Chargesheimer

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Karl Heinz (also Carl-Heinz ) Hargesheimer (born May 19, 1924 in Cologne ; † between December 31, 1971 and January 5, 1972 there ) was a German photographer who became known under the stage name Chargesheimer [ ˈʃaʁgəsˌhaɪ̯mɐ ].

life and work

After the Second World War, Chargesheimer studied graphics and photography at the Cologne factory schools . He was interested in various arts, such as opera , theater , costume design and painting , but mainly photography, within which he experimented with abstract light structures on photo paper and photomontages from 1950 .

From 1955 Chargesheimer worked as a freelance photographer and attracted attention through both vicious portraits of public figures and lifelike reports about his compatriots. He published 14 illustrated books on various topics such as cities, landscapes and theaters. In addition, he created meditation mills , moving sculptures made of acrylic glass .

After Chargesheimer had made a name for himself with the illustrated book Cologne intime (1957), the Spiegel publisher Rudolf Augstein ordered a portrait of Konrad Adenauer for the front page shortly before the 1957 federal election . Corresponding to Augstein's hopes, the image of a “mask-like face carved in granite, which told of political petrification and aging” was created. Chargesheimer became known nationwide through the general indignation that followed.

Chargesheimer loved Cologne and was closely connected to the city throughout his life. He saw the development of the city in the reconstruction phase and later very critically. The street Unter Krahnenbäume he portrayed in 1958 changed its character more and more. In his last book Cologne 5:30 in 1970, he took a critical inventory of the situation: "a melancholy swan song to 'his' city of Cologne, which threatened to freeze in the concrete."

The German Society for Photography (DGPh) in Cologne honored Chargesheimer with its culture award in 1968 .

Grave site on Melaten , hall 11 F: 65

Chargesheimer's friends portray him as a loner who sometimes made things difficult for himself and others, but was very talented and could also be a generous person. He suffered greatly from the prevailing photo industry, which did not allow him to think for himself and which treated his photos “like Germany at war with the Poles”. That is also why he turned z. B. his meditation mills , which were hardly noticed by the audience. A wire sculpture he made was even destroyed by the audience. Chargesheimer said that this did not surprise him, he had actually not expected anything else.

In early January 1972, Chargesheimer was found dead in his apartment. He was buried in the Melaten cemetery in Cologne . In the period that followed, his grave was considered untraceable for a long time; it was only rediscovered in hall 11 F: 65 in the 2000s. Chargesheimer was married to Ann Redlin (1940–1971) since 1963; the marriage was later divorced. Redlin is also buried in the Melaten cemetery.

Publications

  • 1957: Cologne intime . Cologne: Greven
  • 1958: In the Ruhr area , text: Heinrich Böll , Cologne: Kiepenheuer and Witsch
  • 1958: Under crane trees . Cologne: Greven, with a foreword by Heinrich Böll
  • 1959: Berlin. Pictures of a big city . Cologne: Kiepenheuer and Witsch
  • 1959: Romanesque on the Rhine . Cologne: Greven
  • 1960: people on the Rhine . Frankfurt: Gutenberg Book Guild
  • 1961: interim balance . Cologne: Greven
  • 1961: Armstrong & Fitzgerald . Photo folder with 16 pictures. Cologne, Dumont
  • 1965: Cologne photographed in color . Cologne: Tourist Office, with Peter Cornelius and Horst Bauman
  • 1967: theater, theater . Frankfurt: Gutenberg Book Guild
  • 1970: Cologne 5:30 . Cologne: DuMont Schauberg
  • 1970: Hanover . Hanover: Torchbearers-Verl. Schmidt-Küster

reception

The then mayor of Essen reacted indignantly to the picture book Ruhrgebiet published by Chargesheimer in 1958 with texts by Heinrich Böll : "We are thoroughly tired of being portrayed in this way by outsiders [...] We do not intend to accept such publications without being contradicted [...]" We do not accept such representations! "

In 1995 Wolfgang Vollmer photographed the locations from Chargesheimer's last photo book Cologne 5:30 am (1970) again and showed the changes over the past 25 years in a juxtaposition of the photographs.

In 2004, the Cologne music group BAP referred in their song Unger Krahnebäume (High German: Unter Krahnenbäume ) to Chargesheimer's illustrated book about the Kölner Straße of the same name.

The catalog of the Museum Ludwig for the 2007/08 retrospective summed up: “Chargesheimer was a lateral thinker, a lateral thinker, a bohemian in the time of the reconstruction after the war, in which such types were actually not liked. But the friends praised his self-confidence, his moral courage, his irony and his sarcasm when it came to the criticism of post-war society. "

memory

Chargesheimerplatz in Cologne

A scholarship from the City of Cologne in the field of media art has been named after him since 1980 .

On the initiative of the Chargesheimer Society, a small square in Cologne between the cathedral and the old waiting room of Cologne's main train station was named after Chargesheimer in 2006 . A bronze plaque there commemorates the artist.

Retrospectives

  • 2007/2008 at the Museum Ludwig , Cologne - the extensive estate of Chargesheimer located in the museum was shown; in addition, many previously unknown documents and photographs could be found for the exhibition.
  • 2014/2015 Ruhr Museum , Essen, in the Zeche Zollverein - special exhibition of photos from the Ruhrgebiet illustrated book .

literature

Web links

Commons : Chargesheimer  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Death certificate no. 83 from January 11, 1972, registry office Cologne-Altstadt. LAV NRW R civil status register, registry office Cologne-Altstadt, deaths, 1972, vol. 1, accessed on February 19, 2018 .
  2. ^ Quote from a text exhibited at the retrospective at the Museum Ludwig 2007/08
  3. ^ For example, in a film document in the retrospective at Museum Ludwig 2007/08
  4. ↑ a b c d Homepage Museum Ludwig, Cologne, as of January 10, 2008
  5. ↑ ksta.de - Gedenken an Chargesheimer (May 20, 2007) , accessed on January 11, 2015
  6. ↑ Grave of Ann (Redlin) Chargesheimer - Find A Grave.com. Retrieved February 19, 2018 .
  7. ↑ Wolfgang Vollmer / Chargesheimer: Cologne 1970/1995 - photographs by Chargesheimer and Wolfgang Vollmer , JP Bachem Verlag, 1996 ISBN 3-7616-1295-8
  8. ↑ BAP - "Unger Krahnebäume" , 2004, at youtube.com
  9. ↑ 50 ° 56 '32 "  N , 6 ° 57' 34"  E
personal data
SURNAME Chargesheimer
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hargesheimer, Carl-Heinz; Hargesheimer, Karl Heinz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German photographer
DATE OF BIRTH May 19, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH between December 31, 1971 and January 5, 1972
Place of death Cologne