Photography workshop

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The workshop for photography was founded on September 13, 1976 by the Berlin photographer Michael Schmidt at the Volkshochschule in Berlin-Kreuzberg , exactly 10 years later it closed its doors. Within this short period of time, the “workshop” developed into one of the best-known and most influential photography schools in Germany, which was particularly well known and recognized in the United States. After it was closed in 1986, it was more and more forgotten.

founding

Michael Schmidt's aim was to create a place for free artistic photography that was accessible to everyone in addition to the established academic and commercially oriented training facilities for photography. The Volkshochschule Kreuzberg offered the institutional framework to realize this project without any admission requirements. The photographic and artistic training was based on the documentarism widespread in America in the 1970s, which became known as "New Topographics" and later on the "author photography " propagated by Klaus Honnef .

Well-known photographers were invited to the workshop's weekend seminars right from the start. Even the names of the exhibitions that have been organized from the beginning read like a who's who in the history of photography (see also the directory of exhibitions and weekend seminars). In addition to these events, exhibitions for lecturers and students were organized on a regular basis and a number of catalogs were published. After two years of active teaching, Michael Schmidt withdrew from teaching and only took part in workshops and joint exhibition projects, most recently in 1984 on the workshop's exhibition tour in New York, Washington DC and the California Museum of Photography.

Michael Schmidt's workshop

After Michael Schmidt withdrew from active teaching, the former workshop students Ulrich Görlich , Wilmar Koenig and Klaus-Peter Voutta took over the management of the workshop. During this time the exhibition and seminar activities reached their peak. Even famous photographers like Robert Frank , Diane Arbus or Ralph Gibson , who were later only shown exclusively in the largest and most important locations for photography, found their way into the adult education center. With regard to the photographic and artistic orientation, the company remained true to documentarism, but expanded its radius to include subjective perspectives that were close to author photography. As a result, there was a radical break in 1983. The workshop lecturers Thomas Leuner, Hermann Stamm and Gosbert Adler , who took over the management from 1985, as well as some “Schmidt students” such as Friedhelm Denkeler, Ursula Kelm and Dieter Binder turned their backs on the “New Topographics” and turned their attention to subjective topics . With this new orientation, the previous training philosophy of the workshop, which was shaped by Michael Schmidt, gradually dissolved, followed by the search for a contemporary continuation of the content. In addition, there were irreconcilable differences with the new management of the Volkshochschule Kreuzberg, which drastically reduced the previously generously granted funds for exhibitions and workshops and made the work that had previously been so successful impossible. Even the “Association of Friends of the Photography Workshop”, which was founded at the beginning of 1980, could no longer stop the end that was looming. In September 1986 the workshop closed its doors.

The workshop lecturers and students

In addition to Michael Schmidt, Ulrich Görlich, Klaus-Peter Voutta and Wilmar Koenig were the workshop lecturers from the very beginning. They were all "Schmidt students" and initially represented the positions of "New Topographics". In 1979 Thomas Leuner and Bernd Kreutz followed, followed by Hermann Stamm and Gosbert Adler. They all formed the group of permanent workshop lecturers. From 1982 onwards, so-called “special programs” were set up, for example for “women's photography” or the “zone system”; the lecturers here were Ursula Kelm and Peter Fischer-Piel. There were also individual offers from Joachim Schmid (editor of the magazine “Fotokritik”), Gabriele Götz, Manfred Betzel and Elisabeth Neuhold-Much (from 1984). The workshop students who appeared in public include Dieter Binder, Friedhelm Denkeler, Ursula Kelm, Henning Langenheim, Winfried Mateyka, Christa Meyer, Hildegard Ochse , Manfred-Michael Sackmann and Bernd Thyerlei. But the “workshop” had a more significant effect on teaching and training than in the art business. Ulrich Görlich received a professorship at the University of Art and Design in Zurich, Hermann Stamm at the University of Weimar, Gosbert Adler at the University of Fine Arts Braunschweig, Peter Fischer-Piel at various universities in Berlin, most recently at the SRH University of Popular Arts in Berlin.

Influences

After the workshop was closed, all lecturers left the Volkshochschule Kreuzberg in protest. Some of the lecturers switched to the photo gallery in Wedding, which had also been offering a sophisticated seminar program since 1982, but had to contend with permanent financial problems and had to stop its activities in 1989. Other lecturers and students went to the Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst (NGBK) and established the AG Photography there, which thanks to the institutional framework can still offer a very wide range of exhibitions and projects. At the Volkshochschule Kreuzberg, the didactic concept of the workshop for photography was successfully continued by the lecturers of the “special program” Ursula Kelm and Peter Fischer-Piel as well as the former workshop students Sibylle Hoffmann, Thomas Michalak and Oliver Scholten, but the content was considerably expanded and continuously adapted to contemporary trends in photography by the lecturers who will join them later. The number of participants and courses on offer have increased more than fivefold. Today, the "Photo Center of VHS Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg" is one of the largest photo schools in Germany with 1,300 participants annually and almost 100 courses.

Exhibition directory

P = poster, K = catalog

  • 13.09. - 29.10.1976 Stern photo reporter
  • 24.01. - 04.03.1977 Riebesehl, Heinrich (P)
  • 05/10 - 10.06.1977 photographic documents of the 19th and 20th centuries (P)
  • 19.09. - 28.10.1977 George A. Tice (P)
  • October 31 - 02.12.1977 Wilmar Koenig and Jürgen Frisch (P)
  • 23.01. - 25.02.1978 Baltz, Deal, Gohlke, Shore, Toth (P)
  • 02/27 - 14.04.1978 Photographs of the listeners and lecturers: Bachmann, Betzel, Denkeler, Eilmes, Freitag, Frisch, Görlich, Grische, Hempen, Kanzelbach, Kargel, Kleinod, Krause, Lehmann, Matzlows, Pfuhl, Ritter, Rhode, Rust, Schmidt, Voutta, Wüst (P)
  • 04/17 - May 19, 1978 Young French Photographers (K)
  • 18.09. - 20.10.1978 Ulrich Mack (P)
  • 10/30 - 01.12.1978 John R. Gossage - Gardens (P)
  • 01/21 - February 16, 1979 Ulrich Görlich (P)
  • 19.02. - 03/30/1979 Robert Adams (P)
  • 04/23 - 18.05.1979 Photographs of the listeners and lecturers: Denkeler, Bachmann, Kleinod, Lehmann, Dier, Dohrmann, Rhode, Mateyka, Kanzelbach, Leuner, Voutta, Seiler, Eilmes, Betzel, Gerstenkorn, Hempen, Tewes, Engel, Neuhold-Much, Müller, Brumm, Engel, Ritter, Görlich, Koenig, Müller (K)
  • 17.09. - 10/12/1979 Ralph Gibson (P)
  • 11/18 - 14.12.1979 Generative photography: Karl Martin Holzhäuser and Gottfried Jäger (P)
  • 28.01. - 29.02.1980 Michael Schmidt and students: Schmidt, Denkeler, Eilmes, Frisch, Görlich, Koenig, Leuner, Mateyka, Voutta, Wü̈st (P / K)
  • 03.03. - 04/18/1980 Stephen Shore (P)
  • 04/21 - May 16, 1980 Thomas Leuner (K)
  • 04.08. - 13.09.1980 Michael Schmidt and students in the gallery of the German Society for Photography (DGPh) in Cologne (P)
  • 15.09. - 10.10.1980 Lewis Baltz - Park City (P)
  • 11/17 - 12.12.1980 Paul Caponigro (P)
  • 02/23 - 27.03.1981 Uschi Blume (P)
  • 04/27 - May 22, 1981 Diane Arbus (P)
  • 14.09. - 23.10.1981 Larry Clark (P)
  • 11/02 - 04.12.1981 Friedhelm Denkeler (K)
  • January 18 - 02/27/1982 André Gelpke (P)
  • 01.03. - 26.03.1982 Work 81: Binder, Bienert, Denkeler, This, Görlich, Heck, Hempen, Holz, Klaus, Koenig, Kreutz, Kropp, Leuner, Müller, Neuhold-Much, Rust, Sackmann, Schmidt, Schröder, Stutzmann, Voutta (K)
  • 04/26 - May 21, 1982 John R. Gossage (P)
  • 13.09. - 22.10.1982 Robert Cumming (P)
  • 25.10. - 03.12.1982 Gosbert Adler (P)
  • January 17 - 02/18/1983 Larry Fink (P)
  • 02/21 - 03/18/1983 Urs Lüthi (P)
  • April 18 - 13.05.1983 William Eggleston (P)
  • 05.09. - 13.10.1983 Josef Sudek (P)
  • October 24 - 25.11.1983 10 photographers - works 83: Binder, Denkeler, Kelm, Koenig, Langenheim, Leuner, Mayer, Sackmann, Schaefer, Voutta (P / K)
  • 01/30 - 01.03.1984 students at the University of California Los Angeles (P)
  • 19.03. - May 25, 1984 Hermann Stamm (P)
  • 06/23/1984 - 01/05/1985 Photography from Berlin, curated by Lewis Baltz and John Gossage, shown at Castelli Graphics, New York, Jones / Troyer Gallery, Washington DC, California Museum of Photography, University of California (K)
  • 28.09. - 10/26/1984 Allan Sekula (P)
  • 05.11. - November 30, 1984 Heinz Cibulka (P)
  • 25.02. - March 22, 1985 Manfred Willmann (P)
  • 04/22 - May 24th, 1985 Lewis Baltz (P)
  • 23.09. - 26.10.1985 Tillmann and Vollmer collection: masterpieces of photographic art
  • November 1985: GDR photo (opening on November 15 with the pages from the catalog)

Directory of weekend seminars

1977: André Gelpke (October)

1979: Ralph Gibson, Wilhelm Schürmann, Karl Martin Holzhäuser and Gottfried Jäger, Dieter Hacker and Andreas Seltzer

1980: Klaus Honnef, Lewis Baltz, Michael Schmidt, Robert Heineken, André Gelpke

1981: Larry Clark, Joe Deal, Larry Fink

1982: Ute Eskildsen, John R. Gossage, Tod Papageorge, Robert Cumming, Lewis Baltz, André Gelpke

1983: Larry Fink, William Eggleston

1984: Marsha Burns

1985: Robert Frank

1986: Dörte Eißfeldt

literature

  • Ulrich Görlich: The photography workshop at the VHS Kreuzberg. In: Photography. Journal for International Photographic Art, 1977.
  • Hajo Corsten: dealing with experienced reality (for the exhibition “Working '83”), Volksblatt 11/1983.
  • Enno Kaufhold: The workshop for photography. In: Photography has Sunday. NGBK 1991, ISBN 3-926796-21-9 .
  • Enno Kaufhold: Learning the language of the picture. The photography workshop at VHS Kreuzberg: Founded 25 years ago, forgotten today. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. (Berlin edition) of December 4, 2001.
  • Thomas Weski: Intensity and passion. Interview with Christin Müller In: Photo story 137/2015.
  • Peter Fischer-Piel (Hrsg.): Image change - photography after the workshop for photography. zimmerverlagberlin, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-9813982-7-4 .
  • Eds. Florian Ebner, Felix Hoffmann, Inka Schube, Thomas Weski: Workshop for Photography 1976–1986, texts by Florian Ebner, Felix Hoffmann, Inka Schube, Thomas Weski, Ute Eskildsen, Carolin Förster, Christine Frisinghelli, Virginia Heckert, Klaus Honnef & Jörg Ludwig Koenig Books 2016, ISBN 978-3-96098-042-1