Fernsehturm Hannover

Introduction

DRESS OF LIGHT

In the late 1940s, Heinrich Heidersberger shot his iconic nude series Kleid aus Licht (German for “Dress of Light”) for the magazine Stern, which Henri Nannen had recently founded. This series – which caused outrage in prim post-war Germany – is now viewed as one of the classics of photographic art.

The idea was as simple as it was spectacular: Using a projector he fashioned out of a cooking pot, he covered naked bodies with spots and stripes of light. In doing so, he combined nude photography and experimental photography in ways never seen before. Heidersberger’s “dresses” of light reveal, above all, the photographer’s passion for the phenomenon of light, a theme he explores further in his later work, Rhythmographien (“Rhythmographies”). Heidersberger came to photography by chance. In 1928 he moved to Paris to study painting with Fernand Léger. Walking through a flea market, he stumbled across an old wooden camera. It was, as he says, “a sign from fate”.

Marc Peschke

Heinrich Heidersberger , who died in 2006 at the age of 100, has his place among the most important German photographers of the second half of the 20th century. Seminal images in the fields of architecture and advertising mark his complex life’s work, and his name as an artist is of great repute as well. An exceptional photographer of the modernist aesthetic, Heinrich Heidersberger knew exactly how to combine the documentary approach of photography with modernist ideas. In his photographs he combines function and visual aesthetics, incorporating economic, technical, and social aspects into his perfectly balanced pictures. The aesthetic ideas of modernism were influenced by the notion of structure. Heidersberger’s photographs open our understanding of these structural laws in a surprising and creative way. In his photographs of post-war architecture of the fifties Heidersberger revealed the aesthetics of modernism, thus presenting them as an interplay of structure and form. Heidersberger’s images have retained their importance in photography, in spite of all of the visual styles and trends that have developed over the last decades.

Bio

1906	Born in Ingolstadt, Germany
1928-1931	Attended Fernand Léger’s art school while in Paris, began working in photography, met Piet Mondrian and Yves Tanguy
1946	Began working as a photojournalist, advertising and architectural photographer in Berlin
1957	Opened a studio in Brunswick, Germany, started working as a photojournalist for Stern
1961	Moved to Wolfsburg, founded the artist’s group “Schloßstraße 8”
2006	Passed away in Wolfsburg, Germany

Awards

1957	Silver Medal, 11th Triennale di Milano, Milan, Italy
1981	Lower Saxony Order of Merit
1986	City of Wolfsburg Silver Plaque
2003	Honorary Citizenship in the City of Wolfsburg

Collections

	Museum für Photographie, Braunschweig, Germany
	National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada
	Museum für Konkrete Kunst, Ingolstadt, Germany

Exhibitions

2005	Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM), Karlsruhe
	Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (ifa), Stuttgart: „Zwei deutsche Architekturen“, Wanderausstellung
2002	Kultur unterm Schirm, Kirchentellinsfurt
2001	Architektenkammer Niedersachsen, Hannover
	Galerie InFocus, Köln
	Kunsthalle Bielefeld: Abstrakte Fotografie
	Medienwerkstatt des Caspar-David-Friedrich-Instituts der Ernst-Moritz-Arndt Universität Greifswald
2000	Stadtmuseum Wolfsburg: Heinrich Heidersberger Architekturphotographie 1952-72
1999	Galerie für Fotografie - Georg Eichinger, Berlin
1998	The Museum of Modern Art, New York (USA)
1997	Kunstverein Gifhorn: Die Rhythmogramme
	Museum für Konkrete Kunst, Ingolstadt: Die Rhythmogramme
	Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin: Wolfsburg und Eisenhüttenstadt
1996	Deutsch-Dänische Gesellschaft, Bad Harzburg
	Städtische Galerie Wolfsburg
	Fotozentrum Zimmermann, Hannover
	Goethe-Institut Paris, DGPh (F)
1995	Galerie Wendelin Niedlich, Stuttgart
1992	Museum für Photographie, Braunschweig
1990	Stadt- und Lichtbildgalerie, Ingolstadt
1989	Center for Creative Photography (CCP) der Universität Tucson/Arizona (USA)
	Kunsthalle Bielefeld: Das Foto als autonomes Bild
	Bayerische Akademie der Künste, München: Das Foto als autonomes Bild
1987	Danmarks Fotomuseum, Herning (DK)
	Neue Galerie der Stadt Linz (A)
1986	Kunstverein Wolfsburg
1984	Image et Imaginaires d´Architecture, Centre Pompidou, Paris (F)
	The Photographers Gallery, London (UK)
1982	Stadt- und Lichtbildgalerie Ingolstadt
1972	Olympisches Dorf München: „Haus Wolfsburg“
1971	Städtische Galerie Wolfsburg
1967	Galerie Clarissa, Hannover
1966	Tonbildschau für Jenaer Glas in Frankfurt
	Museet for Fotografi, Viborg (DK): Heidersberger fotografier
1962	Städtische Galerie Wolfsburg
	Neue Galerie der Stadt Linz (A)
1956	Die Neue Sammlung, München
1946	Kunstverein Braunschweig

Solo Exhibitions

2013	Kleid aus Licht, Petra Rietz Salon, Berlin, Germany
2008	Heinrich Heidersberger: Rückkehr zum Aufbruch, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany
2006	100 Jahre Heinrich Heidersberger – Ansichten und Strukturen, Städtische Galerie Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany
	Heinrich Heidersberger – Werk im Fokus, Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz, Austria
2001	Heinrich Heidersberger – Architektur und Rhythmogramme, in focus Galerie, Cologne, Germany
1997	Heinrich Heidersberger: Rhythmogramme, Museum für Konkrete Kunst, Ingolstadt, Germany
1984	Heinrich Heidersberger, Photographers Gallery, London, UK

Group Exhibitions

2015	Augen auf! 100 Jahre Leica Fotografie, C/O Berlin, Berlin, Germany
2014	Augen auf! 100 Jahre Leica Fotografie, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
2009	Kreuzungspunkte Linz. Junge Kunst und Meisterwerke, Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz, Austria
2005	Zwei deutsche Architekturen, Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, Stuttgart, Germany
2004	Algorithmische Revolution. Zur Geschichte der interaktiven Kunst, ZKM Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany
2000	Zeitgenössische Positionen zur Architekturphotographie, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
1998	Alvare Aalto – Between Humanism and Materialism, MoMA, New York City, USA
1984	Image et Imaginaires d´Architecture, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France