Von Lintel Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of photograms by German artist Floris Neusüss. This is the artist's second solo presentation with the gallery.

Floris Neusüss began his studies of visual arts as a painter before turning to photography. His series “Körperfotogramme” (whole-body photograms), started him on a lifelong journey of exploring the conceptual, technical and artistic possibilities of camera-less photography.

In 1960, the same year as the “anthropometries” of Yves Klein, Neusüss created his first nude figure photograms, also known as “Nudogramms.” Neusüss was not concerned with using the photogram technique to record a nude form for the sake of documentation but rather to push experimental boundaries of the photogram medium. The works in this exhibition are experiments in photochemical action painting, which show Neusüss’ use of color in unexpected ways with astounding results. Sponges and rags soaked in fixer or developer are applied to the surface of exposed photograms producing painterly gestures, sometimes highlighted by brushstrokes of pigment.

Neusüss’ images are phantasmagorias rooted in reality: While maintaining the relationship with the external, rationally experienceable reality, he still permits dreamlike objects to create their own reality. By using innovative means, Neusüss creates a new, transcendent referentiality between pictures and reality, as comparable to the spiritualistic photography, thus backing up the doubts about the truth of photography, which have been more and more clearly expressed since the sixties and seventies.

(Jessica Ullrich, Floris Neusüss Körperbilder)

Floris Neusüss was born in 1937 in Remscheid Lennep, Germany. He has exhibited internationally in Museums and Galleries for over fifty years. His work is included in numerous public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the Art Institute of Chicago; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. He recently retired as Professor in Experimental Photography at the University of Kassel, a post he had held since 1971. Neusüss lives and works in Kassel, Germany with his partner Renate Heyne.