Detlef Orlopp: Überall splittern unsere Gesichtszüge – partout nos traits éclatent

Light, structure, line, shadow = photographyDetlef Orlopp (*1937) began an apprenticeship as a photographer in 1955, and today, 70 years later, the artist can look back on a brilliant oeuvre. Detlef Orlopp was a professor at the Werkkunstschule in Krefeld until 1973. In 2015, the Folkwang Museum in Essen acquired a significant part of his estate. Fully committed to analogue black and white photography, the artist "paints" with light, structure, line and shading in the thematic field of landscapes and portraits. He chooses sections of the earth's surface, for example, whose representational origin he conceals and reduces their spaciousness to the depth perspective of the picture surface. The lack of size comparison gives rise to a pictorial reorganisation which, in its degree of abstraction, leads to a formal independence. Detlef Orlopp's landscape sections are timeless and spaceless abstractions that have been converted into structural pictorial elements. The artist thus locates himself in the modernism of the 20th century. The tachism of Wols, the "all-over" structure of Jackson Pollock's drippings, the gesturalism of Hans Hartung, whose work he had seen at Documenta 2, among other places, have determined the linear structure of his photographic images, which often look like brushstrokes. The large-format booklet "Überall splittern unsere Gesichtszüge - partout nos traits éclatent", published to accompany the exhibition, is the first to show works from his Gletscher.Ausstellung series:
Kunstverein Heilbronn, 24/2 - 5/5/2024