Helmut Middendorf was born in Dinklage in 1953. While he was a student at the Hochschule der Künste (Univerity of the Arts in Berlin (from 1973 to 1979, under Karl Horst Hödicke, the seminal figure of German neo-expressionism), he set up the Galerie am Moritzplatz together with several of his peers (1977). The painters at the root of this initiative, who included Rainer Fetting, Salomé, Jiří Georg Dokoupil, Elvira Bach and Bernd Zimmer, designated their practice as the Neue Wilde (New Wild Ones), and formed a group under this name. Two years later, Middendorf received a scholarship from the Hochschule der Künste to study experimental cinema, a medium he had previously experimented with in parallel to his painting.
Another scholarship, from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD), enabled him to travel to New York in 1980. The emotional balance of his work was very well received in America. Motivated and inspired, he reduced his colour palette and sought out new subjects. The reduction thereby begun would lead to monochromatic black paintings conceived as a self-assessment of his status as a creator. Such absolutism would serve as a new start.
After focusing on his interior life, Middendorf turned outwards and borrowed from the world around him. In the 1990s, he compiled a databank of images taken from popular media (posters, adverts, postcards, early internet era). These archives were transformed through the creative process: cut, cropped and assembled, they became materials within a larger composition. Through this manipulation, the original images were thematically repurposed, becoming political, satirical, humorous or ominous.
Middendorf has enjoyed numerous solo shows throughout his career:
Sophie Scheidecker (2020); Studio D’Arte Cannaviello, Milan (2008); More, Macedonia Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki (2006); Galerie Winter, Wiesbaden (2006); Elena Koroneou Gallery, Athens (2005); Auf der Flucht vor den Scheintoten, Kunstverein Kaponier Vechta, Germany (2003); Auf der Flucht vor den Scheintoten, Galerie Suzanne Tarasieve, Paris (2003); Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens (2002); Art Frankfurt (One-Man Show), Galerie Winter (2002); Galerie Suzanne Tarasieve, Barbizon (2001); Galerie Winter, Wiesbaden (2001); Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens (2000); Oldenburger Kunstverein und Augusteum, Landesmuseum Oldenburg (1998); Galerie Jaspers, Munich (1996); Annina Nosei Gallery, New York (1996); Omonia, Kunstverein Göttingen (1995); Galerie Volker Diehl, Berlin (1995); Schwarze Bilder, Galeri 16, Stockholm (1988).
