For the photographic series Random Flowers, the panorama function of Felix Dobbert’s camera is lead ad absurdum, generating visible deformations. The forced errors arise at the moment of exposure and thus stress the photographic process itself. But even more confusing than the staccato like repetition of the blossoms is the subtractive effect; real existing facets are erased by the camera, alluding to a possible decreation and reversing what photopionier William Henry Fox Talbot calls The Pencil of Nature. Through this process, Dobbert highlights how photography as a mechanical process, naturally inscribes itself onto the image of nature, without the artist’s intervention. The resulting historical belief in the objectivity of photography is reversed, allowing the alleged probative value of a photograph completely disappear, when parts of the image are photographed away.
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Felix Dobbert
*born 1975 in Hamburg, Germany
Education
1996 – 2004
Studies in photography and communication design, Folkwang University of the Arts, Germany
Diploma with distinction (Prof. Jörg Sasse)
1996
Studies in communication design, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Germany
Recent exhibitions
2018
gute aussichten deluxe, New German Photography after the Düsseldorf School, Haus der Photographie, Deichtorhallen Hamburg
10 Jahre. 10 Dinge. 10 Gäste, Galerie Rasche Ripken, Berlin
Perspectives. Strategies of Photographic Actions,10th Darmstadt Days of Photography, Germany
2017
5×5 still lifes, Das zeitgenössische Stillleben in der Fotografie. Ein Experiment / The Contemporary Still Life in Photography: An Experiment, Museum Ratingen, Germany + KiZ [Kultur im Zentrum], Gießen, Germany
gute aussichten deluxe, Museo de la Cancilleria, Mexico City
2016
Some Flowers, Coelner Zimmer, Düsseldorf (solo)
5×5 still lifes,Palais für aktuelle Kunst, Kunstverein Glückstadt, Germany
…
Scholarships
2006
Passage, Scholarship by the City of Düsseldorf for a two-month residency in Toulouse, France
Awards
2013
International Marianne Brandt Award (nominated)
2005
Kodak Nachwuchs Förderpreis / Kodak Newcomer Award
2004
gute aussichten – junge deutsche fotografie/ new German photography award 2004/2005
Publications
2016
5×5 still lifes. Das zeitgenössische Stillleben in der Fotografie. Ein Experiment / The Contemporary Still Life in Photography: An Experiment, Verlag Kettler, Dortmund
2013
Die Poesie des Funktionalen. Kunstverein Villa Arte e.V., Chemnitz
Still.Magazin für Junge Literatur & Fotografie. Berlin
2012
Flächen.Künstlerinnen und Künstler am Seminar für Kunst und Kunstwissenschaft; artists at the Technische Universität Dortmund. Verlag Kerber, Bielefeld/Berlin
2008
Felix Dobbert / Bertrand Parinet: Extradition, Tandem,Düsseldorf, 2008
Teaching
2016 – 2018
Visiting Professor for photography, Department of Fine Arts, Giessen University, Germany
2007 – 2016
Head of Photography at Department of Fine Arts, TU Dortmund University, Germany
Felix Dobbert lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany
