FLORIS M. NEUSÜSS

ABOUT THE ARTIST

WORKS

Cabinet of curiositi...

Nudogram

Photograms of Ancien...

Plants

Tanz

ABOUT THE ARTIST

INTRODUCTION

The Grand Master of the Photogram After the Second World War, it was Floris M. Neusüss above all who took up the tradition of the photogram. In the 1950s photo artists who distanced themselves from the commercial nature of the medium came together again under the designation “subjective photography.” They referred to the artistic photography of the 1920s and sporadically revivedthe photogram technique.However, no one can be compared to Floris M. Neusüss, who has been intensively cultivating this tradition-rich technique since the 1960s and has also artistically expanded it. He dedicated himself to the photogram during his many years as a professor at the Gesamthochschule in Kassel and alongside his own work, researched the various historic applications and sources of this cameraless photography. To be remembered here are Christian Schad’s photogram of 1919, Man Ray’s works from the 1920s, and above all, László Moholy-Nag’s Bauhaus experiments. Neusüss gathered together the results of his research in a book that became a standard work: The Photogram in 20th Century Art. The Other Sides of Pictures. Photography without a Camera (Cologne 1990). The first pictorial works that received much attention at the time were his body photograms (“nudograms”). For this, he worked with nude female models who posed on large-format photo paper. As is customary with this technique, silhouette-type figures are left behind after the exposure. Due to their real body dimensions, they assumed a compelling, unusual corporeality. In later years personalities were added who could also be identified by their silhouette profiles (such as Gerd Sander, Klaus Honnef, F. C. Gundlach and Janos Frecot). In a later series titled “Nachtbilder” (Night Photos), Neusüss worked with floral shapes. He did this by laying out the photo paper in thunderstorms at night so that, through the flashes of lightning, grasses, herbs and plants effectively reproduced themselves onto the paper. Parallel to those poetic and enigmatic works, an extensive series began with abstract images, free from any accessories, which he named ULOs (Unidentifiable Lying Objects). They exist as an aesthetic that can be characterized as informal. In truth, about the photogram is produced with scrap metal.The silhouette forms of thoroughly real objects that they take through the transfer to photographic paper is entirely the result of chance; yet the results are rather surreal. Although one can always speak of concrete objects, every single ULO stands alone with a respective singular magic. Neusüss has chemically treated the latest works. Some of these independent photos that can be designated as photograms have now been taken into the LUMAS program. As the photography historian Klaus Honnef put it in 1981, the photographic illusion joins “the reality of a creative nude, incarnated in its visible effects.” Dr. Enno Kaufhold