Heiner Blum

Heiner Blum was born in Stuttgart in 1959. From 1977 to 1983 he studied Visual Communication at the Gesamthochschule Kassel. In 1988 he won the Villa Massimo Prize, which enabled him to spend a year in Rome. He subsequently won other awards including a 'Siemens-Projektstipendium' granted by the Center for Arts and Media Karlsruhe (1992) and the 'Förderpreis zum internationalen Kunstpreis' awarded by the land of Baden-Württemberg (1993). Heiner Blum lives in Offenbach.

Blum started out, in the late 1970s, as a photographer. In addition to a series of portraits taken from a marked »di sotto in su« perspective, he assembles various series and categories of motif and concept in the manner of a lexicographer. In several rhythmically ordered sets of images, for example, Blum examines the phenomenon of the human portrait. One group of works deals with words, which are isolated, alienated and finally concentrated onto boxed 'linguistic bodies'. Blum's most persistent subject, however, has been time. In his sculptural work he repeatedly questions the conventional ways of measuring time: we encounter hour-glasses that do not gauge or body parts made of eraser rubber that can literally be rubbed away: At the centre of Blum's work is the phenomenon of rhythm and the creative possibilities of any given medium.

Individual exhibitions (selection)

1987 Galerie nächst St. Stephan, Vienna
1988 Galerie Grässlin-Ehrhardt, Frankfurt/M
1989 Kunstverein Kassel, subsequently at Portikus, Frankfurt/M
1991 Sala Parpalló, Valencia
1993 »Alarm«, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt/M
1995 »Augentauschen«, Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden

Group exhibition (selection)

1981 »New German Photography«, Photographers Gallery, London
1985 »City«, Kunstverein Kassel
1988 »BiNationale«, Städtische Kunsthalle, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen and Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf, simultaneously The Institute of Contemporary Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Kunsthalle Bremen
1993 »MultiMediale 3«, Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe
1994 »Villa Massimo 1988-92«, Kunstverein Hannover
1996 »Berechenbarkeit der Welt«, Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn; »Sammlung Speck«, Museum Ludwig, Cologne
1997 »Magie der Zahl«, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart; »Silo«, Fahrradhalle, Offenburg

[Frauke Syamken, 1997]