photo form

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fotoform was an avant-garde group of photographers founded in 1949 by six young (West) German photographers. Founding members were Siegfried Lauterwasser , Peter Keetman , Wolfgang Reisewitz , Toni Schneiders , Otto Steinert and Ludwig Windstosser .

Their separation from conventional post-war photography in West Germany was an attempt to catch up with the photographic tendencies of the 1920s and early 1930s, etc. a. to find the new objectivity and the new way of seeing , and drew attention to the creative possibilities of photography, which had been displaced by the National Socialist cultural policy . In 1953, Heinz Hajek-Halke and Christer Christian (the pseudonym of the Swedish photographer Christer Strömholm ) joined the group. The photographers of the fotoform group aimed their work on the formed individual image . Art emerged here in discourse: photographs were sent by post and commented on the reverse. Only photos that were accepted by the majority of members in such criticism rounds were considered to be fotoform photography. Through photographic experiments, through selection of sections, through sharp contrasts and through the choice of extreme perspectives, the fotoform photographers concentrated on the graphic properties of black and white photography and sometimes created almost abstract images. Her artistic strategies included photomontage , photogram , solarization , negative printing and luminogram , among others .

In 1950 the Fotoformgruppe had its first spectacular appearance at the Photokina (then called the Photo-Kino exhibition). As early as 1951, fotoform member Otto Steinert included works by all fotoform photographers in his exhibition Subjective Photography in Saarbrücken. Under this title, German avant-garde photography of the 1950s was able to reconnect with international trends in contemporary photography.

Exhibitions (selection)

  • fotoform , Photo-Kino exhibition, Cologne 1950
  • fotoform , Circolo fotografico Milanese, Milan 1950
  • 10th Internationale tentonstelling van fotokunst , Focus Salon, Amsterdam 1950
  • III. International art photo exhibition , Austrian Association of Photographers, Salzburg 1950
  • fotoform , Amerikahaus, Darmstadt 1950
  • fotoform , Werkkunstschule, Wuppertal 1950
  • fotoform , Photokina, Cologne 1951
  • subjective photography , State School for Arts and Crafts, Saarbrücken 1951 uaO
  • Segunda Exposicao mundial de arte fotografica , Rio de Janeiro 1951
  • Unione Fotografico. Mostra della Fotografia Europea , palazzo di Brera, Milan 1951
  • World Exhibition of Photography , Lucerne Art Museum, Lucerne 1952
  • subjective photography 2 , Photokina, Cologne 1953 uaO
  • subjective photography 3 , Photokina, Cologne 1958 uaO

Individual evidence

  • Ute Eskildsen (Ed.): Subjective Photography - Images of the 1950s , Folkwang Verlag, Essen 1984
  • FC Gundlach (ed.): Fotoform / Peter Keetman , Nishen, Berlin 1988
  • Institute for Foreign Relations (Ed.): Subjective photography. The German contribution 1948--1963 , Stuttgart 1989
  • Rainer K. Wick (Ed.): The New Seeing. From photography at the Bauhaus to subjective photography , Munich 1991
  • Ulrich Domröse (Ed.): Positions of Artistic Photography in Germany since 1945 , Cologne 1997
  • Karl Steinorth: How did the fotoform group come about? , in: PhotoPresse No. 24 1999
  • Gottfried Jäger: The Art of Abstract Photography , Stuttgart 2002
  • Karl Steinorth: The pioneers of fotoform , in: Photoresearcher No. 7 2004