totenstill, 1987-1993

Silver gelatin prints 25.5 x 16.5 cm each.

Four of his photographs shown in the library- and seminar-room from the cycle "dead silent" are representative for his 136 photographs which are to be found in the Archive of Situation Kunst. From 1987 to 1993 Reinartz visited former Nazi concentration camps all over Europe. (From Breendonk, Belgium through Emslandlager, Germany to Auschwitz, Poland). 279 photographs taken during this trip were printed in a book of the same title. His black and white photos, with their characteristic ambivalence of sharpness and un-sharpness preserve pictures from sites of a crime whose traumatic history eludes representation.

When I tell people that I am working on this topic many react shocked and say: “Oh, God, do you think you can cope with that? Isn’t that too terrible to face?' This kind of turning away makes me speechless." 

Dirk Reinartz (from Peter Sager’s „Aan interview with Dirk Reinartz and Erich Hartmann“, ZEITmagazine 47, 1994)

Born 1947 in Aachen, Germany.

Studied photography at the Folkwang School in Essen, taught by Otto Steinert.

1971-1977 Photojournalist for the magazine Stern. During his various trips for the magazine he visited numerous countries and continents.

1977 joined the group of photographers VISUM, but decided to become completely independent again in 1982.

From 1998 professor of photography at the Muthesius Colleague in Kiel.

Died 2004 in Berlin