Josef Dreisörner

When encountering the works of Josef Dreisörner, one discovers an artistic position in which conceptual creativity is combined with craftsmanship. Just as the act of creating a picture is an active process, so is the process that his pictures set in motion in the eye of the beholder. Seeing goes beyond simple representational recognition to become a productive process of perception. The themes of his works are immediately recognizable and immediately understandable even without a legend, as his pictures tell a clear story that is open to interpretation. His works do not offer an opinion, but open up spaces for reflection that the viewer can fill with their own thoughts.


Photographic Analogue
Josef Dreisörner’s analogue black and white photographs enable him to capture his motifs – especially the human face – with a strong authenticity far more than any color photography, and to get to the heart of socially relevant topics with great conciseness in his conceptual still lifes.

His Klimsch Unikat close-up portraits create unique, visually and psychologically precise insights into the human face – an aesthetic that initially alienates the viewer, but which is exactly as intended in its consistency of depiction. These human faces are unadorned, direct and truthful. Josef Dreisörner’s portraits are a consistent alternative to the arbitrary images of people that have been passed through countless filters and presets, produced and shared millions of times a day, in which every mistake has been corrected and every desired aesthetic result has been produced retrospectively. This practice of depicting leads to an ever-increasing standardization of visual language, to a monotony of visuality and to a great loss of meaning in seeing.

In Josef Dreisörner’s black and white still lifes, the decorative aspect tends to take a back seat. Although he himself is committed to high aesthetic standards, his conceptual still lifes aim to draw the viewer’s attention to socially relevant themes in order to create a space for interpretation and invite discussion.

Such image statements are mainly realized using so-called large-format cameras. The Klimsch Praktika repro camera from 1957 is particularly noteworthy in this regard. The photographs are taken analogously on a 50×60 cm (20×24 inches) black and white negative film, or directly on a 50×60 cm (20×24 inches) special black and white positive photo paper – without the detour via a negative, resulting in unique one-offs. After exposure, the image is developed by hand in the photo lab. When using positive photographic paper, it is not possible to reproduce the photo in analog form, nor is it possible to post-process it in the photo lab. The photographs on black and white film are realized using the Palladium/Platinum Print process. This produces hand prints on uncoated paper whose incomparable quality, aesthetic beauty and immortality were already appreciated by the Pictorialists of the 19th century. Thanks to the 50×60 cm (20×24 inches) format of the Klimsch Praktika repro camera, Josef Dreisörner is one of the few photographers who are able to produce analog negatives and thus palladium/platinum prints with a size of up to 50×60 cm (20×24 inches).


AI-generated images
In addition to the large-format Klimsch Praktika repro camera, Josef Dreisörner also uses the creative possibilities of artificial intelligence. For him, AI is not just an image tool, but a creative instrument to be taken seriously – comparable to a paintbrush or camera. While photography is limited to the visible, the real existing, AI opens up access to visual worlds that go beyond the documentary. It generates new visual dimensions from purely virtual information and enables completely new aspects of a familiar perspective.