Gerd Danigel

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Gerd Danigel (self-portrait, 1982)
In the photo lab (1982)
Gerd Danigel (self-portrait, 1977)

Gerd Danigel (* 1959 in Berlin ) is a German photographer.

Life

Gerd Danigel was born in East Berlin in 1959 as the son of a painter and a cleaner. During his school days he found an insatiable passion for painting and drawing. His goal was not the abstract , but the exact representation of what was seen. When he was around 14, he borrowed a Penti 2 half-frame camera from his sister and learned the basic techniques of negative and positive processing . After some time, more and more practical experience arose in various photo communities. Due to inadequate grades, training as a graphic artist in the former GDR failed . So he learned the profession of gas fitter. With the first apprenticeship money he bought a Russian ZENIT-B with the Industar 3,5 / 50 and a 6 × 6 folding camera WELTAX . After a few years of work as a gas fitter, he made his way into photography technology and found a job as a photo laboratory technician and repro photographer. From 1985 to 1990 he worked as a photographer at the State Institute for Cultural Buildings . There he was able to obtain his qualification as a skilled worker as a photographer. In the summer of 1990 the institute for cultural buildings was closed. Since 2004 he has also been using the possibilities of digital photography.

Danigel lives as a freelance photographer in Berlin-Pankow .

plant

The Gerd Danigel holdings in the Deutsche Fotothek department of the Saxon State Library - Dresden State and University Library ( SLUB ) include around 2,000 small and medium format negatives that were made between 1985 and 1990 and document the cultural buildings of the GDR. The SLUB also has around 1,000 data records on recordings made between 1977 and 2002, mainly in Berlin and the surrounding area. Around 140 of these photos were taken by Lehmstedt Verlag for the illustrated book Beautiful Our Palaces! selected. They invite you to discover a photographer who, since the late seventies, has been creating pictures almost in secret that need not fear comparison with the well-known representatives of East German photorealism . In the streets and squares, in pubs and shops, at train stations and in front of factories, Danigel observed the people of his hometown Berlin and the sinking GDR. His pictures are deeply affectionate and humorous, but after 1989 they also show traces of resignation. The photographer Bernd Heyden , whose work ended just at the time when Gerd Danigel began to take pictures due to his early death, has found a worthy successor in him.

Publications

  • 2011: Our palaces are more beautiful! Berlin photographs 1978-1998, edited by Mathias Bertram, Lehmstedt Verlag, Leipzig
  • 2009: Photo catalog of the exhibition Nuova Berlino: tracce di memorie urbane Trento, Italy
  • 2009: Book Breve storia letteraria della DDR by Matteo Galli, Libri Scheiwiller Verlag
  • 2009: Book pleasure in the GDR edited by Ulrike Häußer and Marcus Merkel, Panama Verlag, ISBN 978-3-938714-04-1
  • 2008: Book No Future Was Yesterday , team of authors, Jugendkulturen Verlag
  • 2007: Advertising catalog for the company Gartenbaubetrieb GbR Kaliebe & Mensch
  • 2006: TUSH monthly , January 2006 edition
  • 1999: Leaflet for the exhibition Culture in the old gasworks
  • 1998: Book Leben in Prenzlauer Berg , Städtebilder Verlag
  • 1998: Junge Welt from January 29, 1998
  • 1998: Winner of the photo competition Berliner Gören , Berliner Zeitung
  • 1997: Winner of the photo competition Blende `97 , newspaper Junge Welt
  • 1996: Winner of the Typisch Berlin photo competition , Berliner Zeitung
  • 1996: Photo catalog 100 photos from 1996
  • 1992: Book we were the people by Dirk Philipsen, ISBN 978-0-8223-1294-9
  • 1989: Book SCHAU INS LAND by Roger Melis, Aufbau Verlag
  • 1985 to 1990: constant publications in the magazine KULTURBAUTEN , published by the Institute for Cultural Buildings of the GDR.

Web links

Commons : Gerd Danigel  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Danigel, Gerd
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German photographer
DATE OF BIRTH 1959
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin