Introduction

Central to the photographic work of Bernhard Prinz is the portrait, often combined with sculptural arrangements. Prinz explores the mass medium of photography through metaphors and allegories, explores the stylistic aspects of photography and uses the medium in a complex game of meanings.

Our reality is not absolute. It is not absolute because we, pragmatists, require workable conditions. The artist, however, retains the desire for absolute Reality, without being able to draw the accurate portrait of reality, which by the way would lead to the absolute, and final, work of art. He must therefore accept that reality is not absolutely representable in a work, or in a medium. He must, generally speaking, sublimate this utopia. His works of art are the actions through which he opposes the ambiguity of existence. It is his passionate resistance. It is partly for this reason that an oeuvre consists of several artworks. This is also why the art of Bernhard Prinz consists of photographs and sculptures and – to a varying degree – of works that express the relationship between the two.

An object, a sculpture is tangible, it can be experienced on the same level as the surrounding reality. A picture, a photograph is legible, visible, and also observable on that same level, and is recognizable as the face of reality. However, these characteristics are unable to transpose the object or image into the realm of reality in which we exist. That things can go utterly wrong with this form of illusionism is clearly evidenced in our contemporary visual culture.

Object and image are comprehensible, but are surely the least comprehensible things as well. They show us their emptiness, they reveal their constructedness with shiny pride; their careful made-ness, their pose, reveals their inadequacy vis-à-vis the omnipotence of living reality. The artwork has become a symbol of the mystery of reality.

Similar to how the image, the model or the depicted object share a common sensuousness, there exists an analogue sensuality between sculpture and photograph. It is precisely this sensuousness that evokes the desire for reality, thereby creating a new idealistic image. The artwork symbolizes the desire of the artist. This thus describes the artistic attitude that informs the unique works of Bernhard Prinz. Individually, they tell us of the particular sensibilities of the artist, of skin, volume and the mass of sculptures, of the finish, shape and solidity of the objects in the pictures. They tell us of chance and construction, past and present, of archetypes and myths, of art and life.

Deweer Gallery presented photographic and sculptural works by Bernhard Prinz in a group show in 1988 and presented a solo show in 1989 (with catalogue). In his one-man show was presented among others Bernhard Prinz’s mentioned contribution to the Documenta 8 exhibition (1987, Kassel, Germany). The most important recent institutional shows of Bernhard Prinz were presented by the Kunsthalle Göppingen and at the Bonner Kunstverein (2000). In 2012 Steidl published Prinz’s extensive retrospective book.

Bernhard Prinz is Professor of artistic photography at the University of Kassel, Germany since 2003.