Deutsch
English
"This series of still-life photographs by Manfred PAUL was produced while the GDR still existed.
As photographs, they go beyond the general symbols of still life; they are time doubly frozen: just as fish, leaves, and branches become frozen at the bottom of a lake, petrified in clear ice before the first snowfall, so the still life — a life without time — remains suspended, for as long as the picture’s materiality can withstand the ravages of time.
Things are abandoned, with apparent carelessness — a bunch of tulips in a glass vase wilts in infinite beauty, their black-and-white sharpness emitting an almost painful appeal against the transience and replaceability of the blooms. In their irredeemable alienation they inevitably become a devotional mental image of human existence." (publisher's note, © Spector Books, 2016)
About the photographer, Manfred PAUL (b. 1942, Schraplau):
Manfred PAUL has lived in Berlin since 1968.
He lectured on photography at the Fachschule für Werbung und Gestaltung in Berlin from 1974 to 1994 and was Professor of Photography and Audiovisual Media at the FHTW Berlin from 1995 to 2007.
From 1983 to 1985 he made his first works using an 18 × 24 cm plate camera as a result of which the 'Nature morte' series was produced.
As photographs, they go beyond the general symbols of still life; they are time doubly frozen: just as fish, leaves, and branches become frozen at the bottom of a lake, petrified in clear ice before the first snowfall, so the still life — a life without time — remains suspended, for as long as the picture’s materiality can withstand the ravages of time.
Things are abandoned, with apparent carelessness — a bunch of tulips in a glass vase wilts in infinite beauty, their black-and-white sharpness emitting an almost painful appeal against the transience and replaceability of the blooms. In their irredeemable alienation they inevitably become a devotional mental image of human existence." (publisher's note, © Spector Books, 2016)
About the photographer, Manfred PAUL (b. 1942, Schraplau):
Manfred PAUL has lived in Berlin since 1968.
He lectured on photography at the Fachschule für Werbung und Gestaltung in Berlin from 1974 to 1994 and was Professor of Photography and Audiovisual Media at the FHTW Berlin from 1995 to 2007.
From 1983 to 1985 he made his first works using an 18 × 24 cm plate camera as a result of which the 'Nature morte' series was produced.
- Ed(s)/Author(s)
- Eugen Blume
- Format
- Thread-sewn HC with silk, laminated & embossed with dust jacket, 24,5 x 31,5 cm., 72 pp., 32 triplex b/w ills., bilingual texts: English / German