Heinrich Heidersberger

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.

Solo Exhibitions

2017	Das zweite Auge - Rollei und die Braunschweiger Fotoindustrie, Städtisches Museum Braunschweig, Germany Heinrich Heidersberger - Face to the World, Toyohashi City Museum of Art & History, Toyohashi, Japan Ägyptische Komödie, Marionettentheater by Harro Siegel
2016	MS Atlantic, auf einem Kreuzfahrtschiff der MS Europa 2
2015	PиTMOгPAMи, Museum für Wisschenschaft und Technik, Belgrad, Serbia Ritmogrami, Technisches Museum Zagreb, Kroatien
2014	Heidersberger. Rhythmogramme - das gestimmte Bild, Petra Rietz Salon Galerie, Berlin, Germany
2012	ARRIVARE/ Wolfsburg - Bilder einer jungen Stadt, St. Johannes-Evangelist-Kirche, Berlin, Germany MS Atlantic, Petra Rietz Salon Galerie, Berlin, Germany
2011	MS Atlantic, Galerie Kunstgut Hamburg, Germany
2008	Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany Heidersberger: Rückkehr zum Aufbruch. Fotografien 1949 bis 1973, Volkswagenwerk Wolfsburg, Germany
2007	Ästhetik der Moderne. Photographien von Heinrich Heidersberger, Museum für Konkrete Kunst, Ingolstadt, Germany Altana Galerie, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany
2006	Heidersberger Einhundert, Städtische Galerie Wolfsburg, Germany Kunstverein Wolfsburg, Germany Museum für Photographie, Braunschweig, Germany Vertretung des Landes Niedersachsen beim Bund in Berlin, Germany Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz, Austria InFocus Galerie, Cologne, Germany Autostadt, Wolfsburg, Germany
2002	Kultur unterm Schirm, Kirchentellinsfurt, Germany
2001	Architektenkammer Niedersachsen, Hannover, Germany Galerie InFocus, Cologne, Germany Medienwerkstatt des Caspar-David-Friedrich-Instituts der Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität Greifswald, Germany
2000	Heinrich Heidersberger Architekturphotographie 1952-72, Stadtmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany
1999	Galerie für Fotografie - Georg Eichinger, Berlin, Germany
1997	Die Rhythmogramme, Kunstverein Gifhorn, Germany Die Rhythmogramme, Museum für Konkrete Kunst, Ingolstadt, Germany
1996	Deutsch-Dänische Gesellschaft, Bad Harzburg, Germany Städtische Galerie Wolfsburg, Germany Fotozentrum Zimmermann, Hannover, Germany
1995	Galerie Wendelin Niedlich, Stuttgart, Germany
1992	Museum für Photographie, Braunschweig, Germany
1990	Stadt- und Lichtbildgalerie, Ingolstadt, Germany
1989	Center for Creative Photography, Tucson University, Arizona, United States
1987	Danmarks Fotomuseum, Herning, Denmark Neue Galerie der Stadt Linz, Austria
1986	Kunstverein Wolfsburg, Germany
1982	Stadt- und Lichtbildgalerie Ingolstadt, Germany
1972	Olympisches Dorf Munich, Haus Wolfsburg, Germany
1971	Städtische Galerie Wolfsburg, Germany
1967	Galerie Clarissa, Hannover, Germany
1966	Tonbildschau für Jenaer Glas in Frankfurt, Germany Heidersberger fotografier, Museet for Fotografi, Viborg, Denmark
1962	Städtische Galerie Wolfsburg, Germany Neue Galerie der Stadt Linz, Austria
1956	Die Neue Sammlung, Munich, Germany
1946	Kunstverein Braunschweig, Germany

Group Exhibitions

2017	Städtisches Museum Braunschweig
2016	Thinking about Algorithms, Galarie Scheublein + Bak, Zurich, Switzerland Heidersberger & Heidersberger, Culture Matters Galarie, Hannover, Germany Sommersalon 2016, Holthoff Mokross Galerie, Hamburg, Germany Wolfsburg Unlimited - Eine Stadt als Wetllabor, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany
2015	Lichtbild und Datenbild - Spuren Konkreter Fotografie, Museum Kunstspeicher, Würzburg, Germany Augen auf! - 100 Jahre Leica Fotografie, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Berlin, Wien und Munich, Germany ParisPhoto, Galerie Scheublein & Bak, Zurich, Switzerland Hans Arp. Der Nabel der Avantgarde, Georg Kolbe Museum Berlin, Germany Inszenierung des Fortschritts, Vintage Computing Festival, Berlin, Germany Konkrete Kunst, Kunstverein Bad Nauheim
2014	Media Scape Biennale, Rijeka, Kroatien
2013	CONCRETE - Fotografie und Architektur, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland
2010	Mirkrofografie - Schönheit jenseits des Sichtbaren, Museum für Fotografie, Fotografie der Kunstbibliothek
2009	Wolfsburg Research, Emirates Fine Art Society, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
2006	ArchiSculpture, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany
2005	Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe, Germany Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, Stuttgart, Germany Zwei deutsche Architekturen, several cities, Germany
2001	Abstrakte Fotografie, Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Germany
1998	The Museum of Modern Art, New York City, United States
1997	Wolfsburg und Eisenhüttenstadt, Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin, Germany
1996	Goethe-Institut Paris, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie, Paris, France
1989	Das Foto als autonomes Bild, Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Germany Das Foto als autonomes Bild, Bayerische Akademie der Künste, Munich, Germany
1984	Image et Imaginaires d´Architecture, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France The Photographers Gallery, London, United Kingdom