Warm up
31.08. – 28.09.2003

“Warm up” is a group exhibition featuring works by 34 students majoring in photography at the University of Essen. Curated by Bernhard Prinz, professor of artistic photography in the communication design program at the University of Essen, the exhibition includes analog and digital images, black-and-white prints, c-prints, lambda prints, reproduced amateur photographs, Polaroids, and projections. The show is characterized by extreme complexity and combines groups of works with completely different content and visual languages. Only at second glance can a connecting idea be recognized in the different, rebus-like linked positions. The works are characterized by privacy and an interest in personal biography and emotion. Combative attitudes, resounding protest, and belief in future utopias have largely disappeared, replaced by a reflection on the immediate surroundings, a staging of everyday life, often pseudo-romantic and full of a confused longing for unconditional love and passion, for existential borderline experiences. The title alludes both to the warming up of relaxed student potential in the exhibition and to the attunement of visitors to so-called “soft topics” that primarily draw on the basic feelings and moods of people in their mid-twenties. The participating photographers are:

Jean Balke, Ela Barczewski, Kerstin Braun, Frank Crosby, Monika Czosnowska, Felix Dobbert, Nora Erdmann, Ebru Erülkü, Kati Faber, Tillmann Franzen, Jan Friese, Christi-an Hagemann, John Harten, Oliver Helbig, Katharina Kiebacher, Michael Klöpfer, Michael Koch, Holger Kruse, Sven Lison, Myriam Lutz, Silke Manz, Florian Maier Aichen, Debora Mittelstaedt, Käte Schiegler, Andy Scholz, Christoph Sebastian, Ina Senftleben, Jörg Steck, Heiko Thiemann, Markus Weber, Roman Weis, Joachim Weischer, PascalZahn, Andreas Zimmermann

An extensive catalog has been published to accompany the exhibition, featuring a text contribution by Anna-Catharina Gebbers.

Curated by Thomas Trümper.