Floris Michael Neusüss

Floris Neusüss was born in Lennep, Germany, on 3 March 1937. He began as a painter the took up photography which he studied at the Wuppertal School of Arts and Crafts in North Rhine-Westphalia, before continuing at the Bavarian State Institute of Photography in Munich. He trained alongside photographer Heinz Hajek-Halke at the Berlin University of the Arts. In 1957, he began making photograms and photomontages.

His series Körperbilder (whole-body photograms)[2] set him in the 1960s on a lifelong exploration of conceptual, technical and artistic possibilities of camera-less photography. From 1964 he has also experimented with chemical painting on photograms. Neusüss brought the photogram out of the darkroom and out of the studio to the objects recording motifs not with a camera but rather a folder with photo paper, on which he exposed subjects such as plants or windows, as in the photo series Dream Images. Continuing into the 1970s are his nudograms; silhouettes of nude figures; and also life-size portraits, including several using his friend and frequent collaborator, Robert Heinecken as the subject;[3][4] and shadowy reproductions of museum sculptures, such as those of Greek statues from the Glypothek in Munich[5][6] For Neusüss, the photographic medium was not an impression, but a contact image. According to this interpretation, the original object touched the image;

“It is true that the subject resting on the photo-sensitive paper presents its reverse side to be recorded, the side that is in shadow, the shadow cast by the object itself. This intimate physical connection inscribes into the paper, and this, if you are open to it, is the real fascination of photograms: the tension between the hidden and the revealed.”[7]

In 1979, at the Centro de Arte Contemporânea in Porto (followed by Coimbra and Lisbon) Neusüss coordinated A Fotografia como Arte bringing together work by European artists (Bernd and Hilla Becher, Arnulf Rainer, Jürgen Klauke, Jochen Gerz, Nils Udo, Christian Boltanski) and Portuguese artists (Fernando Calhau, Julião Sarmento, Helena Almeida, Alberto Carneiro and Ângelo de Sousa).[8]

In 1982 and 1985, Neusüss exhibited works which displayed the maladies of pollution, which aroused strong reactions. In the early 1980s, he exhibited Artificial Landscapes, chemical works of abstract art that resembles small buildings on a horizon.[9]

In 1986, he began designing Nachtbilder ('nocturnal pictures'), photographs taken outside at night and produced by placing photo paper emulsion side down into a woodland or garden at night during a thunderstorm during which it might be tumbled about by the wind and exposed by lightning.

At Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire, England, in 2010 Neusüss made a photogram in collaboration with his wife Renate Heyne, also an artist, of the window that formed the subject of William Henry Fox Talbot's first photographic negative, made there in 1835.[10][11] The work was presented in Shadow Catchers, 13 October 2010 - 20 February 2011 at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.[12] Curator of the show Martin Barnes described Neusüss' work as “a poetic dialogue between presence and absence”.[13]

From 1966 Neusüss taught as a freelance lecturer at the Kassel Art College and in 1972 was appointed professor of photography there. In 1972 he founded the college gallery Fotoforum Kassel for conceptual photography. Amongst his students were Jutta Winkelmann, Gisela Getty, Wolfgang Pietrzok, and Brigitte Maria Mayer. In 2002, aged 65, he retired. Neusüss was a full member of the Mitglied im Deutschen Künstlerbund (German Association of Artists).

Through this work, Nesüss established himself as one of the leaders in experimental photography.[14] His teaching as Professor of Experimental Photography at the University of Kassel was influential.[3] In the 1980s, Neusüss also experimented with colour photograms and collages which through his teaching at Kassel had an effect on the style of several generations of photographers.

Neusüss died in 2020 and his photograms are currently held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago; the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Getty Museum in Los Angeles;[15] the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.[3] There are several monographs published on his work and he produced several textbooks and collections of photograms.

• 2010: Shadow Catchers, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.[12]
• 2018: Ferner Zeiten Schatten-Fotogramme. Schadow-Haus des Bundestages, Berlin[16]
• 2017: Intent and Gesture: Photograms - Color (1966–2007), solo exhibition, Von Lintel Gallery, Los Angeles
• 2016: Leibniz' Lager, Einzelausstellung, Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe
• 2015: Dreams + Photograms, solo exhibition, Von Lintel Gallery, Los Angeles
• 2014: What is a photograph?, January 31-May 4, 2014, International Center of Photography, New York.[17]
• 2012/13: Ancient and Modern, 8 Nov 2012 – 12 Jan 2013, Atlas Gallery, London
• 2012: Traumbilder – Bilderträumer, Frühe Kamerafotografien und Fotoaktionen von Floris Neusüss, Münchner Stadtmuseum[18]
• 2010: Solo Exhibition, 15 Oct – 27 Nov 2010, Atlas Gallery, London
• 2009: Early Works, 13 Jun – 2 Aug 2009, Fondazione Sozzani, Milan
• 2007: Retrospective, 20 Apr – 9 Jun 2007,  Atlas Gallery, London
• 2007: Floris Neusüss Photograms, 27 Apr – 2 Jun 2007,  Atlas Gallery, London
• 2007: Kameralose Fotografie; Fotogramme, 31 Mar – 4 May 2007, Kleinschmidt, Wiesbaden
• 2007: Fotogramme, 3 Feb – 24 Mar 2007, Villa Grisebach Gallery, Germany
• 2005: Vor Troja – Antikenfotogramme, Winckelmann-Museum, Stendal
• 2004: Helden, Herrscher und Passanten, 5 Jun – 8 Aug 2004, Georg Kolbe Museum, Berlin
• 1997: Participation in the 45th annual exhibition of the German Association of Artists in Wismar and Rostock[19]
• 1983: Fotogramme–die lichtreichen Schatten, Fotomuseum des Münchner Stadtmuseums, Kassel.[20]
• 1977: Kunstverein Kassel, Kassel

• Neusüss, Floris Michael; Diener, Christian (1977), Floris Neusüss Fotografie : 1957-1977, F. M. Neusüss
• Neusüss, Floris Michael; Sobieszek, Robert A., 1943-; Immisch, T. O; Staatliche Galerie Moritzburg, Landeskunstmuseum Sachsen-Anhalt (2001), Körperbilder : fotogramme der sechziger jahre, Staatliche Galerie Moritzburg, ISBN 978-3-86105-092-6CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Heyne, Renate; Neusüss, Floris Michael, (photographer.); Weibel, Peter, (editor.); Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe (host institution.) (2017), Leibniz' Lager : eine Sammlungswelt in Fotogrammen = Leibniz' storehouse : photograms of a collected world, Berlin Hatje Cantz, ISBN 978-3-7757-4230-6CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
• Neusüss, Floris Michael (1979), Fotografie als Kunst, Kunst als Fotografie : das Medium Fotografie in d. bildenden Kunst in Europa ab 1968 = Photography as art, art as photography (Erstveröff ed.), DuMont
• Neusüss, Floris Michael; Cardorff, Peter (2000), ULOs wunderbar : [Hangout für Kunst und Philosophie], Parerga, ISBN 978-3-930450-56-5
• Neusüss, Floris Michael (1982), Photo recycling Photo, Bermuda-Dreieck für Fotografie
• Cardorff, Peter; Neusüss, Floris Michael (1998), Erotischer Realismus : kleines Manual (1. Aufl ed.), Parerga, ISBN 978-3-930450-32-9
• Heinecken, Robert; Neusüss, Floris Michael; Pastor, Suzanne E; Fotoforum (Kassel, Germany) (1983), Robert Heinecken, fast easy and fun, Fotoforum Kassel
• Neusüss, Floris Michael; Barrow, Thomas F; Hagen, Charles; Denver Art Museum (1994), Experimental vision : the evolution of the photogram since 1919, Roberts Rinehart Publishers in association with the Denver Art Museum, ISBN 978-1-879373-73-0
• Moholy-Nagy, László; Moholy-Nagy, László, 1895-1946, (artist.); Heyne, Renate, (editor.); Moholy-Nagy, Hattula, (editor.); Molderings, Herbert, (writer of added text.); Neusüss, Floris Michael, (editor.) (2009), Moholy-Nagy : the photograms : catalogue raisonné, Hatje Cantz, ISBN 978-3-7757-2341-1CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
• Neusüss, Floris Michael, & Schweizerische Stiftung für die Photographie Kunsthaus Zürich;. (1990). Anwesenheit bei Abwesenheit: Fotogramme und die Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts.
• Neusüss, Floris Michael (1983). Fotogramme–die lichtreichen Schatten, Ausst. Kat. Fotomuseum des Münchner Stadtmuseums, Kassel.