VITA

1967 Born in Sindelfingen, Germany
1994 Video installations
1997 Focus on photography
2001 Focus on VJing – Visual Arts
2003 Photographs from a helicopter
2004 Recognized artist in the Bund Bildender Künstler (BBK)
2011 Development and construction of own camera drones – first drone recordings
2013 Further development of drones for filming (TV, cinema, image)
2019 Various film shoots for cinema / set photography „Seneca“
2022 AI-based modification of photographs
2023 Founding of the artist group ZWM, which creates purely AI-generated art

Stephan Zirwes is a professional Photographer who is specialised in aerial photography with an artistic approach to the themes of the environment and our surroundings. He is working with still and moving pictures since the early 90ies creating videoinstallations, art-videos and visual-arts. Then focused on Art Photography and working out of Helicopters and with Drones since many years for industry, movie productions and his own art projects. Structures and (un)intended arrangements are in the focus of his free work.

The pictures have many layers: it is about aesthetic, but then, with an documentary approach, also about ethics. Compositions which are harmonious in colour and graphic, turn out as pictures with scars in nature – made by humans. Pictures full of little storys and political elements which are made visible only through the distance from above.

AWARDS (selection)

2019 1st Prize, Sony World Photography Award, Architecture, London, UK
2018 1st Prize, IPA, Photographer of the Year, New York, USA
2010 Winner, Hasselblad Masters Award
2009 Sony World Photographer Award, Shortlist Fine Art (Conceptual and Constructed)
Award at the BFF Yearbook in Silver and in Gold
2008 Award at the Aenne-Biermann-Prize, Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Gera, Germany

EXHIBITIONS (selection)

2024 Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany
2023 Kunstbezirk, Stuttgart, Germany
2019 Galerie b, Stuttgart, Germany
2018 Space Place One, Nizhny Tagil, Russia
2017 Museo Nacional de la Fotografia de Colombia, Bogota, Colombia
2016 Strzelski Galerie, Stuttgart, Germany
Opiom Gallery, Opio, France
2014 Luftmuseum, Amberg, Germany
2013 Opiom Gallery, Opio, France
2012 Ross Akard Gallery, Texas, USA
Krause Gallery, New York, USA
Galerie Ruttkowski68, Cologne, Germany
2010/11 MOMA, San Francisco, USA
2010 Jeonju Photofestival, Jeonju, South Korea
Baltic Biennale, St. Petersburg, Russia
Photokina, Cologne, Germany
2009 The Empty Quarter, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
ART Miami, Florida, USA
2007 Museum of Contemporary Arts, Gera, Germany
2006 Deic

EXPERIMENTAL VIDEO INSTALLATIONS

2021 360° Drone Footage Luxembourg Pavilion, Expo Dubai
2016 360° Drone and Ground Recordings for Money Museum Frankfurt
2011 270° Video Installation for Bathroom Manufacturer Laufen, ISH, Frankfurt
Interactive Media Wall, Faurecia, IAA, Frankfurt