Country: Germany 🇩🇪
The german photographer Klaus Lenzen (born 1953) has been working intensively with photography as a self-taught photographer since 2011. With his camera, he is particularly looking for the "special in the everyday". Structures, shapes and colors in urban space are his preferred subject. In a minimalist, reduced manner, he directs the view to the essential. Frontal perspective, no disturbing backgrounds and the focus solely on the motif characterize his works. In doing so, he moves in everyday settings such as construction sites and parking lots, but also in rural areas in search of abstract representations of wrapped bales of straw. He describes them as "everyday works of art" that sometimes only reveal themselves at second glance.
He often additionally emphasizes the minimalism of his works by underlaying them with gray tones; nothing should distract the viewer from the motif.
In contrast to his minimalist pictures, Lenzen sometimes makes an excursion into the creation of large-format, colorful collages. In doing so, he artfully brings together numerous individual photos of the same motif, as in the creation of a pyramid from scrap metal or "Waste Art" from packaging waste. In his image compositions of swimmers and marathon runners he demonstrates the creation of a constructed reality from a perspective that is unusual for the viewer Lenzen started a long-term project at the beginning of 2014: "Every day a photo". Every day he searches for and finds his "photo of the day," always with the same fixed focal length always in square format. So far he has succeeded without a gap, on March 8, 2022 for the three thousandth time. He sees this project as a valuable training of his photographic eye, many of his award-winning images were created in this way. He has not defined an end to the project, because in his estimation he has not yet taken his best photograph. Many of his pictures have won national and international photography awards. Of particular note is his two-time success at the Sony World Photography Awards. There, his works "Every breath you take" and "The blue window" were honored as one of ten category winners in 2018 and 2021, respectively, among 160,000 entries each. Both photos were taken in Düsseldorf's Medienhafen.
As a further award at renowned photo awards exemplary are:
HEAD ON Photo Awards 2020 Sydney, Finalist Landscape Prize.
Prix de la Photographie Paris 2019 Winner Fine Art;
SIENA International Photo Awards Category Winner 2019,
Minimalist Photographer of the Year Tehran 2019,
CEWE PhotoAward 2019 "Our world is beautiful", Special Award of the president of the Jury
Tokyo International Photo Awards 2018, Gold in Fine Art/Collage,
IPA Fine Art Photographer of the Year New York 2018,
Lensculture Black&White Photography Award 2018, Editor's Pick, Amsterdam,
His work has been exhibited in group exhibitions at venues such as Somerset House London, at the Aperture Gallery New York and at the Willy-Brandt-Haus Berlin.
In the context of his first solo exhibition he shows from 09.06.-02.09.2022 more than 70 of his works in the rooms of the Higher Regional Court Düsseldorf.
He often additionally emphasizes the minimalism of his works by underlaying them with gray tones; nothing should distract the viewer from the motif.
In contrast to his minimalist pictures, Lenzen sometimes makes an excursion into the creation of large-format, colorful collages. In doing so, he artfully brings together numerous individual photos of the same motif, as in the creation of a pyramid from scrap metal or "Waste Art" from packaging waste. In his image compositions of swimmers and marathon runners he demonstrates the creation of a constructed reality from a perspective that is unusual for the viewer Lenzen started a long-term project at the beginning of 2014: "Every day a photo". Every day he searches for and finds his "photo of the day," always with the same fixed focal length always in square format. So far he has succeeded without a gap, on March 8, 2022 for the three thousandth time. He sees this project as a valuable training of his photographic eye, many of his award-winning images were created in this way. He has not defined an end to the project, because in his estimation he has not yet taken his best photograph. Many of his pictures have won national and international photography awards. Of particular note is his two-time success at the Sony World Photography Awards. There, his works "Every breath you take" and "The blue window" were honored as one of ten category winners in 2018 and 2021, respectively, among 160,000 entries each. Both photos were taken in Düsseldorf's Medienhafen.
As a further award at renowned photo awards exemplary are:
HEAD ON Photo Awards 2020 Sydney, Finalist Landscape Prize.
Prix de la Photographie Paris 2019 Winner Fine Art;
SIENA International Photo Awards Category Winner 2019,
Minimalist Photographer of the Year Tehran 2019,
CEWE PhotoAward 2019 "Our world is beautiful", Special Award of the president of the Jury
Tokyo International Photo Awards 2018, Gold in Fine Art/Collage,
IPA Fine Art Photographer of the Year New York 2018,
Lensculture Black&White Photography Award 2018, Editor's Pick, Amsterdam,
His work has been exhibited in group exhibitions at venues such as Somerset House London, at the Aperture Gallery New York and at the Willy-Brandt-Haus Berlin.
In the context of his first solo exhibition he shows from 09.06.-02.09.2022 more than 70 of his works in the rooms of the Higher Regional Court Düsseldorf.