Volkmar Jaeger

Volkmar Jaeger (2013)

Volkmar Jaeger (born February 2, 1928 in Leipzig ; † February 9, 2019 there ) was a German photographer who also worked as a graphic artist and author . During infancy, deaf , he engaged also actively promote the culture of the Deaf and the related education listening.

Life

Jaeger came to Leipzig in 1928 as the son of the doctor and co-founder of the Mitteldeutsche Rundfunk AG Dr. Erwin Jaeger and the singer, presenter and humorist Ellen Watteyne to the world. He lost his hearing at the beginning of his second year of life due to meningitis . He studied from 1934 to 1943 at the boarding school of the deaf and dumb institute in Leipzig, then attended the Schustersche Lehranstalt for a year and from 1944 and after the end of World War II from 1946 to 1949 the Nikolaischule in Leipzig. This was followed by a photographer training with Ilse Oemichen in Dresden ; He successfully completed his journeyman examination in 1952 with Franz Fiedler . From 1953 to 1958 Jaeger studied photography at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig and joined the photography group action fotografie in Leipzig in 1956 , which included Roger Rössing , FO Bernstein , Günter Rössler , Wolfgang G. Schröter (1928–2012) and Ursula Arnold belonged. The aim of the group was to “break new ground and give photography in the GDR new impetus”. In doing so, she opposed the GDR leadership's demand for beautiful realism in photography. In an article in the magazine Die Fotografie , Jaeger advocated the unadorned truth in photography: “Even ugly truth is beautiful in the sense of Gorky and Rodin , precisely because it is true. Why should we deny them in photography? […] Why only smooth, happy pictures, when each of us knows that constantly smiling, grinning and laughing faces have never appeared in any country or family. ”After the break with action photography after the first exhibition, Jaeger was there 1957 with his fellow HGB students Rosemarie Eichhorn (* 1935) and Evelyn Richter as well as Arno Fischer and Jürgen Vorberg co-founders of the group , which exhibited in Berlin, Kassel and Poznań , among others . In 1960 Jaeger became a member of the Association of Visual Artists of the GDR .

For Jaeger, who often took photos in the Federal Republic, the construction of the Berlin Wall meant the end of his photographic activity in 1961. A planned further artistic training with Heinz Hajek-Halke in Berlin was no longer possible. He became a commercial artist at DEWAG in Leipzig. He also worked as a photo graphic artist and designed, among other things, book covers for works by Jürgen Lenz ( The Atlantic is not silent , 1961), Herbert Ziergiebel ( Satan called me silent , 1962), Hildegard Maria Rauchfuß ( The green streets , 1963) and Gerhard Diekelmann ( Shadows over the Lake , 1963). As an amateur filmmaker, he also made several films, including Die Parole , which received the title "particularly valuable" at the GDR workers' festival in Jena in 1964. Jaeger worked as a decorator at the post office until 1970 and then became a programmer at VEB Maschinelles Rechnen, before taking early retirement in 1990. Short stories describing his everyday life as a deaf person appeared for the first time in 1987 in the magazine I write and were also printed in various anthologies after 1989.

During the fall of the Berlin Wall , Jaeger became active again as a photographer and in 1989 documented the Monday demonstrations in Leipzig. Jaeger mostly worked in black and white. The central motif of his documentary photos is the person he captured in everyday situations. He also worked with a 35mm camera in order to be able to capture situations authentically.

Jaeger has been involved in the culture of the deaf since the 1950s, so he was already active during his studies for the General German Deaf Association (from 1957 Association of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in the GDR), and founded the Photo and Film Club in Leipzig in 1957 (since 1996 "Deaf Medien Verein Leipzig '1957'") and in 1965 became a member of the Motorsport Club for the Deaf Unit Leipzig , of which he became the managing director. From 1991 to 2010 he was the publisher and editor-in-chief of the magazine Reading Instead of Hearing . For his work as chairman of the Leipzig City Association of the Hearing Impaired, Jaeger received a certificate from Wolfgang Tiefensee in 2001 for volunteer work. He was awarded the Culture Prize of the German Deaf Association (DGB) in 2007 and the DGB's Golden Badge of Honor in 2012.

Jaeger lived and worked in Leipzig. His photographs can be found in the Museum of Fine Arts in Leipzig . In 2013 I see man appeared. I am not listening to a monograph on Jaeger's life and work.

Participation in exhibitions (selection)

• 1956: action fotografie , Messehaus Petershof in Leipzig
• 1957: the group , Salon Paderewskiego, Poznan, Poland
• 1958: the group , art academy in Berlin-Weißensee
• 1959: the group , Lomatsch art gallery in Kassel
• 1988: 3rd International Photo and Film Festival of the Deaf, Primorsko, Bulgaria
• 1996: Close your ears, open your eyes , eat
• 2009: Clin d'œil , International Film and Photo Festival for the Deaf, Reims, France
• 2012/13: annual exhibition in the Justice Center Magdeburg
• 2013: Exhibition at the Deaf Center in Zurich
• 2015 5th Saxon Culture Days of the Deaf, Zwickau (photographs)
• 2015 "Pictorial worlds of Volkmar Jaeger", traveling exhibition, Leipzig and DGS-Treff Düsseldorf (photographs)
• 2015 “PICTURES and WORLDS. East and West. Photographs by Volkmar Jaeger and Walter Vogel ”, exhibition, Gerhart-Hauptmann-Haus Foundation, Düsseldorf (photographs)

Awards (selection)

• 1955: 3rd prize in the international photo competition within the framework of the Festival of Youth and Students in Warsaw
• 1963: 1st prize for the photo The deaf apprentice and the master listening , International Festival of the Deaf in Stockholm
• 2007: Culture Prize of the German Deaf Association (DGB)
• 2011: Leipzig Art Prize Goldene Krone in the field of photography
• 2012: Golden badge of honor from the DGB

literature

• Alexander Atanassow (Ed.): Volkmar Jaeger - I see people. I don't hear him. KunstBlatt, Dresden 2013, ISBN 978-3-938706-44-2 .
• Alexander Atanassow (Ed.): Volkmar Jaeger - My Moving Life KunstBlatt, Dresden 2018, ISBN 978-3-9815797-8-9 .

Web links

• Official homepage of Volkmar Jaeger

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Rosemarie Fret : Interview with Volkmar Jaeger. In: Alexander Atanassow (Ed.): Volkmar Jaeger - I see the people. I don't hear him. KunstBlatt, Dresden 2013, p. 10.
2. ^ ^{A b} Rosemarie Fret: Interview with Volkmar Jaeger. In: Alexander Atanassow (Ed.): Volkmar Jaeger - I see the people. I don't hear him . KunstBlatt, Dresden 2013, p. 13.
3. ^ ^{A b} Jeannette Stoschek: Volkmar Jaeger - A life with the camera . In: Alexander Atanassow (Ed.): Volkmar Jaeger - I see the people. I don't hear him. KunstBlatt, Dresden 2013, p. 7.
4. ↑ Volkmar Jaeger: I am looking for people . In: Die Fotografie , No. 11, 1956, pp. 306–307.
5. ↑ Susanne Knorr (ed.): The other Leipzig school: Photography in the GDR . Kerber, Bielefeld 2010, p. 31.
6. ^ ^{A b c} Jeannette Stoschek: Volkmar Jaeger - A life with the camera . In: Alexander Atanassow (Ed.): Volkmar Jaeger - I see the people. I don't hear him. KunstBlatt, Dresden 2013, p. 9.
7. ↑ See mini biography ( memento of the original from March 23, 2013 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. (PDF; 31 kB) on Volkmar Jaeger on taubenschlag.de 
8. ↑ Exhibitions / Awards (selection) . In: Alexander Atanassow (Ed.): Volkmar Jaeger - I see the people. I don't hear him. KunstBlatt, Dresden 2013, p. 199.
9. ↑ "... he is deaf and therefore speaks differently". Introduced: Volkmar Jaeger . In: I write , No. 3, 1987, pp. 75-81.
10. ↑ Rosemarie Fret: Interview with Volkmar Jaeger. In: Alexander Atanassow (Ed.): Volkmar Jaeger - I see the people. I don't hear him. KunstBlatt, Dresden 2013, p. 22; u. a. in Tales of Strong Animal , 2011; Thoughts on Paper , 2012.
11. ↑ See DEAF chronicle at dmv-leipzig.jimdo.com
12. ^ Mathias Orbeck: Awarded by the OBM. Honorary certificates for eight volunteers . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung , May 22, 2001, p. 13.
13. ↑ Rosemarie Fret: Interview with Volkmar Jaeger. In: Alexander Atanassow (Ed.): Volkmar Jaeger - I see the people. I don't hear him. KunstBlatt, Dresden 2013, p. 15.
14. ↑ Awarded the golden crown . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung , December 7, 2011, p. 31.