Dörte Eißfeldt

Dörte Eißfeldt (* 1950 in Hamburg ) is a German artist specializing in photography , video and film .

Life

From 1970 to 1976, Eißfeldt studied art education, fine art and visual communication at the University of Fine Arts HFBK Hamburg and completed her studies with Gerd Roscher with a video work on paragraph 218 . She completed a legal clerkship and between 1978 and 1981 taught as an art teacher at a high school in Hamburg. After that she left the school service to concentrate on her artistic work. At the same time she was teaching at the HFBK Hamburg, the FHG Pforzheim and the Salzburg College. From 1990 to 1991 she was Professor of Photography at the University of Mainz, and in 1991 she was appointed Professor of Fine Art with a focus on photography at the HBK Braunschweig , which she held until 2016. In addition to her teaching, Eißfeldt pursued her own, predominantly photographic work, which she anchored between the poles of film and painting. Dörte Eißfeldt is married to the filmmaker and musician Theo Janßen. Their son, Jan Philipp Eißfeldt , was born in 1976. Dörte Eißfeldt lives in Neuenkirchen (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania) and Hamburg .

Teaching

With the professorship of Dörte Eißfeldt in 1991 a class for photography was firmly established at the HBK Braunschweig in the field of free art, which should enable continuous work in this field within the free art. Eißfeldt's teaching pursued the examination of the photographic, based on theoretical discourses on photography, such as those represented by the post-structuralist approaches by Roland Barthes and Rosalind Krauss , among others . In addition to media-specific aspects, Eißfeldt's teaching dealt with the basics of photographic matter, light, layers and chemistry. In addition, she promoted the interdisciplinary work of her students between the media and branches. In the context of the HBK Braunschweig she initiated collaborations, exhibitions and publications, also together with her class, such as the lecture series “Accesses to a Surface” (1993), the exhibition “Foreign Places” in the Museum of Photography Braunschweig (2006) and “Cairo . Open City ”(2012), in collaboration with the curator Florian Ebner . When she left the university in 2014, she published the publication “Klasse.Buch” with 64 positions for the Eißfeldt class. Graduates in her class include Florian Wüst, Andrea Geyer , Christine Biehler , Matthias Langer, Sascha Weidner , Nadine Decker, Birte Henning, Ingo Mittelstaedt, Samuel Henne, Lisa Domin, Alexandra Heide, Johanna Daab, Jan Paul Evers, Susann Dietrich and Christian Retschlag.

plant

In the mid-1970s, Dörte Eißfeldt turned increasingly to photography, starting with painting and film. For her, this unites the temporality of the image processes of film and video with the permanently fixed image of painting. The artist herself describes her photography as “an art of three chambers and three bodies”. In doing so, she refers to the process of photographic image creation, which she always practices in several stages, which combines sensual, technical and aesthetic aspects of reception. Eißfeldt's works deal with the different forms of sequence and montage, which she realizes in the darkroom with various exposure and development processes. Motifs from her everyday life and her immediate surroundings mostly form the starting material for her first groups of works, such as for Große Liebe (1980), Kleine Schwenks (1983), Essen und Trinken (1984–1986) and Perfect Worlds (1987).

Between 1981 and 1985, three experimental 16 mm short films were made alongside the photographic work. Since the mid-1980s, she has worked almost exclusively in the medium of photography, using all the analogue instruments of the medium to make complex photographic processes vivid: the photographically generated image should always 'portray' itself through its motif. With this approach, she was one of the few German artists in the 1980s who addressed a discourse about the photographic medium in the work itself.

First solo exhibitions, including in the photo gallery of the Museum Folkwang Essen (1982), in the PPS gallery FC Gundlach Hamburg (1986) and in the Badischer Kunstverein Karlsruhe (1987) first made the artist's work known to a national audience. She received growing international attention with the first prize for “Young European Photographers” from Deutsche Leasing AG (1985) as well as with her participation in important themed exhibitions such as “Remains of the Authentic”, curated by Ute Eskildsen , in the Museum Folkwang Essen and the ICP New York (1988) and the “Fotovision” in the Sprengel Museum Hanover (1988) with subsequent stations in Vienna and Zurich. Her early series include Generator (1987/1988) and Schneeball (1988), both of which were shown for the first time in 1988 at the Kunstverein Hamburg under the direction of its director Egon Vester.

While Dörte Eißfeldt is continuously developing her work, mainly in the field of analog black and white photography, she also worked repeatedly on color series over longer periods of time, such as "Eißherbst" (1998 to 2009). For this series of around 200 images, she used natural motifs to achieve painterly artificial image results with superimposed film material, manipulative interventions in the recording process and the automated development processes of discount laboratories. Eißfeldt also used unorthodox development processes in her own darkroom, experimented with photo glass and other specific image carriers, so that her works, even though they are created in series, are predominantly unique works. The technological and paradigm shift in digital photography from the mid-1990s also took place in Dörte Eißfeldt's work, and in addition to purely digital series, hybrid image creations were created that result from the combination of analog and digital work processes. With digital video technology, visual investigations were also created on the threshold between still and moving images, including the videos Wellengang (2001) and Sunset Suite (2003).

Exhibitions (selection)

Solo exhibitions

• 2016: HotLittleMama , Thebais exhibition room, Cologne
• 2015: Wildniß , Alfred Erhardt Foundation, Berlin
• 2008: Cumulus , Palais for Contemporary Art, Kunstverein Glückstadt
• 2006 : dog.god , Marstall Ahrensburg, Stormarn
• 2004: Tumbler beetle , Wolfenbüttel Art Association
• 1996: Touch 3 , St. Petri, Lübeck
• 1994: Siegfried , Museum for Arts and Crafts , Hamburg
• 1992: Surface , Les Ateliers Nadar, Marseille
• Dörte Eißfeldt , Fleetinsel photo room, Elke Dröscher Gallery, Hamburg
• 1990: The painting and triptych altarpiece, St. Peter Art Station, Cologne
• 1989: Attempt to exhibit an animal , Galerie Fotohof Salzburg
• 1988: Force field explorations in the vicinity , Kunstverein Hamburg
• Perfect Worlds , Goethe-Institut, traveling exhibition
• 1987: Light montages and work processes , Kunstverein Karlsruhe
• 1986: Transitorium , PPS Galerie FC Gundlach, Hamburg
• 1985: Photographs montages , Galerie zum Hof, Kunstverein Pforzheim
• 1982: Workbooks on the go , Folkwang Museum Photo Gallery, Essen

Group exhibitions

• 2015: Big autumn exhibition , Kunstverein Hannover
• 2012: Cairo. Open City , Museum for Photography Braunschweig
• Places, Places, Endroits ... When artists take photos , Municipal Gallery Kubus and Gallery of Chance and Luck, Hanover
• 2009: Veto - Contemporary Positions in German Photography , House of Photography, Deichtorhallen Hamburg
• Show - an audio tour through Berlin by Karin Sander , Temporäre Kunsthalle, Berlin
• A loose contingent of the world , class Eißfeldt in dialogue with the Photographic Collection, Museum of Photography, Braunschweig
• 2006: The love of light. Photography in the 20th and 21st centuries , Kunstmuseum Celle, Städtische Galerie Delmenhorst, Museum Bochum
• 2003: Contemporary German Photography , Alfried Krupp von Bohlen and Halbach Foundation scholarship holders, Museum Folkwang, Essen
• Of bodies and other things. German Photography in the 20th Century , City Gallery Prague, German Historical Museum, Berlin, Moscow House of Photography, Museum Bochum
• 1999: Tomorrow forever , Kunsthalle Krems and Museum Küppersmühle, Duisburg
• 1997: Coming of Age , White Columns, New York
• Allemagne, Années 80 , Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris
• 1996: So it was - a territory in mourning , Recontres de la Photographie, Arles
• 1994: German art with photography - the 90s , Kunstverein Wolfsburg
• 1993: Art photography of the 90s , Frankfurt Photo Days, Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn
• 1992: Barkenhoff scholarship holders , Barkenhoff Foundation Worpswede, Kunsthalle Bremen, Städtische Galerie Kubus Hannover, Stadtmuseum Halle
• Women behind the Camera , Goethe-Institut, London, Cambridge, Manchester, Glasgow
• Beyond the Portrait , Derby Photofestival
• Minimal Relics , Zoological Museum Amsterdam, Natural History Museum Rotterdam
• 1991: 10 years of the German Art Fund , Kunstverein Bonn
• 1990: Herzsprung , Haus am Waldsee, Berlin, Kunstverein Wilhelmshaven, Instituto Allemand and Circulo Bellas Artes, Madrid
• 1989: L'invention d'un art , Center Pompidou, Paris
• Herbstsalon , DuMont Kunsthalle, Cologne
• Focus '89 , Museum for Art and Cultural History, Dortmund
• 1988: Staging , Stara Galeria ZPAF, Warsaw, Galeria Foto-Medium-Art, Wroclaw, Museum Archeologiczne, Gdansk, Galeria ZPAF, Krakow, Galeria Arsenal, Posen
• Photo vision , Sprengel Museum, Hanover, art space in the Messepalast, Vienna, Museum of Design, Zurich
• Materia Prima , FRAC, Marseille
• 1987: Can pictures think? , Lingen Art Association
• 10 German photographers , Goethe Institute, worldwide
• 1986: Remnants of the authentic - photo images from the 80s , Museum Folkwang, Essen, International Center for Photography, New York
• 1984: Photography, video and installation - From the emptiness of space , Ratherstraße 25, Düsseldorf
• 1982: Le portrait comme paysage , Rencontres Internationales, Arles
• Pictures in the test field , test field, Hamburg
• 1981: Stadt & Land , Glasherz Photo Gallery, Cologne and Gummersbach

Scholarships and awards (selection)

• 1999: Project grant for publication Montage , Deutscher Kunstfonds, Bonn
• 1992: Lower Saxony artist grant
• 1990: Working grant from the German Art Fund, Bonn
• 1989: Scholarship from the Bleckede Castle Artists' Center
• 1988: Scholarship from the Barkenhoff Foundation, Worpswede
• 1985: 1st prize for “Young European Photographers”, Deutsche Leasing AG, Frankfurt / Main.
• 1985: "Contemporary Photography" grant from the Krupp Foundation, Museum Folkwang, Essen
• 1981: Scholarship from the Franco-German Youth Office, Arles and Bonn

Artist books and monographs (selection)

• Wildniß , exhibition brochure with “Journal Thoreau” and a text by Christiane Stahl, ed. by Alfred Erhardt Foundation, Berlin 2015.
• Fog Drip, Grizzly, Redwood , picture essay from three series, artist book 2015.
• Loose contingent of the world. Class Eißfeldt in dialogue with the historical collection , cat. Booklet (Bulletin special issue Nov. 2009) with texts by Dörte Eißfeldt, Hubertus von Amelunxen and Florian Ebner, ed. from Museum for Photography, Braunschweig 2009.
• dirty ice. review 2003–2006 , exhibition catalog with a text by Hubertus von Amelunxen, ed. Marstall Ahrensburg, Stormarn 2006.
• Seascapes, edition photography, material 156, material Verlag, Hamburg 2003.
• Montage , artist book with a text by Stephan Berg. Dölling and Galitz Verlag, Hamburg / Munich 2000.
• Touch. Dörte Eißfeldt , exhibition catalog with a text by Thomas Baltrock, ed. from St. Petri zu Lübeck and Kunstverein Lüneburg 1995.
• Class Eißfeldt , exhibition catalog with texts by Dörte Eißfeldt and Michael Schwarz, ed. from HBK Braunschweig 1993.
• Pol, artist book, Nazraeli Press, Munich 1992.
• Snowball, artist book with texts by Monique David-Menard and Johan van der Keuken. European Photography Verlag, Göttingen 1990.
• Perfect Worlds , exhibition catalog Goethe-Institut worldwide 1987–1991, with a text by Ute Eskildsen, ed. von Goethe-Institut, Munich 1987–1991.
• Light montages and work processes 1981–1986 , exhibition catalog with a text by Manfred Schmalriede, ed. from Badischer Kunstverein Karlsruhe, 1987.

Catalogs and literature (selection)

• Belinda Grace Gardner: Silent Wildness , in: Photonews No. 11, 2015.
• Carolin Förster: Remains of the Authentic , in: Photo History No. 137, 2015.
• Class. Book. 1991-2014 , ed. from HBK Braunschweig, Dörte Eißfeldt. Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg / Berlin 2014
• VETO - Contemporary Positions in German Photography , exhibition catalog with an interview by Ingo Taubhorn, ed. by Ingo Taubhorn for the House of Photography, Deichtorhallen Hamburg. Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg / Berlin 2011
• Klaus Honnef, Gabriele Honnef-Harling: Of bodies and other things. German photography in the 20th century. Edition Braus, Heidelberg 2003.
• Tomorrow forever , exhibition catalog with texts by Carl Aigner, Hubertus von Amelunxen, Walter Smerling, ed. from Museum Küppersmühle, Duisburg. DuMont Verlag, Cologne 2000
• Lars Henrik Gass: Floating Metaphors. Photographs by Dörte Eißfeldt , in: New Fine Art. Journal of Art and Criticism, No. 4, Berlin 1996.
• Friedhelm Mennekes: Dörte Eißfeldt, Untitled, 1991 , in: Triptychon. Modern altarpieces. Insel Verlag, Frankfurt / Leipzig, 1995
• SURGENCE. La création photographique contemporaine en Allemagne , exhibition catalog Comédie de Reims, Musée Sainte-Croix, Poitiers, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes, Musée d'Évreux with a text by Christian Bouqueret, ed. by Éditions Musée de la Ville de Poitiers. Aubin Imprimeur, Ligugé / Poitiers 1991.
• 10 years of the Deutscher Kunstfonds , exhibition catalog Kunstverein Bonn with texts by Friedemann Malsch, Annelie Pohlen, Gerhard Pfennig and Andreas Vohwinckel. 1991-
• Wilfried Wiegand: The Metaphysics of Dionysos , in: Aperture No. 123, 1989-
• L'Invention d'un Art , exhibition catalog with texts by Alain Sayag, Jean Claude Lemagny, Peter Galassi, among others published by Editions du Center Georges Pompidou, Paris 1989.
• Fotovision , exhibition catalog Sprengel Museum Hannover with texts by Bernd Busch, Udo Liebelt, Werner Oeder, ed. von Sprengel Museum, Hanover 1988.
• Remains of the authentic - photo images from the 80s , exhibition catalog Museum Folkwang Essen and International Center for Photography, New York, with a text by Ute Eskildsen ed. by Ute Eskildsen, Museum Folkwang, Essen 1986
• Dörte Eißfeldt: Silent Photography? School project: exploration in the city , in: Wolfgang von Kunde, Lienhard Wawrzyn: engaging photography. History, theory, projects. Verlag Ästhetik und Kommunikation, Berlin 1979

Web links

• Dörte Eißfeldt's website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ cf. At Wieden, Claudia: 50 years HBK Braunschweig. History of an art college and its predecessor institutions. Braunschweig 2013.
2. ↑ Cf. Melanie Rick: Manifold Uniqueness. In: Klasse.Buch. Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg / Berlin, 2014.
3. ↑ See Dörte Eißfeldt: The body of photography. Text in the artist book POL. Nazraeli Press, Munich 1992.
4. ↑ See Dörte Eißfeldt, quoted in: Wildniß. Exhibition brochure ed. from the Alfred Erhardt Foundation, Berlin 2015.