— Dieter Herrmann
Art has a humane purpose. It is not enough to merely show the problems and contradictions of society, but rather to depict the life of the individual human being as someone who communicates with others in society, has fears and worries, loves, suffers, and fights for a life of dignity. The human being is a valuable individual.
Credo 1974
Born 1949 in Bayreuth,
1972 to 1980 – Studied art education at the University of the Arts Berlin, as well as political science at the Free University of Berlin, qualifying for the position of secondary school teacher.
1974 – 1976 – Member of the working group “Realism Studio” at the NGBK. Formed a friendship and collaboration with artist Dieter MASUHR during his work on expanding Berlin’s middle school centers and various illustration projects. On the basis of these contacts, and in response to the environmental disasters of the 1970s — the chemical disaster in Seveso, Italy, in 1976; fish die-offs in the Roten Main river and the Ölschnitz stream in my native Upper Franconia in 1976; the contamination of the Breton coast due to the stranding of the oil tanker Amoco Cadiz in 1978; and the nuclear reactor accident at Three Mile Island near Harrisburg, USA, in 1979 — my artistic orientation shifted during these years from abstract color field painting in my early semesters to a more realist engagement with the themes of “environmental destruction” and “human-nature relationships” and their artistic commentary. Discovering the Spanish artist group Equipo Crónica, whose three members saw themselves as chroniclers of their time, further influenced my working method toward their specific painting montage technique.
1980 – Master student at the University of the Arts Berlin under Professor Johannes Geccelli.
1982 – First state examination.
1983 – 1985 – Teacher training in the subjects of art, history, and social studies, concluding with the second state examination for the position of secondary school teacher.
1985 to 1992 – Worked at the Reinickendorf District Office in the area of “Integration of disabled children.” Two-year role at Heinrich-Hertz-Oberschule in a youth culture project with lower secondary students (visual media/Super-8 stop-motion, sculpture/environments). Later a member of the Mobile Team of the Senate Administration for Women, Family, and Youth, working in the field of “addiction prevention,” and responsible, among other things, for the first editions of the youth culture magazine Transport.
From 1986 – Photographic documentation of new buildings for the International Building Exhibition (IBA) – Berlin 1987 – critical reconstruction of the city for several architecture firms.
1988 – Invented multiple exposure techniques using Spektra (Image) Polaroid film and their artistic implementation in painterly montage techniques.
From 1988 – My Polaroid works were included in The Polaroid Collection of the Polaroid Corporation in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and exhibited at Photokina in Cologne.
1990 – 1991 – Participation in the exhibition: nGbK exhibition “Interferences. Art from Berlin (West) 1960-1990” with the exhibition later traveling to Riga, Latvia, and St. Petersburg, USSR (Marble Palace) (Polaroid photographs: Real montages through multiple exposures of IBA Berlin new buildings).