Bernhard Johannes Blume - Fotoarbeiten 1989 - Shop

Bernhard Johannes Blume (1937-2011) was a German artist recognized for his photographs and expressive drawings. Often working together with his wife Anna (1936-2020), Blume created sequences of large black-and-white photos of staged scenes suggestive of the paranormal. Blume and/or Anna were often the subjects of these scenes which included strange juxtapositions with banal everyday objects. Both Blume and Anna were highly influenced by Beuys whom Blume studied under in the early 1960s.

From an interview with GB Kirkpatrick Blume states, “Documentary photography is fraud. ‘Objective photography’ is self-defeat ... The camera is a weapon for the optical liquidation of the otherness of the others ... Yes, surely I am involved in it. I also go as a photographer about dead bodies. In contrast to the illusionary-objectivist photograph, however, it is my own corpse.”