Manfred Paul (photographer)

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Manfred Paul (born March 29, 1942 in Schraplau near Halle (Saale) ) is a German photographer . He is one of the most important representatives of author photography in the German Democratic Republic .

Life

After graduating from high school in Querfurt in 1960 , Manfred Paul initially worked as a quarry and track construction worker. After completing an apprenticeship as a photo lab technician , he worked as a photo lab technician, stage worker, theater photographer and freelance photographer in Halle (Saale). In 1968 Paul moved to Prenzlauer Berg in East Berlin. He studied camera at the University of Film and Television in Potsdam-Babelsberg and photography at the University of Graphic and Book Art in Leipzig (HGB). Since 1973 he has worked as a photography teacher at various universities in Berlin, Potsdam, Leipzig, Dresden and Munich. In 1973/74 he received teaching assignments at the Film Academy in Potsdam-Babelsberg. In the 1990s he then taught at the art academies in Leipzig and Dresden as well as at the Munich University for Film and Television . From 1995 to 2007 he was professor for photography and audiovisual media at the Berlin University of Applied Sciences for Technology and Economics (FHTW).

Work and reception

" Life is time. I understand reality through fantasy. My pictures keep things from disappearing if I manage to give them a shape. " Manfred Paul

Manfred Paul's photography deals with the existential question of human existence. They are images that become parables in order to understand the passing of all things as a condition of life.

In the 1970s, Manfred Paul dealt with classical dance as an image motif. At this time a series of ballet scenes is created, which gives an insight into the strenuous work of the dancers behind the stage. 1973-1989 created Manfred Paul's Berlin Cityscapes and the Nature Morte cycle. His most important groups of works also include Verena Signs of Life - a series of portraits (since 1971), Berlin NO (1973-1989), Interieurs (since 1983), Boundless Spaces - Pictures of the Demolition of the Berlin Wall (1989/90), artist portraits (1992 / 2002), self-portraits (since 1996), metamorphoses of the sea (2002/2008) and seascapes (2011). These photographic series represent long-term projects that are continuously developed and updated. Up until the 1990s, Paul made numerous photographs of his East Berlin living environment, which are described as portrayals of an attitude towards life before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Later summarized under the title “On the edge of standing time”, the photographs of firewalls, backyards, window views and house facades appeared in a publication of the same name in 2012.

Ulrich Domröse on Paul's cityscapes

“With a certain surprise, the photography scene noticed that there had been a similarly demanding project on wall photography in East Berlin as in West Berlin, where the work of Shinkichi Tajiri, Hans W. Mende, Michael Schmidt, Karl -Ludwig Lange and André Kirchner had been known for a long time. However, the initial conditions are not comparable: In the GDR , there was a strict ban on photography in relation to the “ anti-fascist protective wall ”. Dealing with the wall here was a risky undertaking and the reason that Manfred Paul used metaphorical language. "

While Paul's early works consist exclusively of black and white photographs, in recent years he has increasingly also taken color photographs, for example in the series “Seestücke” (2011).

The art historian Hubertus von Amelunxen on Manfred Paul's photographs

“I had seen for a long time that he is a melancholic and that his pictures carry melancholy, in his black and white pictures of East Berlin, the masonry and courtyards and their human legacies, the still lifes and objets trouvés. The fact that Manfred Paul paints the world with time in such a way as if the water shows the eternally futile search for form, in the encounter with the clear line of the horizon, the miserable uncertainty of this world, is a trait that I do not postddr, yet post-modern, but early post-romantic, and by no means a transfigured picture of the world is meant, but the crystalline clear negation of its negation, because Manfred Paul finds the contact of time and space in the so determined extinction of the world, in the past moments that there may come. "

For Hubertus von Amelunxen , Manfred Paul's pictures correspond to a worldwide level of photography and art.

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions (selection)

  • 2017 Leonhardi Museum , Dresden
  • 2016 Manfred Paul. Work cycles, DKW, Cottbus
  • 2015 En Passant - Photographs by Manfred Paul, Collection Regard, Berlin
  • 2013 Manfred Paul - Berlin Northeast 1972-1990, Collection Regard, Berlin; Manfred Paul “Seestücke” - photography, Galerie Pankow, Berlin
  • 2011 Photography Manfred Paul, Kunstallianz, Berlin
  • 2010 Still life, gallery argus fotokunst, Berlin
  • 2009 Body landscapes, Wiligrad Castle on Lake Schwerin
  • 2007 Eva Tent Gallery, Koblenz
  • 2005 Refugium Gallery, Dresden
  • 2003 Argus fotokunst gallery, Berlin
  • 2001 Schwerin Cathedral
  • 2000 S. Aurich-Rogge Gallery, Dresden / Medingen
  • 1998 Urban paysage, Claude-Nicolas Ledoux Institute, Arc-et-Senans, France
  • 1996 Guardini Foundation, Berlin
  • 1994 Mies van der Rohe House, Berlin; Bodo Niemann Gallery, Berlin
  • 1992 S. Göpfert Gallery, Munich
  • 1990 Galerie Agathe Gaillard, Paris, France; Salle polyvalente, Strasbourg, France
  • 1989 Schwerin art collections
  • 1988 Musée d'Albi
  • 1986 Musée des beaux-arts d'Orleans, France
  • 1985 Cottbus art collections
  • 1982 Gallery of the Photography Association, Bucharest, Romania
  • 1980 LVF Gallery, Vilnius, Lithuania

Group exhibitions (selection)

  • 2016 Nature and Industry, Binome Gallery / Collection Regard, Paris
  • 2016 Documenter l´éphémère (Documents of the Transient), Collection Regard / Goethe-Institut, Paris
  • 2016 Salon Photographique Collection Regard, Fotohaus, Arles
  • 2015 Salon Photographique Collection Regard, Fotohaus, Arles
  • 2014 NRW Forum Düsseldorf: Heimat - Photographs from the DZ BANK art collection
  • 2013 PraguePhoto Festival, Prague, Czech Republic with Photo Edition Berlin
  • 2012 “Closed Society”, Artistic Photography in the GDR 1949-1989, Berlinische Galerie, Berlin
  • 2010 Close to the Body - Nudes / Nudes, Tammen Gallery, Berlin; Photography Today, Art Collections Neubrandenburg
  • 2009 Still Life in Photography and Painting, Galerie Tammen, Berlin; 20 years of German unity, Kunsthalle Schweinfurt
  • 2008 The color black, Wiligrad Castle on Lake Schwerin; (Märkischer) sand, kunst.museum.dieselkraftwerk.cottbus
  • 2007 Un mur, un trou et un visage, Maison d'art B. Anthonioz, Nogent-sur-Marne, France
  • 2005 Polaroid as a gesture, Museum for Photography, Braunschweig; female nudes, gallery argus fotokunst, Berlin; Aletheia, gallery in the city museum, Jena
  • 2004 Utopia and Reality, Forum for Photography, Cologne; 2005: Willy Brandt House, Berlin
  • 1996 Kunsthalle Copenhagen
  • 1992 Le choix de Madeleine "La Declaration", Center regional d'art contemporain Alsace, Altkirch, France
  • 1991 Transitions - Photography in the GDR, Eisenwerk Frauenfeld, Switzerland
  • 1990 Berlin, November 1989, Berlinische Galerie, Berlin
  • 1993 Madras, Bangalore, Hyderabad, India, Eastern European Photography, Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland
  • 1989 Photographers in the GDR, Mexico City, Mexico
  • 1987 New Delhi Cultural Center, India
  • 1986 Cultural Center Buenos Aires, Argentina
  • 1985 Center Culturel Cherbourg, Musée Municipal de Brest, Maison de la Culture André Malraux de Reim, France
  • 1983 Bugünün Avrupa Photography, Dost Sanat Ortami, Ankar, Turkey
  • 1979 Photography in the GDR, city hall Cologne-Gürzenbach
  • 1978 Young East Germans, Camden Arts Center, London; Centro Culturale, Rome, Italy
  • 1976 Salle polyvalente, Saint-Denis, France

Works in collections (selection)

Publications (selection)

Monographs

  • Manfred Paul. Photographs, Cottbus art collections 1985.
  • Manfred Paul. Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Orléans 1986.
  • Manfred Paul. Photographs, Mies van der Rohe House Berlin 1994.
  • Malcolm de Chazal, Manfred Paul: Plastic Senses (Sens-plastique), Aletheia IV, Berlin 1996.
  • Paysage urbanité, Arc-et-Senans / Berlin 2000.
  • The eye gives light to the body, ed. v. Ulrich Kafka, Evangelical Lutheran Cathedral Community Schwerin 2001.
  • Manfred Paul. Photography, ed. v. Art Alliance Berlin, 2011.
  • Berlin North East 1972-1990, On the Edge of Standing Time, ed. v. Edition Braus, 2012.
  • Manfred Paul: Seascapes. ed. v. Gallery Pankow, 2013.
  • Manfred Paul. En Passant 1986-1990, ed. v. Spector Books, 2015.

Book illustrations

  • The English Garden in Wörlitz, Berlin 1987.
  • Quedlinburg: The urban monument and its half-timbered buildings, Berlin 1990.
  • Boundless Spaces, Berlin 1991.
  • Friedrichswerder Church, Berlin 1991.
  • La légèreté de l'être. Steffi Scherzer / Oliver Matz, Berlin 1999

Anthologies

  • Creative Camera: Young East German Photographers, June 1978.
  • Photography in Europe today, Cologne 1982.
  • Michèle and Michel Auer: Encyclopédie internationale des photographes de 1839 à nos jours, Hermance 1985 (French / English).
  • Photographes contemporains en RDA, Paris 1985.
  • The fascination of the face, Cottbus 1988.
  • Berlin, November 1989. 14 photographers from East and West witness the opening of the Wall, Berlin 1990.
  • Un mur pour tous les temps, Strasbourg 1992.
  • Split times. Pictures by East German Photographers 1987-1991, ed. by FC Gundlach, Düsseldorf 1992.
  • Indefinite act bodies. Photographs by Manfred Paul, in: Photonews, September 1993.
  • Life in Prenzlauer Berg. A photo album from Berlin 1949 to 1990, Fürth 1998.
  • Michèle Auer, Jean Streff: Histoires d'Oeufs, Neuchâtel 1999.
  • From myth to fragment. Nude photographs, Cologne 1999.
  • The photographer's lexicon. 1900 to today, Munich 2002.
  • Utopia and reality. East German photography 1956-1989, Bönen 2004.
  • Polaroid as a gesture, Ostfildern-Ruit 2005.
  • Closed society, Bielefeld 2012.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Manfred Paul: Berlin Northeast 1972-1990: On the edge of standing time. Edition Braus, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86228-042-1 . o. S.
  2. ↑ Cat. Exh. Manfred Paul, Seestücke, Galerie Pankow, with a text by Hubertus von Amelunxen, Berlin 2013, oS
  3. ^ Artist talk Manfred Paul and Hubertus von Amelunxen on Collection Regard, accessed on January 26, 2017
  4. ↑ http://www.leonhardi-museum.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3&Itemid=4
personal data
SURNAME Paul, Manfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German photographer
DATE OF BIRTH March 29, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Schraplau near Halle (Saale)