Matthias Leupold

Matthias Leupold (born 1959 in Berlin) is a German photographer and professor who lives and works in Berlin. His father Harry Leupold was set designer at the D.E.F.A. studio for feature films in Potsdam-Babelsberg.

Life and work

Matthias Leupold completed his photographic education at the D.E.F.A. studio for feature films in Potsdam-Babelsberg. in the early eighties, he started staging photographs in order to express his interest in both photography and film. At first small exhibitions in East Berlin were tolerated by the GDR government. More extensive exhibitions for example at Bauhaus in Dessau and University of Fine Arts in Dresden were forbidden. In 1986, threats of arrest and condemnation influenced his decision to move from East Berlin to West Berlin. He started studying Visual Communications in 1987 at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK), completing his degree as a master student. He has traveled to many places, including America and Asia, in order to exhibit his work and to photograph in very diverse places.

In his series of works, Leupold explores manifestations of picture groups and their social references. In 1988/89, he initiated the Flag Raising Ceremony – Staged Photographs of The Third German Art Exhibition in Dresden 1953, to analyze the year 1953 artistically. Thereby, the pictures of this strict beginning of the formalism debate are taken up and restaged photographically. In 1994, Leupold succeeded to exhibit his visual criticism in the Military Historical Museum in Dresden, where he first began his career. His work hung in the same house in which this far-reaching demonstration of power took place in 1953. Another black and white picture series is inspired by the ideological content of the German magazine Die Gartenlaube (Editor: Ernst Keil) and restaged with effortful characteristics, backgrounds and current clothes.[1]

Aside from his series, Leupold photographs numerous frames. Actors, models and laymen made chances for his camera productions. Personal and socially relevant topics like solitude, homecoming, protection, neediness, abundance and waste, as well as current events are reflected.

Some of his photographs make specific content references to a novel by Robert Musil Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (The Man without Qualities).[2]

Matthias Leupold stayed in the German Academy, Villa Massimo in Rome, from 1997-1998. The mostly color photographs, which were taken there, are characterized by observations of southern light on chapels, sculptures and Madonna Portraits.

Most recently, he strayed from his staged photography roots, and roamed into the realm of documentary, creating a full-length film about Vietnamese veterans and their families in the aftermath of Agent Orange usage in the Vietnam war. (2012/13)

Matthias Leupold represents a unique figure in the artistic landscape. This is expressed in his contributions to the exhibitions: Art in the GDR, Berlin National Gallery 2003 and Berlin-Moscow/Moscow-Berlin 2004, in Moscow 2004. When it comes to defining Leupold's work and elaborations, one summarizes in three polar tensions: between statics and dynamics, between contemplation and narration, between comic and symbol. In the pictures, these dimensions and categories do not fall apart but merge partly or completely together.

Works (Selection)

Filmography

Publications (Selection)

Individual exhibitions

Group exhibitions (Selection)

Collections (Selection)

Awards

German Academy Villa Massimo, Rome, Italy (residency 1997)

Bronze Award Best Photographer of the Year, Lianzhou Photo Festival, China 2008

References

  1. ↑ Review Die Gartenlaube
  2. ↑ Skidmore, James, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften June 2008, The Literary Encyclopedia

External links

Article in German

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