Dirk Reinartz Figurative Photography

Dirk Reinartz was hired in 1970 as the latest reportage photographer in the Stern editorial team. Later he worked for the news magazine Der Spiegel as well as for Die Zeit, GEO and Life. The topics of his reports were preferably documentary in nature with a clear political connection with Germany and its history. According to his statement, he never wanted to work with a raised index finger and developed his artistic language for the picture. He became famous with a series on Bismarck monuments and the impressive cycle totenstill (1994), on former concentration camps. Reinartz taught at the Muthesius Kunsthochschule Kiel Fotografie. His collaboration with the American sculptor Richard Serra, whose work he has been accompanying throughout the world for more than two decades, is also remarkable. He lived in Buxtehude and died in Berlin, the place of one of his last great exhibitions, at the age of 56 years. The Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum in Aachen exhibited until February 6, 2011 an exhibition with about 150 photographs from his entire work.