Klaus Ender

Klaus Ender (born April 2, 1939 in Berlin ) is a German photographer and book author.

biography

Ender lived with his mother in Landsberg / Warthe until 1945 . In 1945 the family was expelled and settled in the east of post-war Germany . For political reasons, Ender left the GDR for the west in 1957. After several positions, he completed his apprenticeship as a baker in Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance . He bought a camera with his first journeyman's salary. In 1958 he returned to the GDR and in 1960 joined the Kulturbund Photography Section. From 1962 he worked as a seasonal baker on the island of Rügen . In 1963 he took his first nudes there and founded the Sassnitz photo club . The popular GDR magazine Das Magazin published three of his nudes as early as 1965 . On May 10, 1966 he received his license as a photo reporter and then worked as a freelancer for around 50 GDR publishers. In 1971 his first book "Mein Modell" was published by the Fotokino & Fachbuchverlag Leipzig, which was sold 95,000 times in 5 editions.

Persecuted by political agitation and reprisals, Ender moved to Potsdam in 1972 , where he made his breakthrough as a nude and landscape photographer. In 1975 he initiated the first nude exhibition of the GDR, which he realized with the Cottbus photographer Gerd Rattei . Akt & Landschaft was a traveling exhibition in 1975 and was visited by well over 100,000 visitors between Dresden and Rostock. Because of this success, the exhibition was put out to the public every three years to compare the performance of the GDR photographers. Throughout his career, Ender received 60 awards, including in 1979 by the World Federation of Art Photography FIAP the house. Honorific ARTISTE FIAP (AFIAP).

In 1981 Ender moved - again for political reasons - to Austria , where he was recognized as a visual artist of photography by the Ministry for Education and Art in Vienna in 1982. In 1989 he made his international breakthrough with several books, calendars and as the author of many magazines. His book "Filtertechnik-Filterkunst" became the standard work of filter photography and was also published in Spanish.

For 15 years Ender worked as an IM for the State Security of the GDR:

"Yes, I was peed on, yes, I saw my mother raped twice, yes, I was kicked into the dirt of the Oder by masses of refugees, yes, my fiancée took her own life, yes, I really wanted to- Become a photographer, yes, I had sex with a lot of girls, yes, I gave nudity a natural glow in the GDR, and yes, I was also an IM. "

- Klaus Ender : Spiegel Online (2004)

In 1996 Ender returned to the island of Rügen and now lives in Bergen on Rügen . From more than 600 pages of Stasi files and research by a British scientist, he learned that he had been declared a “persona non grata” in his absence. All of his publications in the State Archives and the Brandenburg State Archives were deleted, and the Potsdam District Commission was made the founder of Akt & Landschaft . In addition, the 2nd “Nude & Landscape” in 1979 was declared the first exhibition of its kind.

In 2003, Ender was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease ; in 2017, the 14th year of his illness, Ender said in an interview that his career was nearing its end.

Ender has also been writing poems and aphorisms since 2002. In April 2016, his archive comprised 999,000 slides and, at the beginning of 2017, 2,000 poems and aphorisms. He illustrated over 120 gift poetry books for many publishers.

Publications (selection)

• Act with rhythm. With verses by Hans-Georg Stengel . Resch, Meiningen 1997, ISBN 3-9805942-0-3
• The bare facts of Klaus Ender. A life between east and west. Autobiography. Wevos, Forchheim 2004, ISBN 3-937547-03-7 .
• Poetry of an Island , ISBN 978-3-00-013805-8 .
• A Seed of Confidence , ISBN 3-00-013593-6 .
• Palpitations , ISBN 978-3-00-017140-6 .
• Letting Go , ISBN 978-3-00-017141-3 .
• Beyond Haste , ISBN 978-3-00-023513-9 .
• With all senses , ISBN 978-3-00-023512-2 .
• Das kleine Glück , ISBN 978-3-00-025983-8 .
• From time to time , ISBN 978-3-00-025960-9 .
• Against the Current , ISBN 978-3-00-036712-0 .
• Merciless , ISBN 978-3-00-036711-3 .
• My Most Beautiful Revelations , ISBN 978-3-00-036710-6 .
• Rügen - flair of an island , ISBN 978-3-00-041047-5 .
• Free Body Columns Part 1 , ISBN 978-3-00-044668-9 .
• Free Body Columns Part 2 , ISBN 978-3-00-048617-3 .
• Free Body Columns Part 3 , ISBN 978-3-00-051738-9 .
• Naked between thorns , ISBN 978-3-00-062161-1 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Klaus Ender in the catalog of the German National Library
• klaus-ender.de
• Klaus Ender: Nude photographer in the GDR , one day , October 27, 2008
• Vita, works and awards - www.artfan.de/ender-klaus.html
• Biographical interview, Jan. 2017 - www.lebenskuenstler.co/klaus-ender-kunst-und-veraenderung/ , viewed December 1, 2017

Individual evidence

1. ^ Annette Langer : Nude photographer Klaus Ender. 'The woman and her delicious triangle'. In: Spiegel Online. December 3, 2004, accessed April 17, 2019 .