Born in Berlin in 1898, Heinz Hajek-Halke was one of many influential, innovative artists who in his life and the years following his death, never managed to win mainstream recognition until in 2002, a retrospective of his work exhibited at the at the Centre Pompidou in Paris managed to hone his reputation as a photographer, a great technician, and as an innovator of image manipulation and darkroom techniques. Heinz Hajek-Halke used an array of materials such as glass shards, glue, varnish, soot, wire, and fish bones in combination with his adeptness and expertise with a large variety of darkroom techniques, especially montage and double exposure. The result heralded bizarre images that were not the indistinguishable nonsense that one would expect to encounter, they turned out to be mastermind designs. Aesthetics were obviously important to Heinz Hajek-Halke and his transient black & white images combine eeriness with a soothing familiarity. They seem to allude to the prospect of the recognisable but through further investigation, end up being disquietingly indecipherable.

After World War I, Heinz Hajek-Halke began his career in the arts as a poster designer. He then took on work as a printer, draftsman, and editor until finally in 1924 he found himself with a camera in his hands. He delved into expressive work such as collage and photomontage and also became avidly interested in the photogram; a photographic image produced without the use of a camera. Photography dictated his work for decades to come, making him one of the only German photographers whose career endured the commencement of experimental photography in the 1920s and continued through its revival in the 1950s and 60s. WW II had him fleeing to Switzerland where he developed his characteristic taste for marine biology and nudes. After the war, he rejoined the experimental photographic community in Germany and became an active member. His work was exhibited in many leading shows of experimental photography, such as Otto Steinert’s “Subjektive Photographie” exhibitions and the 1954 “Photokina” show in Cologne. He published his book on photogram techniques “Lichtgraphic”; light graphics were made without a camera. Instead, each image was created by applying a combination of chemical and mechanical techniques to photographic materials, such as negative film and light-sensitive paper.

Text by Clare Stacey Shabsis

Courtesy: Kicken Gallery, Berlin