Gerhard Vormwald

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Underwater self-portrait, 2001

Gerhard Vormwald (born March 6, 1948 in Heidelberg ; † March 9, 2016 in Paris ) was a German photographer .

life and work

After an apprenticeship as an offset printer , Gerhard Vormwald studied painting and sculpture as well as commercial graphics from 1966 to 1971 in Mannheim at the free art school / technical college.

While working as a stage photographer at the Nationaltheater Mannheim from 1969, he took over the studio from Hans Nagel at Mannheimer Tullastraße 14 in 1971. There he produced numerous covers for the magazines stern , the German Playboy , the satirical magazine Pardon , the Zeit Magazin , the now discontinued Rogners Magazin and others.

His trademark during this time was surreal photography - real photos for which gravity did not seem to apply: people flying, bathtubs with water and bathing mermaids leaning against the wall of the room; a cyclist whose bike flies a hand's breadth above the ground; a living room with an attractive giantess in her closet-sized red boots; a girl in a white dress who floats like an angel through an open window into a room. At a time when Photoshop did not yet exist. The secret of the implementation were elaborate buildings, such as inverted rooms (ceiling below, floor above), dollhouses or oversized pieces of furniture, artfully welded metal frames, and that in connection with photo-technical applications such as multiple exposures or long exposures with stroboscopic flashes.

The flying black man, Paris 1983

In 1983 he opened a photo studio in Paris, where he also lived. In France he worked as a photographer for advertising campaigns, illustrated magazines and continued working on photo productions. From 1984 he also dealt with painting again. In 1988 Vormwald opened the country studio Le Couèche near Paris and in 1990 gave up his activities as an advertising photographer. Since 1992 he has included digital image media in his work. In addition to his photographic work, he is still regularly active in drawing and painting. Works are also created in the object sector. In 1999 he became a professor of photography at the Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences . In 2011 he was appointed to the German Photographic Academy .

Bottles and glasses, 1995

Gerhard Vormwald's early black and white photographs are characterized by their wit and an ironic perspective.

Uschi and Ballone, 1975

From around 1975 he mainly worked on photo productions. The pictures appear surreal through a sophisticated staging.

One Cubic Meter Potatos, One Cubic Meter Barbie, 1993

As a criticism of consumer fetishism, Vormwald arranged elaborate stagings of food and luxury goods into subtle still lifes from 1995 onwards.

On the night of March 9, 2016, Vormwald died in his Paris studio of unknown causes.

Group and solo exhibitions from 1990 (selection)

  • 1990 German Photography House of the Painter, Moscow. (G.)
  • Retrospective Nikon Gallery, Zurich.
  • 1991 De la Reclame à la Publicité Center Georges Pompidou, Paris. (G. cat.)
  • The Bildermacher Kunstverein Karlsruhe, Museum f. Book art, Leipzig. (G cat.)
  • 1992 2nd International Photo Triennial Esslingen. (Cat.)
  • Pictures of people and the staging of objects Ursula Blickle Foundation , Kraichtal (Kat)
  • 1993 Pixel (scanner photos), Museum for Art and Industry, Hamburg. (G. cat.)
  • Gerhard Vormwald Pinacoteca do Estado Sao Paulo
  • 1994 New work with Photography Kunstverein Speyer.
  • Photofiction Galerie Ivonamor Palix, Paris.
  • 1995 Autonomy of Things Gallery In Focus, Cologne.
  • 1996 New work with the photography gallery in Körnerpark, Berlin.
  • 1997 Fotopapier is patient at the Museum for Art and Industry, Hamburg.
  • The portrait in the 20th century Raab-Galerie, Berlin. (G.)
  • Photo work on wine from the series Food and Beverage Monuments. Fellbach City Gallery, Fellbach
  • 1998 Gerhard Vormwald, In vehement forward thrust, working with Photography Fotografie-Forum International, Frankfurt.
  • 1999 Oeuvres photographiques 1994-98 Le Credac, Ivry s.Seine, Paris. (Cat.)
  • Video Virtuale-Photo Fictionale Museum Ludwig, Cologne. (G.)
  • Table Manners Kunsthalle Bremen. (G.)
  • 2000 Lachen Gallery at Chamissoplatz, Berlin. (G.)
  • 2001 working with photography at the Kunsthalle Mannheim. (Cat.)
  • The Mannheim picture gallery Falzone, Mannheim.
  • 2002 Blind Date Essentials and other pairs of images PPS-Galerie, Hamburg
  • Blind Date Essentials and other image pairs Galerie In Focus, Cologne
  • 2004 Unveiled-Exposed Nudes in 20th Century Photo Art, Städtische Museen Heilbronn. (G.Kat.)
  • In parallel 1 -objets, designs, installations galerie d'art contemporain, hôtel de ville Besançon
  • 2005 En parallèle 2 -photographies école de beaux-arts, Besançon.
  • The medium is a medium is a medium, installation, photography, painting, drawing Städtische Galerie Erlangen.
  • Vormwald-Small Retrospective International Photo Days Mannheim in the Faktorhaus Ludwigshafen. (Cat.) *
  • 2006 SZeitensprünge working with photography, Heidelberg City Library.
  • The Speyer installation works without photography, Künstlerbund Speyer.
  • Art in the felt factory Speyer.
  • 2007 HymArt drawings, Rathausgalerie Hirschberg.
  • 2008 The Autonomy of Things Forum for Photography, Cologne. (Cat.)
  • TRANS – photographic insights into the ongoing attempts to create a picture of the world and myself. Galerie Zephyr, Mannheim.
  • 2009 Nude Visions 150 years of body images in photography.
  • Munich City Museum Collection Photography. (G Kat)
  • Homage to Irving Penn Galerie Hiltawsky, Berlin. (G Kat)
  • WEB-WERKE Atelierhaus Panzerhalle, Silvia-Klara Breitwieser, Potsdam. (G)
  • 2010 Nude Visions 150 Years of Body Images in Photography, Museum for Art and Commerce, Hamburg.
  • Die Nacht Tufa Culture & Communication Center, Trier.
  • Nude Visions 150 Years of Body Images in Photography, Von der Heydt Museum Wuppertal.
  • Lust and desire Kunsthalle Villa Kobe, Halle. (G)
  • A light hand in the game New drawings, object installations, Kunstverein Langenfeld
  • 2011 With a light hand at the game forum for art and architecture, food, works on paper. Joint exhibition with photography students from the Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences, Vormwald class.
  • Fashion pictures, 50 years of fashion photography in Germany Galeria Torreão Nascente da Cordoaria Nacional, Lisbon, in collaboration with the * Goethe-Institut Lisbon (G)
  • 2012 Deltabeben Kunsthalle Mannheim exhibition participation.
  • The Polaroid Collection NRW-Forum Düsseldorf.
  • T RANS 2 Städtische Galerie Wittlich, Georg Meistermann Museum, photographs from recent years.

Photos by Gerhard Vormwald are in the collections of the Museum Ludwig , Cologne, the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn , the Center Pompidou in Paris , the Polaroid Collection in Lausanne , the Polaroid Collection in Amsterdam and the Kodak Eastman House in Rochester .

Web links

Commons : Gerhard Vormwald  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Short biography of Gerhard Vormwald at art market
  2. ↑ biography
  3. ↑ Essay, traced
  4. ↑ Photography of the 20th Century, Museum Mudwig, Taschen Verlag 1996
  5. ↑ Short biography FH düsseldorf ( Memento of the original from October 1, 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.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / design.fh-duesseldorf.de
  6. ↑ Mannheim. Gerhard Vormwald dead In: morgenweb.de. March 10, 2016, accessed March 10, 2016.
  7. ↑ catalog
personal data
SURNAME Vormwald, Gerhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German photographer
DATE OF BIRTH March 6, 1948
PLACE OF BIRTH Heidelberg
DATE OF DEATH March 9, 2016
Place of death Paris