Wendelin Bottländer

Wendelin Bottländer (*1959) studied photography at the Folkwang School in Essen with Otto Steinert, Erich vom Endt, and Willy Fleckhaus (1977–1983), and from 1979 to 1988 at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf with Bernd Becher and Nam June Paik. After Steinert's death, he was one of the first students, along with Joachim Brohm, Knut Maron and Andreas Gursky and a few others, who worked intensively with color photography in the Color Lab - which was established in 1979 as the first color lab at a university in Germany.

In Essen, he was influenced by Otto Steinert’s ‘Subjektive Fotografie’ as well as the visual language of magazine photography, in Düsseldorf by Becher’s typological working method. These two influences – expanded by New Color Photography in the USA – continue to shape his work today. This transatlantic connection was highlighted in 2010 by the exhibition Der Rote Bulli at the NRW-Forum Düsseldorf, in which Bottländer was represented. There, the dialogue between Stephen Shore and the Bechers was identified as central to Düsseldorf photography – an environment in which Bottländer’s work also finds its place.

Bottländer is represented in the IKS PHOTO Collection with a total of 10 works from the series "Massa, Krefeld, 1980".

 

Wendelin Bottländer: "Massa, Krefeld, 1980"