Concrete photography

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As Concrete Photography (as opposed to the term Abstract photography ) in the modern and contemporary art , a photograph referred to in the photographic process and the photograph as an object occur even in the foreground. The depiction of objects or people, as is essential in documentary or staged photography , is of secondary importance here. The Concrete Photography is now a branch of concrete art and occurs in addition to other of its branches as Concrete painting, Concrete Music or Concrete Poetry . Photographs saved asSpecific photography has been known since the beginning of the 20th century - but the term itself was first used in 1967 and established as a designation for an independent art genre.

Concrete photographs are "pure" photographs. They thematize and realize "themselves" and find their objects exclusively in their own, inner-picture regularities. You don't want to “make visible”, just “be visible”. Its characteristic is self-referentiality. In doing so, they fall back on the very own means of photography: light, their special light-sensitive materials, their generative processes, the apparatus. Independent, non-representational photographs of their own kind, objects of themselves, photographs of photography are created.

Theory and history

Under the spell of English vorticism , the photographer Alwin Langdon Coburn, born in Boston in 1882, created a series of photo compositions in London in 1917 , which he called "vortographs". They show geometric light-dark formations as they arise solely through reflection and refraction of light by prisms and mirrors. A year earlier, Coburn had circumscribed his aesthetic “program” by proposing an exhibition “in which interest in the subject of the picture exceeds the feeling for extraordinary aspects. Above all, a feeling for form and structure is important ... “Both can be considered the basis for the theory and practice of Concrete Photography - although this expression did not exist at the time. It only emerged later, after corresponding works and terms for painting, for example by Kandinsky (1910), van Doesburg (1930) and the Swiss concrete painters, had prevailed in the years that followed.

Further stations of concrete photography are the “Schadographien” by Christian Schad , which were created in 1918 under the influence of the Dada movement in Zurich, the “Rayographs” by Man Ray as surrealist echoes of “automatic writing” and above all those at the Bauhaus under constructive sign incurred photograms , luminograms and photomontages of the 1920s of László Moholy-Nagy . A “concrete” Czech photo scene from the interwar period with Jaroslav Rössler , František Drtikol and others , based purely on photo material, completes the picture.

After the Second World War, the development with the group “ fotoform ” (Cologne 1950), the “ Experimental Photography ” by Heinz Hajek-Halke (1955), and the exhibition “Non-objective photography” (Basel 1960) continued - until the term “ Concrete Photography ”appeared as the first manifestation of this art form with an exhibition title for the work of four Swiss avant-garde photographers (Bern 1967). A year later, a similar exhibition entitled “Generative Photography” (Bielefeld 1968) with specific photographic works on generative aesthetics ( Max Bense ) was shown. After further stops, the exhibition “Abstract Photography” (Bielefeld 2000) offered a broader overview of the topic, including concrete trends from its beginnings up to then.

A reassessment of concrete photography took place under art historical aspects with its inclusion in the collection "Peter C. Ruppert: Concrete Art in Europe after 1945", which has been on view since 2002 as a permanent exhibition in the museum in the Kulturspeicher Würzburg . The first book with the title "Concrete Photography / Konkrete Fotografie" was published in 2005. The first international artistic-scientific conference took place in 2006 in Gmunden , Upper Austria.

List of Concrete Photography Photographers

source

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Alvin Langdon Coburn: The future of pictorial photography. In: Wolfgang Kemp : Theory of Photography II, 1912–1945. Munich, 1979, pp. 55-58 (57). First published: London, 1916.
  2. ^ Exhibition fotoform, photokina, Cologne, 1950. Works by Peter Keetman, Siegfried Lauterwasser, Wolfgang Reisewitz (directors), Toni Schneider, Otto Steinert, Ludwig Windstosser.
  3. ^ Heinz Hajek-Halke: Experimental photography. Light graphics. Düsseldorf / Vienna, 1955.
  4. ^ Antonio Hernandez (curator): Non-representational photography. Basel Commercial Museum, 1960.
  5. ↑ "Concrete Photography / Photography concrète". Works by Roger Humbert, René Mächler, Jean-Frédérick Schnyder, Rolf Schroeter. Galerie actuell, Bern, 1967.
  6. ^ "Generative Photography", Städt. Bielefeld Art House. Works by Kilian Breier, Pierre Cordier, Hein Gravenhorst, Gottfried Jäger (lead).
  7. ↑ Max Bense: Generative Aesthetics. In: Aesthetica. Introduction to the new aesthetic. Baden-Baden, 1965, p. 333ff.
  8. ↑ Thomas Kellein , Angela Lampe (ed.): Abstract photography. Kunsthalle Bielefeld / Ostfildern-Ruit, 2000.
  9. ^ Marlene Lauter (ed.): Concrete Art in Europe after 1945. The Peter C. Ruppert Collection. Museum im Kulturspeicher Würzburg, catalog, 2002.
  10. ^ Gottfried Jäger, Rolf H. Krauss, Beate Reese: Concrete Photography / Konkrete Fotografie. Bielefeld, 2005.
  11. ^ Josef Linschinger: Photography concrete / Photography Concrete. 16th Gmundner Symposium for Current Art 2006. Vienna / Klagenfurt, 2007.
  12. ^ Gottfried Jäger, Rolf H. Krauss, Beate Reese: Concrete Photography / Konkrete Fotografie. Kerber Verlag, Bielefeld 2005, ISBN 3-936646-74-0 (English)