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, SHORT LIST 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 |
2010/11SF | 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 | Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany |
2004 | Galerie eigen.art, Stuttgart, Germany |
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 |
PRESS (selected articles)
- The Guardian, 2019, The Grid
- Ideat China, 2018, Pools
- DJI Magazine, 2018, Summer with the Pools
- L’officiel Voyage Russia, 2018, Pools
- Norwegian Airlines Magazine, 2015, What’s with all the pools?
- Urban China City Thinker, 2013, A parallel world
- Underscore Magazine, 2013, Above and beyond
- Fotomagazin, 2012, Strukturell betrachtet
- Jetgala, 2011, Glacial portraits
- Icon21,2011, The eye in the Sky
- Hasselblad, 2010, Press Release
- The National, 2009, Up high in the sky
- Stuttgarter Zeitung, 2009, Die Gesichter eines Gletschers