Hans-Christian Schink

Hans-Christian Schink (*1961) in Erfurt, studied photography at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig.

He received several working scholarships, including one from the Stiftung Kulturfonds for the Künstlerhaus Schloss Wiepersdorf in 1997 and from the Else-Heiliger-Fonds of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in 2008. In 2002 he was "artist in residence" at the Künstlerhaus Villa Aurora, Los Angeles, in 2012 he was a fellow at the Villa Kamogawa Kyoto and in 2014 a fellow at the German Academy Villa Massimo Rome. Schink received several awards, such as the German Photo Book Award in the category of photo picture books in 2004 for his book "Verkehrsprojekte" and the international REAL Photography Award in 2008, endowed with 50,000 euros.

For the new exhibition series "Friendship Inquiry" at the Von der Heydt Museum in Wuppertal, Schink engaged in a dialogue with the world-famous collection on 19th-century landscape painting and showed works from the past two decades.

Schink's work focuses on the landscape as the result of the interference of nature and designed space, in art historical terms a genre steeped in history, whose conventions and codes he both confirms and questions. Schink juxtaposes selected photographic works with the pioneers of modernism such as Caspar David Friedrich, Carl Blechen, Ferdinand Hodler, Alfred Sisley, Paul Cézanne, and Vincent van Gogh. Among the works on display is the photo series "Hinterland," in which Schink explores the landscapes of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern with as much objectivity as sensitivity. The photo series that Schink created in 2005 in the tropical rainforest of Vietnam also enters into a dialogue with the painting of German and French naturalism. Brand new are Schink's underwater landscapes, which will be on view for the first time.

We were allowed to accompany the photographer during the installation of his exhibition and to make a 40min. interview.