Manfred Paul

This series of still life photographs by Manfred Paul were produced while the GDR still existed. As photographs they go beyond the general symbols of still life; they are time doubly frozen, as where the fish, leaves and branches at the bottom of the lake have been frozen into a still-life photograph, as if petrified in clear ice before the first snowfall. Things are abandoned, with apparent carelessness - a bunch of tulips in a glass vase wilts in infinite beauty, their black-and-white sharpness emits an almost painful appeal against the transience and replaceability of the blooms. In their irredeemable alienation they inevitably become a devotional mental image of human existence. Manfred Paul was born in 1942 in Schraplau (former German Democratic Republic). After graduating from high school he established a photo laboratory apprenticeship and worked as a photolab technician, before studying photography and camerawork in Leipzig and Potsdam-Babelsberg. From 1983-1985 he made his first works using an 18 x 24 cm plate camera. The nature morte series was produced. He lectured in photography from 1974-1994 at the FWG Berlin, and was subsequently appointed Professor of Photography and Audiovisual Media at the FHTW Berlin (1995-2007). He lives in Berlin.