Max Baumann
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On the Quiet, Gladau, March, April 2023, Inkjet print, 88 × 58 cm -
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On the Quiet, Gladau, March, April 2023, Inkjet print, 88 × 58 cm -
On the Quiet, Gladau, March, April 2023, Inkjet print, 88 × 58 cm -
On the Quiet, Gladau, March, April 2023, Inkjet print, 88 × 58 cm -
On the Quiet, Gladau, March, April 2023, Inkjet print 88 × 58 cm -
On the Quiet, Gladau, March, April 2023, Inkjet print, 88 × 58 cm
Photographer Max Baumann, who lives near Bitterfeld, focuses on the relationship between tradition and modernity. For this he resorts to such subjects such as seed development, the automotive industry, heart operations and space travel. Views and colour spaces deviating subtly from the superficial appearance carry aesthetically finely differentiated narratives about a “being-in-the-world” seeking beauty, embedded in the ideology of progress, danger, destruction and resistance. For ocular witness: PIG CONSCIOUSNESS, Baumann took photographs in the vicinity of LFD-Holding’s Gladau site. His dark images bear witness to man-made, climate-induced damage to the flora, consequences of the drought of recent years.
The future of this environment is closely and very directly linked to the nearby fattening facility. The community took successful legal action to avert a discussed increase in the number of livestock. In spring 2023, the introduction of “animal welfare” measures is being debated. The simultaneous expansion of energy production by means of a biogas plant filled with liquid manure, poultry dung, clover and other plant material is also planned; a transport volume of 15 – 90 daily truckloads is expected. There are no data on the ecological footprint of these schemes to be implemented by a Lower Saxon company, nor is there any information on the monitoring of flora and fauna in the adjacent lowland or former moorland.
Biography
Born in 1961, Meissen, DE; lives in Zörbig-Schortewitz near Bitterfeld, DE
• 1978–1988 Apprenticeship as a building worker, worked as a bricklayer, beekeeper‘s assistant, road worker, photo lab technician, studied architecture, furniture finishing, photography and liberal arts • 1994–1996 Master student under Timm Rautert, Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig, DE • Since 2010 Beekeeper, projects on honey bees, permaculture and education
E 2017 Die fotografierte Ferne. Fotografen auf Reisen, Berlinische Galerie, Berlin (C) • 2012 Photography Calling! Fotografie und Gegenwart, Sprengel Museum Hannover, DE (C) • 2009 Stadt Land Fluss, Sprengel Museum Hannover • 2008 Zeitwinkel, Museum of Science and Technology, Dresden, DE (SE)
P Abgefangen, Hannover, 2002 • Chlorophyll. Zwei Dramen von Georg Seidel. With photographs by Max Baumann, Leipzig, 1994