Dieter Blum⎮Men

The internationally known photo artist Dieter Blum (*1936, lives and works in Düsseldorf) worked for DAIMLER, Porsche, Shell, ABB, Bilfinger, Festo or Jaeger-LeCoultre and photographed for the MARLBORO advertising campaign between 1992 and 2004. His outstanding photographs were found in magazines such as STERN, SPIEGEL, TIME, Vanity Fair, GEO, National Geographic. He dedicated a large part of his work to the topics of music, dance and art. The exhibition MEN shows a common thread in the entire work of Dieter Blum, namely the ambition to shape visually a contemporary image of men. Blum explored this topos in two areas, both challenging for the photographer: dance and cowboy.

Blum defines the archetype of the cowboy as the mental vade mecum for the accelerated individual society, a synthesis of old and new values. His image motifs are full of allusions, references and visions.

The fascination of movement. About the power of speed. In the silence of pausing in the midst of the dynamics. In loneliness. The elegance of sensuality.

Blum's world-famous photographs transformed the myth of freedom into the world of everyday life. Many motifs have become established in the mainstream of collective visual memory. Blum's trademark: the coarse grain and the exaggerated coloration, which gives his works an almost cinematic drama.

Blum depicts possible forms of individual freedom and also finds a new image of men in his photographs of dancers. The dancer Ismael Ivo compares the shoots with Blum against the background of his collaboration with Robert Mapplethorpe: "Blum mastered the time of movement in photography and immortalized the image in a genius capture." Blum's breathtaking images of dancers show male body movements, emotions and the age-old desire being able to fly, excellence, wildness and continuity, defenselessness, sensuality and almost sculptural physicality. The exhibition MEN shows approximately fifteen large-format and now rare photographs, including the last available image titled "Low Clearance".