Bernd Uhde

Bernd Uhde (born February 22, 1950 in Ratingen in the Düsseldorf administrative region ) is a German photographer and freelance artist . He became known for his artistic aerial photography project.

Life

Bernd Uhde first attended the Werkkunstschule in Düsseldorf before he moved to Berlin and studied free painting from 1971 to 1976 with Karl Horst Hödicke , among others , and visual communication at the Berlin University of the Arts . This was followed by freelance project work as a photographer and graphic designer as well as first documentary films. In 1979 he began his studies at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB), which he graduated in 1983 with a focus on directing and camera .

In 1982 he undertook a one-year travel project on horseback in New Zealand with his partner and later wife Bettina . From 1983 to 1988 he dealt with the reconstruction and design of a classic Lower Saxony farm in Eitzen I near Lüneburg , where he has lived since then and which was also the meeting point and residence of internationally active cultural workers from different directions.

In 1996 he held a teaching position at the Bauhaus University Weimar in the Fine Art course.

Work and reception

From 1982 to 2001 Bernd Uhde worked on the realization of various international documentary film projects, which he also produced in his company Eitzen I Communications Filmproduktion , founded in 1993 .

In 2001 he started the Air Real Art project , with which he became known as a photo artist : he photographs textures of urban, industrial and natural landscapes from a vertical perspective during flights from a hot air balloon , helicopter or ultralight aircraft from a height of between 200 and 800 Meters. The resulting photographic work complexes Views , Surveys , Landscapes and Urban Surfaces have been shown in numerous exhibitions since 2002 and published in illustrated books.

This was followed by commissioned work and work complexes Short Cuts , Traffic , Concrete Works , Trans Form Art and Orangemania .

In 2014 Bernd Uhde published the photo book White Album , for which he collected winter pictures in northern Germany for five years. NDR Kultur found: “Bernd Uhde's pictures do not document anything, they do not map anything and they do not raise any socially critical questions. They are simply beautiful. ”The book was nominated for the German Photo Book Prize 2015 and is taking part in the traveling exhibition of the same name.

Quotes

"Not the documentary, but the abstraction and the reduction to minimal pictorial elements are the subject of his work."

- Bauhaus University Weimar

“A few influences are at work here: Abstract Expressionism and the New York School painting , Aaron Siskind's black and white photography - but compared to Bernd Uhde's pictures from the air and his colorful, abstract narrations of how one flies, everything seems to be a model of past eras the visual arts very heavy. "

- Horst Klöver

"You could call this concept a pre-political aesthetic - one that allows without judging, but invites calm contemplation and ultimately awareness."

- Martin Sambauer on Landscapes

"His urban and natural landscapes, permeated by the subjective view as well as by collective knowledge, crystallize the cycles and patterns of our presence determined by cultivation and mobility like still lifes drawn from life."

- Belinda Grace Gardner on Urban Surfaces

Publications

• Black Album (with a preface by Martin Feltes), Verlag seltmann + söhne, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-946688-71-6
• White album. The colors of snow - Bernd Uhde's search for traces in landscapes of silence (with a foreword by Belinda Grace Gardner), Seltmann, Lüdenscheid / Hamburg / Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-944721-04-0
• Landscapes. Location description of a high-flyer , Seltmann, Lüdenscheid / Hamburg / Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-934687-72-1
• Urban Surfaces. Still life of a changing reality , Seltmann, Lüdenscheid / Hamburg / Berlin, ISBN 978-3-934687-73-8
• Views - oversight , Ars Momentum, Witten 2006, ISBN 3-938193-14-X

Prices

• 2015: Licher photo award on the subject of "Man and Nature" for his picture "Golden Bay" taken in New Zealand

Web links

• Literature by and about Bernd Uhde in the catalog of the German National Library
• AirRealArt.de
• Bernd Uhde represented by the Holthoff-Mokross Gallery
• Bernd Uhde at Lumas
• Bernd Uhde on the Photography Now website
• Michael Stoeber : God's own eye. On the work of Bernd Uhde , in: Salon Salder . New art from Lower Saxony. 2012
• Bernd Uhde in the Lexicon of International Films, Zweiausendeins.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ DFFB, Alumni ( Memento of the original dated May 6, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ Portrait of Bernd and Tina Uhde on ARTE TV, "Landträume: In der Lüneburger Heide", May 18, 2011  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Repetition on Phoenix on April 5, 2012  
3. ^ Photographer Bernd Uhde. North German winter landscapes , Zeit Online
4. ↑ Divine gaze in white: "White Album" , NDR Kultur February 6, 2014 ( Memento from March 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
5. ↑ German Photo Book Prize 2015, nominated in 2015. PDF ( Memento of the original from November 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
6. ↑ Bauhaus University Weimar, June 2010 ( Memento of the original from January 8, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
7. ↑ Lumas.de
8. ↑ Preface to Bernd Uhde's illustrated book Landscapes. Description of the place of a high-flyer , Verlag Seltmann + Söhne, Lüdenscheidt-Berlin-Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-934687-72-1 (text in German and English)
9. ^ Foreword to Uhde's illustrated book Urban Surfaces: Still life of a changing reality . Verlag Seltmann + Söhne, Lüdenscheidt-Berlin-Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3934687721 (text in German and English)