Michael Wolf (photographer)
Encyclopedia
Michael Wolf is a German
artist and photographer who lives and works in Hong Kong
and Paris
.
and the University of California, Berkeley
. In 1976 he obtained a degree in visual communication at the University of Essen
, Germany, where he studied with Otto Steinert
.
Wolf began his career as a photojournalist
, spending eight years working in Hong Kong
for the German magazine Stern
. He won a first prize in Contemporary Issues in the 2004 World Press Photo
competition for his photographs for an article in Stern entitled China: Factory of the World. The photographs depicted workers in several types of factories.
Wolf states that a decline in the magazine industry led to photojournalism assignments becoming "stupid and boring." In 2003 he decided to work only on fine-art photography projects.
entitled The Real Toy Story. It consisted of 20,000 toys made in China and purchased in California that Wolf attached with magnets to the walls of the gallery, along with photographs of workers making the toys.
and Candida Höfer
.
The first book containing images from the series, Hong Kong: Front Door/ Back Door, was published in 2005. One review noted the book's "representation of an overpopulated city emptied of its human presence" and praised "the visual intelligence of Wolf's photographs." The Outside volume of Wolf's two-volume 2009 book Hong Kong Inside Outside contained a more extensive selection of photographs from this series.
, that was going to be demolished. He used a wide-angle lens
to show as much of the interiors of the rooms as possible. Each room was approximately 100 square feet (9.3 m²) in size, and he displayed photographs of 100 rooms, leading to the name "100x100." In an interview, Wolf likened the series to a scientific project, "an investigation into the use of limited space." The Inside volume of Wolf's two-volume book Hong Kong Inside Outside of 2009 contained the complete photographs from this series.
, China, who reproduced famous works of art such as Sunflowers
by Vincent van Gogh
. Each portrait consisted of a "copy artist" along with an example of a copied work. The settings were described as "dirty alleyways and street corners." One reviewer wrote that the pictures "document intimate cultural and economic facets of globalization even as they record and complicate critical dilemmas about authenticity and the non-economic values of art." The series was collected in his book Real Fake Art published in 2011.
lens. As in the Architecture of Density series, the exterior photographs excluded the horizon and the sky, leaving the windows of the buildings as the main subjects. In one interview, Wolf said that he came upon the idea of showing close-ups of people in the windows after he noticed that a man giving him the finger
in a photograph. In another interview, Wolf cited the artistic work of Edward Hopper
as an inspiration for the series because of its voyeuristic
nature and its inclusion of architectural details.
Articles about the book connected the photographs to the film Rear Window
by Alfred Hitchcock
. One reviewer described the book as "frightening," causing a feeling of "remoteness." The series was controversial because some people felt that the cropped and enlarged photographs of people in the buildings constituted an invasion of privacy. In 2010, the series was shortlisted
for the Prix Pictet
.
trains who had been pressed against a window. The commuters' expressions were characterized in one review as "traumatised" and "woeful." Wolf stated that some people closed their eyes or hid their faces with their hands upon realizing that they were being photographed.
One reviewer concluded that Wolf's Architecture of Density, Transparent City, and Tokyo Compression series represented a progression from long shot to close-up. Wolf won a first prize in Daily Life in the 2009 World Press Photo competition for his Tokyo Compression work. Martin Parr
selected the 2010 book as one of the 30 most influential photobooks published between 2001 and 2010.
scenes on his computer screen. Wolf compared his method of finding interesting scenes online to those of a street photographer
walking around in a city. He has called his Street View series "a statement about art."
The Street View photographs were characterized by pixelation
and image noise
which were compared with techniques used by Roy Lichtenstein
and Andy Warhol
in their art. The work led to discussion of how the automatically-taken Google Street View images affected the "decisive moment" concept of Henri Cartier-Bresson
; nevertheless, the photographs were said to contain "some mystery" in that they were "hard to interpret." Some of Wolf's photographs resemble recognized classics of photography such as Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville (The Kiss) by Robert Doisneau
.
Wolf won an honorable mention in Daily Life in the 2011 World Press Photo competition for his A Series of Unfortunate Events work. The award was controversial because some people were of the opinion that the appropriation
of Google Street View screens did not constitute photojournalism.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
artist and photographer who lives and works in Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
and Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
.
Biography
Wolf was born in Germany and was raised in the United States, Europe, and Canada. He attended the North Toronto Collegiate InstituteNorth Toronto Collegiate Institute
North Toronto Collegiate Institute is a non-semestered public high school of over 1,000 students located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is part of the Toronto District School Board....
and the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
. In 1976 he obtained a degree in visual communication at the University of Essen
University of Duisburg-Essen
The University Duisburg-Essen is a public university in Duisburg and Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany and a member of the new founded University Alliance Metropolis Ruhr....
, Germany, where he studied with Otto Steinert
Otto Steinert
Otto Steinert was an important German photographer.Born in Saarbrücken, Germany, Steinert was a medical doctor by profession and was an autodidact in photography. After World War II, he initially worked for the State School for Art and Craft in Saarbrücken...
.
Wolf began his career as a photojournalist
Photojournalism
Photojournalism is a particular form of journalism that creates images in order to tell a news story. It is now usually understood to refer only to still images, but in some cases the term also refers to video used in broadcast journalism...
, spending eight years working in Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
for the German magazine Stern
Stern (magazine)
Stern is a weekly news magazine published in Germany. It was founded in 1948 by Henri Nannen, and is currently published by Gruner + Jahr, a subsidiary of Bertelsmann. In the first quarter of 2006, its print run was 1.019 million copies and it reached 7.84 million readers according to...
. He won a first prize in Contemporary Issues in the 2004 World Press Photo
World Press Photo
World Press Photo is an independent, non-profit organization based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Founded in 1955 the organization is known for holding the world's largest and most prestigious annual press photography contest....
competition for his photographs for an article in Stern entitled China: Factory of the World. The photographs depicted workers in several types of factories.
Wolf states that a decline in the magazine industry led to photojournalism assignments becoming "stupid and boring." In 2003 he decided to work only on fine-art photography projects.
Bastard Chairs / Sitting in China
He began non-editorial photography with a series entitled Bastard Chairs, small chairs that Chinese people would repair repeatedly using whatever materials were available. Wolf reports that the police detained him twice during the photographing of the series for "doing something which was harmful to the Chinese state." Photographs from the series were published a 2002 book entitled Sitting in China. Although Wolf called the bastard chairs a "great symbol of the Chinese people's thriftiness and resourcefulness," and the book received positive reviews in the West, some Chinese people felt that the photographs made China appear "backward."The Real Toy Story
In follow-up to the China: Factory of the World series, Wolf created an installationInstallation art
Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
entitled The Real Toy Story. It consisted of 20,000 toys made in China and purchased in California that Wolf attached with magnets to the walls of the gallery, along with photographs of workers making the toys.
Architecture of Density
In this series, Wolf photographed of Hong Kong's tall buildings in a way that depicted them as "abstractions, never-ending repetitions of architectural patterns." The photographs excluded the sky and the ground, thereby emphasizing the vertical lines of the buildings. The images have been compared with those of Andreas GurskyAndreas Gursky
Andreas Gursky is a German visual artist known for his enormous architecture and landscape color photographs, often employing a high point of view...
and Candida Höfer
Candida Höfer
Candida Höfer is a Cologne, Germany-based photographer and a former student of Bernd and Hilla Becher. Like other Becher students – Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth – Höfer's work is known for technical perfection and a strictly Conceptual approach...
.
The first book containing images from the series, Hong Kong: Front Door/ Back Door, was published in 2005. One review noted the book's "representation of an overpopulated city emptied of its human presence" and praised "the visual intelligence of Wolf's photographs." The Outside volume of Wolf's two-volume 2009 book Hong Kong Inside Outside contained a more extensive selection of photographs from this series.
100x100
In 2006, Wolf took photographs of residents in their rooms in a building in Hong Kong's oldest public housing complex, the Shek Kip Mei EstateShek Kip Mei Estate
Shek Kip Mei Estate is the first public housing estate in Hong Kong. It is located in Sham Shui Po and is under the management of the Hong Kong Housing Authority...
, that was going to be demolished. He used a wide-angle lens
Wide-angle lens
From a design perspective, a wide angle lens is one that projects a substantially larger image circle than would be typical for a standard design lens of the same focal length; this enables either large tilt & shift movements with a view camera, or lenses with wide fields of view.More informally,...
to show as much of the interiors of the rooms as possible. Each room was approximately 100 square feet (9.3 m²) in size, and he displayed photographs of 100 rooms, leading to the name "100x100." In an interview, Wolf likened the series to a scientific project, "an investigation into the use of limited space." The Inside volume of Wolf's two-volume book Hong Kong Inside Outside of 2009 contained the complete photographs from this series.
Copy Art / Real Fake Art
Between 2005 and 2007, Wolf photographed painters in ShenzhenShenzhen
Shenzhen is a major city in the south of Southern China's Guangdong Province, situated immediately north of Hong Kong. The area became China's first—and one of the most successful—Special Economic Zones...
, China, who reproduced famous works of art such as Sunflowers
Sunflowers (series of paintings)
Sunflowers are the subject of two series of still life paintings by the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh. The earlier series executed in Paris in 1887 gives the flowers lying on the ground, while the second set executed a year later in Arles shows bouquets of sunflowers in a vase...
by Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
. Each portrait consisted of a "copy artist" along with an example of a copied work. The settings were described as "dirty alleyways and street corners." One reviewer wrote that the pictures "document intimate cultural and economic facets of globalization even as they record and complicate critical dilemmas about authenticity and the non-economic values of art." The series was collected in his book Real Fake Art published in 2011.
Transparent City
A series shot in downtown Chicago beginning in 2006 that "combine[d] impersonal cityscapes shot primarily at dusk or at night with details of the buildings’ inhabitants" became the basis for the 2008 book Transparent City. The photographs were taken from rooftops at dusk with a longLong shot
In photography, filmmaking and video production, a long shot typically shows the entire object or human figure and is usually intended to place it in some relation to its surroundings...
lens. As in the Architecture of Density series, the exterior photographs excluded the horizon and the sky, leaving the windows of the buildings as the main subjects. In one interview, Wolf said that he came upon the idea of showing close-ups of people in the windows after he noticed that a man giving him the finger
Finger (gesture)
In Western culture, the finger , also known as the middle finger, is an obscene hand gesture, often meaning the phrases "fuck off" , "fuck you" or "up yours"...
in a photograph. In another interview, Wolf cited the artistic work of Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching...
as an inspiration for the series because of its voyeuristic
Voyeurism
In clinical psychology, voyeurism is the sexual interest in or practice of spying on people engaged in intimate behaviors, such as undressing, sexual activity, or other activity usually considered to be of a private nature....
nature and its inclusion of architectural details.
Articles about the book connected the photographs to the film Rear Window
Rear Window
Rear Window is a 1954 American suspense film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, written by John Michael Hayes and based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story "It Had to Be Murder"...
by Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
. One reviewer described the book as "frightening," causing a feeling of "remoteness." The series was controversial because some people felt that the cropped and enlarged photographs of people in the buildings constituted an invasion of privacy. In 2010, the series was shortlisted
Short list
A short list or shortlist is a list of candidates for a job, prize, award, political position, etc., that has been reduced from a longer list of candidates . The length of short lists varies according to the context.-U.S...
for the Prix Pictet
Prix Pictet
Sponsored by the Geneva private bank Pictet & Cie, the Prix Pictet is the world’s first prize dedicated to photography and sustainability. It has a unique mandate – to use the power of photography to communicate vital messages to a global audience. The goal is to uncover art of the highest order,...
.
Tokyo Compression
In the 2010 book Tokyo Compression, Wolf presented portraits of Japanese people inside crowded Tokyo subwayTokyo Subway
The is an integral part of the world's most extensive rapid transit system in a single metropolitan area, Greater Tokyo. While the subway system itself is largely within the city center, the lines extend far out via extensive through services onto suburban railway lines.- Networks :As of June...
trains who had been pressed against a window. The commuters' expressions were characterized in one review as "traumatised" and "woeful." Wolf stated that some people closed their eyes or hid their faces with their hands upon realizing that they were being photographed.
One reviewer concluded that Wolf's Architecture of Density, Transparent City, and Tokyo Compression series represented a progression from long shot to close-up. Wolf won a first prize in Daily Life in the 2009 World Press Photo competition for his Tokyo Compression work. Martin Parr
Martin Parr
Martin Parr is a British documentary photographer, photojournalist and photobook collector. He is known for his photographic projects that take a critical look at aspects of modern life, in particular provincial and suburban life in England...
selected the 2010 book as one of the 30 most influential photobooks published between 2001 and 2010.
Series using Google Street View
In several series, such as Paris Street View, Manhattan Street View, and A Series of Unfortunate Events, Wolf took photographs of Google Street ViewGoogle Street View
Google Street View is a technology featured in Google Maps and Google Earth that provides panoramic views from various positions along many streets in the world...
scenes on his computer screen. Wolf compared his method of finding interesting scenes online to those of a street photographer
Street photography
Street photography is a type of documentary photography that features subjects in candid situations within public places such as streets, parks, beaches, malls, political conventions and other settings....
walking around in a city. He has called his Street View series "a statement about art."
The Street View photographs were characterized by pixelation
Pixelation
In computer graphics, pixelation is an effect caused by displaying a bitmap or a section of a bitmap at such a large size that individual pixels, small single-colored square display elements that comprise the bitmap, are visible to the eye...
and image noise
Image noise
Image noise is random variation of brightness or color information in images, and is usually an aspect of electronic noise. It can be produced by the sensor and circuitry of a scanner or digital camera...
which were compared with techniques used by Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein was a prominent American pop artist. During the 1960s his paintings were exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City and along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist and others he became a leading figure in the new art movement...
and Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
in their art. The work led to discussion of how the automatically-taken Google Street View images affected the "decisive moment" concept of Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French photographer considered to be the father of modern photojournalism. He was an early adopter of 35 mm format, and the master of candid photography...
; nevertheless, the photographs were said to contain "some mystery" in that they were "hard to interpret." Some of Wolf's photographs resemble recognized classics of photography such as Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville (The Kiss) by Robert Doisneau
Robert Doisneau
Robert Doisneau was a French photographer. In the 1930s he used a Leica on the streets of Paris; together with Henri Cartier-Bresson he was a pioneer of photojournalism...
.
Wolf won an honorable mention in Daily Life in the 2011 World Press Photo competition for his A Series of Unfortunate Events work. The award was controversial because some people were of the opinion that the appropriation
Appropriation (art)
Appropriation is a fundamental aspect in the history of the arts . Appropriation can be understood as "the use of borrowed elements in the creation of a new work."...
of Google Street View screens did not constitute photojournalism.
Selected exhibitions
Among the exhibitions of Wolf's work, notable ones include:- 2003: Portraits of Chinese People, John Batten Gallery, Hong Kong
- 2005: Architecture of Density, Robert Koch Gallery, San Francisco
- 2006: Made in China, Museum of Contemporary PhotographyMuseum of Contemporary PhotographyThe Museum of Contemporary Photography was founded in 1984 by Columbia College Chicago. It is well known for an active program and curating which discovers many emerging and mid-career artists...
, Chicago (group exhibit including The Real Toy Story) - 2006: The Real Toy Story, Museum of Work, Hamburg
- 2006: 100 X 100, Goethe InstituteGoethe-InstitutThe Goethe-Institut is a non-profit German cultural institution operational worldwide, promoting the study of the German language abroad and encouraging international cultural exchange and relations. The Goethe-Institut also fosters knowledge about Germany by providing information on German...
, Hong Kong - 2007: Chinese Copy Art, Goethe Institute, Hong Kong
- 2007: Copy Art and 100 x 100, Robert Koch Gallery, San Francisco
- 2008-2009: Transparent City, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago
- 2008-2009: Transparent City, Robert Koch Gallery, San Francisco
- 2010: Paris Street View, Foam Fotografiemuseum AmsterdamFoam Fotografiemuseum AmsterdamFoam_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam is a photography museum located at the Keizersgracht in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The museum has four different exhibitions at any given time in which many different photographic genres are shown, such as documentary, art and fashion...
- 2010: iseeyou, Bruce Silverstein GalleryBruce Silverstein GalleryBruce Silverstein Gallery was established in 2001. Bruce Silverstein Gallery is a contemporary art gallery located in the Chelsea Art District in New York City. The Gallery's main exhibition space is located at 535 West 24th Street with another location at 529 West 20th Street...
, New York - 2010: Life in Cities, m97 Gallery, Shanghai
- 2011: Tokyo Compression, Forum für Fotografie Köln
Selected collections
- Brooklyn MuseumBrooklyn MuseumThe Brooklyn Museum is an encyclopedia art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At 560,000 square feet, the museum holds New York City's second largest art collection with roughly 1.5 million works....
, New York - Milwaukee Art MuseumMilwaukee Art MuseumThe Milwaukee Art Museum is located on Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.Beginning around 1872, multiple organizations were founded in order to bring an art gallery to Milwaukee, as the city was still a growing port town with little or no facilities to hold major art exhibitions...
, Wisconsin - Museum FolkwangMuseum FolkwangMuseum Folkwang is a major collection of 19th and 20th century art in Essen, Germany. The museum was established in 1922 by merging the Essener Kunstmuseum, which was founded in 1906, and the private Folkwang Museum of the collector and patron Karl Ernst Osthaus in Hagen, founded in 1901.The term...
, Essen, Germany - Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago
Selected books
- Wolf, Michael. Sitting in China. Göttingen: SteidlSteidlSteidl is a German-language publisher, an international publisher of photobooks, and a printing company, based in Göttingen, Germany.The company was started by Gerhard Steidl...
, 2002. ISBN 3882436700 - Wolf, Michael. Hong Kong Front Door Back Door. London: Thames & HudsonThames & HudsonThames & Hudson is a publisher of illustrated books on art, architecture, design, and visual culture. With its headquarters in London, England it has a sister company in New York and subsidiaries in Melbourne, Singapore and Hong Kong...
, 2005. ISBN 0500543046 - Min, Anchee, Duo Duo, and Stefan Landsberger. Chinese Propaganda Posters: From the Collection of Michael Wolf. Taschen's 25th anniversary special edition. Köln: TaschenTaschenTaschen is an art book publisher founded in 1980 by Benedikt Taschen in Cologne, Germany. It began as Taschen Comics publishing Benedikt's extensive comic collection...
, 2008. ISBN 9783836503167 - Wolf, Michael. The Transparent City. New York: ApertureAperture FoundationThe Aperture Foundation was founded in 1952 by Ansel Adams, Minor White, Barbara Morgan, Dorothea Lange, Nancy Newhall, Beaumont Newhall, Ernest Louie, Melton Ferris, and Dody Warren. Their vision was to create a forum for fine art photography, a new concept at the time. The first issue of...
/ MoCP, 2008. ISBN 9781597110761 - Wolf, Michael. Hong Kong Inside Outside. Berlin: Asia One/Peperoni, 2009. ISBN 9783941825048
- Wolf, Michael. FY. Berlin: Wanderer Books/Peperoni, 2010. ISBN 9783941825192
- Wolf, Michael. Tokyo Compression. Berlin: Asia One/Peperoni, 2010. ISBN 9783941825086
- Wolf, Michael. asoue (A Series of Unfortunate Events), 2nd edition. Berlin: Wanderer Books/Peperoni, 2011. ISBN 9783941825109
- Wolf, Michael. Tokyo Compression Revisited. Berlin: Asia One/Peperoni, 2011. ISBN 9783941825253
- Wolf, Michael. Real Fake Art. Berlin: Peperoni, 2011. ISBN 9783941825208
External links
- Wolf's official website
- Casper, Jim. Michael Wolf: Architecture of Density (audio interview and photographs of the artist). Lens CultureLens CultureLens Culture is a subscription-free, online magazine of international contemporary photography, inclusive of all genres of photography. The magazine contains photo book reviews, essays, analysis and criticism about contemporary photography and culture...
, volume 3, February 2005 - April 2005. - Brook, Pete. Google’s Mapping Tools Spawn New Breed of Art Projects. WiredWired (magazine)Wired is a full-color monthly American magazine and on-line periodical, published since January 1993, that reports on how new and developing technology affects culture, the economy, and politics...
Raw File blog, August 15, 2011.