer lived for weeks in Jamaica. Living conditions and spiritual practice, music, art and hairstyle in the Caribbean heartland are juxtaposed with images of Rastas in the streets of London, in which self-assertion, although presented casually, seems incomparably more difficult.

In the 1970s, the first trips to North Africa and the Middle East, especially to Egypt and Israel, began, which resulted in two photo volumes being created in 1985, on the one hand the life of the Bedouins in the field of tension between tradition and modernity and on the other hand everyday life the Zabalin , the garbage collector from Mokattam in Cairo.

stage

Anno Wilms has continuously followed the program of the Berlin theaters since the mid-1960s. Theater, jazz and increasingly dance form a thematic core area of ​​her work. She regularly documented the Berlin Jazz Days from 1964 to 1995 and left atmospheric recordings by the most important international jazz greats of the time, Miles Davis , Charles Mingus , Gil Evans , Don Cherry and Carla Bley . The stage program of the most important Berlin theaters and opera houses was also comprehensively recorded with productions by Peter Stein , George Tabori , Peter Zadek , Götz Friedrich , Maurice Béjart and Johann Kresnik .

In the mid-1970s, two other subject areas became increasingly important: In addition to the classic Berlin stages, the photographer is now devoting herself to the world of travesty and, more generally, to the subject of gender identities. In 1978 the large-format illustrated book "Transvestiten" appears, which mainly contains photographs from the famous West Berlin cabaret and travesty theaters Chez Nous , Chez Romy Haag and Lützower Lampe. Representations of the dazzling stage program are juxtaposed with intimate photos from the cloakroom.

With the Lindsay Kemp Company, the eye also falls on a theater group that is creating a new, exalted world of expression that goes beyond classic theater concepts. The photos, which were taken between 1981 and 1983, were published in 1987 in the illustrated book "Lindsay Kemp & Company".

The most important topic of the 80s and 90s is introduced. Movement and especially dance as language-independent self-expression and lively expression of emotions is becoming increasingly important. The Brazilian dancer and choreographer Ismael Ivo , who was born in 1990 with “Ismael Ivo. Body and Dance ”dedicates its own illustrated book, along with numerous friends and acquaintances, is certainly the most important motif of this group of works.

portrait

Since Anno Wilms' main interest has always been people, there are numerous expressive portraits in her work. Anonymous photos of old people, women and children, whom she met in the streets of Berlin or Paris as well as in the alleys of a Sardinian village or in front of Bedouin tents in the Negev desert, make up the bulk of this group of works.

A second group of works within this thematic area are portraits of well-known personalities whom she got to know as part of her work on the international cultural scene. Choreographers, writers, musicians and directors such as Merce Cunningham , Wolfdietrich Schnurre , Dave Brubeck and Heiner Müller should be mentioned here. In 1970 she dedicated an entire series of portraits to the painter Markus Lüpertz , showing the artist at work in the studio, at his appearances at exhibition openings, but also in a staged game on the roof of his Berlin studio in Akazienstrasse.

Experiments

Parallel to the documentary recordings, the first experimental photographs were taken as early as the 1970s . It starts with multiple and overexposure as well as obscuring motifs due to reflections in glass facades and shop windows, which additionally challenge the visual habit of seeing with unusual perspectives.

In the 1980s, the artistic means of expression were expanded to include grids, solarizations and painterly alienations in the laboratory. Cross-fading and photo collage or montage are also becoming increasingly important. The negatives, which were created in a documentary context, serve as the material basis, whereby it is noticeable that in the area of ​​collage and dissolving, mainly recordings from the topics of dance and transvestites are used.

The artistic origins of this group of works go back to the 20s and 30s of the last century. While the photographer certainly refers to the photographs of the “ New Seeing ” when she chooses the perspectives, especially for architectural shots , fades and collages are clearly based on surrealist motifs. With regard to her laboratory experiments, echoes of Sigmar Polke's photographic work can also be recognized. An excerpt from this artistic field of experimentation was shown in the exhibition “Tension Fields” in the Bordenau Photo Gallery in 1989, the catalog of which is introduced by a text by the longstanding director of the Berlinische Galerie, Ursula Prinz.

From a biographical point of view, the experimental work is at the end of Anno Wilms's photographic work, which ended in the mid-1990s. In the years that followed, he created paintings, collages and works on paper, mainly black and white and increasingly abstract, based on literary sources such as Dante's “ Divine Comedy ” or Bizet's “ Carmen ” and the works of Jean Genet and Pier Paolo Pasolini . Your basic topic, the

Exhibitions (selection)

  • 1971–73 - Free Berlin art exhibition, exhibition halls at the radio tower, Berlin
  • 1980 - Women from Berlin - Mujeres de Berlin - Women from Berlin. La creación femenina, Instituto Goethe, Foro de Arte Contemporanea, México, DF / The exchange Show, ARE Gallery, San Francisco
  • 1982 - Typically Man, Zurich Museum of Decorative Arts, Haus am Lützowplatz Berlin, Kunstverein Munich, Tip Hamburg Pavilion
  • 1986 - Androgynous: Longing for perfection. Curated by Ursula Prinz. Academy of the Arts Berlin, Kunstverein Hannover
  • 1989 - Anno Wilms, areas of tension, Bordenau photo gallery, Bordenau
  • 1994 - Anno Wilms & Susanne Kirchner, Space - Body - Time, Performance I-IV, Galerie am Pariser Platz, Akademie der Künste, Berlin
  • 2008 - Anno Wilms - Dante Fragments, Signum Gallery, Heidelberg
  • 2011 - Genet. Homage on the 100th birthday, Schwules Museum, Berlin
  • 2014 - 5 photographers - 5 decades. Exhibition for the 50th anniversary of the Jazzfest Berlin. Ludwig Binder, Patrick Hinely, Anno Wilms, Detlev Schilke, Barbara Eismann, Foyer, Berliner Festspiele, Berlin
  • 2020 - Identity and Contrast - Collection Regard, Berlin

Publications

  • Anno Wilms: Berlin - impressions of a city. Stapp Verlag, Berlin 1970
  • Anno Wilms: Gypsies. With texts by Mirella Karpati and Sergius Golowin. Atlantis Verlag, Zurich 1972
  • Anno Wilms, Robert Flor: Stroll through Berlin. Süddeutscher Verlag, Munich 1974
  • Hans Scholz and Anno Wilms: Berlin. German Book Association, Berlin 1977
  • Anno Wilms (photos) and Werner Düggelin (text): Transvestites. Bucher Verlag, Lucerne and Frankfurt / Main 1978
  • Anno Wilms: dream destination Israel. Initiation by Moshe Meisels. Text anthology and captions by Hans Dollinger. With 98 color images based on photos by Anno Wilms. Süddeutscher Verlag, Munich 1981
  • Anno Wilms: dream destination Egypt. Introduction by Carl E. Buchalla. Text anthology and captions by Hans Dollinger. Süddeutscher Verlag, Munich 1982
  • Lutz Kliche: Rastafarian. Photographed by Anno Wilms. Jugenddienstverlag, Wuppertal 1982
  • Anno Wilms: Bedouins. List Verlag, Munich 1985
  • Hans-Joachim Hoffmann: Dress language. A psychology of illusions in clothing, fashion, and masquerade. With photos by Anno Wilms. Ullstein Verlag, Berlin 1985
  • Anno Wilms, Christine Bücking: Zabalin: the garbage people from Mokattam, Cairo. Edition CON, Bremen 1985
  • Anno Wilms: Lindsay Kemp & Company. Photographs by Anno Wilms. Preface by Derek Jarman. Introduced by David Haughton. GMP Publishers, London 1987
  • Anno Wilms: fields of tension, photo collages. Exhibition Photo Gallery Bordenau Oct / Nov. 1989. With a text by Ursula Prinz. Bordenau photo gallery, Neustadt 1989
  • Anno Wilms, Ismael Ivo: Body and Dance. Edition diá, St. Gallen / Berlin / Sao Paulo 1990
  • Norbert Servos (text), Anno Wilms (pictures): Heart iron. New poems and pictures. Kallmeyersche Verlagbuchhandlung, Seelze-Velber 1994

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Apart from the illustrated books published under her name, her Berlin pictures are also among others. a. appeared in the following publications: Young Old Berlin . Preface by Günter Matthes. Photos by Fritz Eschen u. a. Berlin, Stapp 1972; Curth Flatow (ed.), 6 x Berlin . Berlin, Press and Information Office 1972; Michael Schmidt, Anno Wilms, Reinhard Friedrich and others, Berlin pictures of a large city . Editor Wolfgang Kruse. Introduction by Annemarie Weber. Berlin, Press and Information Office 1977.
  2. ^ Joachim-Ernst Behrends: Photo-Story of Jazz . Wolfgang Krüger Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 1978.
  3. ↑ Berliner Festspiele (Ed.): 40 Years JazzFest Berlin 1964 - 2004. The chronicle of the festival with pictures and texts. Berlin 2004.
  4. ↑ The man / woman topic certainly also includes participations in the following publications: Women from Berlin - Mujeres de Berlin - Women from Berlin. La creación femenina , exhibition catalog México, DF, Instituto Goethe, Foro de Arte Contemporanea 5.6. - July 9, 1980. The exchange Show, San Francisco - Berlin November 1 - 30, 1980, Mexico City / Goethe-Institut 1980; Typical man? Women photograph men ; Brigitte exhibition catalog. Hamburg, Verlag Gruner & year 1981
  5. ↑ ZeitZeugeKunst (Ed.): The New Seeing: From Photography at the Bauhaus to Subjective Photography . Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1991.
  6. ^ Jochen Poetter: Sigmar Polke - photographs . Ed .: State Art Gallery Baden-Baden. Cantz, Stuttgart 1990.
  7. ↑ Ursula Prinz had already exhibited some of the photographer's experimental works in 1986 as part of her exhibition "Androgyn" at the Kunstverein Hannover: Androgyn: Longing for Perfection. Exhibition catalog Kunstverein Hannover. Edited by Ursula Prinz. Berlin, Reimer Verlag 1986
personal data
SURNAME Wilms, Anno
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German photographer
DATE OF BIRTH July 21, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH May 22, 2016
Place of death Berlin