Henning von Berg | |
|---|---|
 Henning von Berg in 2011. Portrait by JohnAigner for HvB. | |
| Born | 10 June 1961 |
| Occupation(s) | Civil engineer, photographer |
Henning von Berg (born 10 June 1961) is a former German civil engineer who became a portrait photographer. His specialty is character portraits and fine art nudes.
Henning von Berg was born in Northern Germany into a family with a nearly 550-year-old history. He worked as an engineer for thirteen years until the age of 35, when he discovered his calling was to be a photographer.
In the summer of 1997, he organized his first group photo shoot. This featured 28 nude men in an abandoned factory in Cologne, on the river Rhine. Afterwards, the exhibition "Factory Boyz" quickly gained attention all around Germany for its bizarre combination of "body & building". Just one year later the image "Stairway" of this series with 13 nude male models was chosen by an American publisher to be included in an international anthology about photography:
In Phil Braham's book "Naked Men Exposed - A Celebration of the Male Nude from 90 of the World's Greatest Photographers", the self-taught Berg was listed beside photographer icons like David Hockney, Horst P. Horst, Harriet Leibowitz, Robert Mapplethorpe, Eadweard Muybridge, Man Ray and Andy Warhol. [1]
In 1999, von Berg claimed more recognition by organizing a whimsical social-political statement on public nudity. With his team he photographed six completely naked men in front of a dozen tourist highlights of Berlin, including the inside of the historical parliament Reichstag building. Thousands of fascinated passers-by applauded the fun happening throughout the city.
This series "Naked Berlin" was supposed to be a political comment to show the liberal atmosphere and open-minded politics of the reunified republic. The politically active Berg wanted to document that his home country has learned from the terrible Nazi history and that Germany now is a modern democracy with a tolerant spirit and total freedom for the arts.
The fun photographs of "Naked Berlin" were published by newspapers around the globe as "Reichstags Rascals". To date, the series "Naked Berlin" remains the world’s first and only-ever male nude photo shoot inside of a parliament building. [2]
In 2005, von Berg produced a suitable counterpart by photographing the other gender on the other side of the earth. The scandalous series "Naked Sydney" documented a group of happy naked women in downtown Sydney in front of some Australian national symbols, including the famous Sydney Opera House.
Later both provocative series were presented in exhibitions worldwide. The Goethe-Institut, a German non-profit organization whose mission is to promote German language and culture outside of the German-speaking countries, promoted the exhibit "Naked Berlin - Naked Sydney" internationally and thus far more than 200,000 people have enjoyed the unique exhibitions. [3]
Henning von Berg is specialized in character portraits of seniors (his oldest model so far is a 108-year-old woman) and fine art nudes of mostly amateurs models. Von Berg prefers shooting in natural light conditions and likes to integrate panoramic landscapes and monumental buildings into his art.
For his various art projects, he likes to break traditional rules. He works with young and old people, men and women, aristocrats and prostitutes, athletes and disabled people, common folks and celebrities (e.g., Julius Shulman, Tim Curry, Kurt Kreuger, Derrick Davenport and Don Bachardy). [4]
In autumn of 2006, the international non-profit art organization Tom of Finland Foundation in Los Angeles asked von Berg to become a "Foundation Liaison" to Germany/Europe. [5] [6] At the same time, a well-known Australian publishing house [7] appointed him as a "Correspondent" for the high-profile photography magazines "[not only] Blue" and "[not only] Black+White".
To date, his work has appeared in more than 540 international publications and 47 exhibitions in museums and galleries on four continents. [8]
Helmut Newton was a German-Australian photographer. The New York Times described him as a "prolific, widely imitated fashion photographer whose provocative, erotically charged black-and-white photos were a mainstay of Vogue and other publications."
Wilhelm Iwan Friederich August von Gloeden, commonly known as Baron von Gloeden, was a German photographer who worked mainly in Italy. He is mostly known for his pastoral nude studies of Sicilian boys, which usually featured props such as wreaths or amphoras, suggesting a setting in the Greece or Italy of antiquity. From a modern standpoint, his work is commendable due to his controlled use of lighting as well as the often elegant poses of his models. His innovations include the use of photographic filters and special body makeup to disguise skin blemishes. His work, both landscapes and nudes, drew wealthy tourists to Sicily, particularly gay men uncomfortable in northern Europe, and changed the history of Taormina.
Guglielmo Plüschow was a German photographer who moved to Italy and became known for his nude photos of local youths, predominantly males. Plüschow was a cousin of Wilhelm von Gloeden, who, despite taking up nude photography later than Plüschow, soon overshadowed him. Plüschow was several times at odds with the law and charged with corruption of minors. Today, his photography is recognized for its artistic merits, but it generally is considered somewhat inferior to Gloeden's because of his less graceful handling of lighting and the sometimes strangely stilted poses of his models.
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Nude photography is the creation of any photograph which contains an image of a nude or semi-nude person, or an image suggestive of nudity. Nude photography is undertaken for a variety of purposes, including educational uses, commercial applications and artistic creations. The exhibition or publication of nude photographs may be controversial, more so in some cultures or countries than in others, and especially if the subject is a minor.
The nude, as a form of visual art that focuses on the unclothed human figure, is an enduring tradition in Western art. It was a preoccupation of Ancient Greek art, and after a semi-dormant period in the Middle Ages returned to a central position with the Renaissance. Unclothed figures often also play a part in other types of art, such as history painting, including allegorical and religious art, portraiture, or the decorative arts. From prehistory to the earliest civilizations, nude female figures were generally understood to be symbols of fertility or well-being.
Guenter Knop is a photographer known for black and white nudes of women.
This timeline of social nudity shows the varying degrees of acceptance given to the naked human body by diverse cultures throughout history. The events listed here demonstrate how various societies have shifted between strict and lax clothing standards, how nudity has played a part in social movements and protest, and how the nude human body is accepted in the public sphere.
Rainer Fetting is a German painter and sculptor.
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Günter Rössler was a German photographer who made a name for himself especially in the field of nude art photography. A pioneer of nude photography in East Germany and notable fashion photographer, Rössler was often referred to by the media as the Helmut Newton of East Germany, stylized since Playboy published in 1984 a photo-gallery titled: Mädchen der DDR. Rössler however, never liked this comparison with Newton, saying: "with Newton the pose dominates, with me it is about the highest possible authenticity of the girls". Rössler significantly contributed to the history of German photography in the second half of the twentieth century, earning him recognition not only as a great photographer, but also as the "old master of German nude photography".
Fine art nude photography is a genre of fine-art photography which depicts the nude human body with an emphasis on form, composition, emotional content, and other aesthetic qualities. The nude has been a prominent subject of photography since its invention, and played an important role in establishing photography as a fine art medium. The distinction between fine art photography and other subgenres is not absolute, but there are certain defining characteristics.
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Amendment for reference [2]: Nude photo shoot inside Germany's parliament building: http://www.reichstagsluemmel.de/en
| Nakedness and clothing | |
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| Nudity and sexuality | |
| Issues in social nudity | |
| Naturism | |
| Nude recreation | |
| By location | |
| Social nudity advocates | |
| Depictions of nudity | |
| See also | |
| International | |
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| National | |
| Artists | |
