Olaf Otto Becker

Exhibitions

Olaf Otto Becker:

•  1959 Born in Lübeck-Travemünde, Germany 
  
•  1981–1986 Studied communication design in Augsburg, specializing in photography 
  

• 1986–1988 Studied philosophy and political science at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich 

• 2011 Grant and artist in residence in Rossinière, Switzerland 
• 2010 Awarded the photography prize of the Bayerischer Journalisten Verband 
• 2008 Awarded the LeadAward 
• 2007 Deutscher Fotobuchpreis for Olaf Otto Becker: Broken Line 
• 2006 Olaf Otto Becker: Under the Nordic Light. A Journey through Time. Iceland 1999–2011 nominated for best book at Rencon­tres Internationales de la Photographie, Arles 
•  Olaf Otto Becker: Under the Nordic Light. A Journey through Time. Iceland 1999–2011 nominated for German Photography Prize Grant for the project Olaf Otto Becker: Broken Line from the Kulturwerk VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2005 Awarded the photography prize of the Bayerischer Journalisten Verband Publications: 2014 Olaf Otto Becker: Reading the Landscape, Ostfildern Landmark: Fields of Landscape Photography, London 2013 Subhankar Banerjee, Arctic Voices: Resistance at the Tipping Point, New York Alpine and Polar Landscapes in Art 1775–2012, exh. cat. / Whatcom Museum, Bellingham, Washington 2012 Olaf Otto Becker: Under the Nordic Light. A Journey through Time. Iceland 1999–2011, Ostfildern 2011 The Altered Landscape: Photographs of a Changing Environment, exh. cat. Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, Nevada Help Earth 2011, The Society of Korean Photography 2010 Photo Speaks 2011, The Society of Korean Photography, BredaPhoto: International Photo Festival, exh. cat. WEISS: Ice / White: Contemporary International Art, exh. cat. Kunstverein KISS, Untergröningen 2009 Olaf Otto Becker: Above Zero, Ostfildern 2008 Visual Leader 2008, exh. cat. Deichtorhallen Hamburg “Day of Ascension,” The New York Times Magazine, fall issue Vanishing Landscapes, Cologne / Köln 2007 Geo, February (Portfolio) Olaf Otto Becker: Broken Line, Ostfildern 2006 Lynne Warren, Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Photography, vol. 1 / Bd. 1 New York, The New Yorker, 20. November FineArtPrinter, January, (Portfolio) 2005 Under the Nordic Light, Cologne Fotosommer Stuttgart 2005, exh. cat. Fotosommer Stuttgart e. V. Süddeutsche Zeitung Wissen, 4 (Portfolio) 2004 Wasser in der Kunst: Vom Mittelalter bis heute, exh. cat. / Städtische Galerie Überlingen Solo Exhibitions (Selection): 2016 03.11 – 31.12. Floating, Gallery f 5,6, Munich 2015 Reading the Landscape, Gallery f5,6 Munich Olaf Otto Becker – Work, Gallery Robert Morat, Hamburg, Ilulissat, Gallery Ruzicska Salzburg, Ilulissat Gallery Anteprima d’arte contemporanea, Rome, 2014 Reading the Landscape, Gallery Wouter van Leeuwen, Amsterdam 2013 Reading the Landscape, Gallery Nikolaus Ruzicska, Salzburg Olaf Otto Becker Work, Elipsis Gallery, Istanbul 2012 Cohen Amador Gallery, New York Gallery f5,6, Munich 2011 Stadthaus Ulm 2010 Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, Oregon Goethe-Institut, Nancy Gallery f5,6, Munich Gallery Wouter van Leeuwen, Amsterdam Gallery Nikolaus Ruzicska, Salzburg Tekhne Architectes, Lyon 2009 The National Museum of Photography, Copenhagen Cohen Amador Gallery, New York Alfred-Ehrhardt-Stiftung, Cologne Zeppelin Museum, Friedrichshafen 2008 Gallery f5,6, Munich Cohen Amador Gallery, New York 2007 Stephen Cohen Gallery, Los Angeles Gallery Münsterland, Emsdetten 2006 Cohen Amador Gallery, New York Gallery Münsterland, Emsdetten Gallery Peter W. Hartmann, Munich 2005 Rotonda Gallery, Gallery Thomas Zander, Cologne 2004 Gallery av, Ludwigsburg 2003 Gallery Peter W. Hartmann, Munich

Bio

Born 1959 in Travemünde, by the Baltic Sea, Germany. From 1981 to 1986 I was in Augsburg, studying communciation design. Until 1988 I studied philosophy and political science in Munich. The critical photographic analysis of environmental change in my immediate sourroundings, as well as in Iceland, helped me to develop a finely tuned understanding of landscape and its changes. My first book, Under the Nordic Light, features landscape photographies of Iceland and was nominated in the category of Best Book at the Recontres International de la Photographies Arles in 2006. For my book Broken Line, I traveled 4000 km in a small dinghy along the west coast of Greenland to document climate change with my 8 x 10 camera. Broken Line was awarded the 2007 German Photo Book Prize. In 2007 and 2008 my assistant and I went on two expeditions to Greenland’s inland ice and the world’s largest glacier to capture the melting process. During 450 km of hiking I took representational photographs of four glacial rivers—thousands of which now flow through the ice sheet every summer. As part of this project, I was able to accompany scientists to witness them study and measure the ice. Between 1999 and 2012 I documented the man-made changes in Iceland’s landscape over a period of thirteen years. The results can be found in my second book about Iceland, Under the Nordic Light – A Journey through Time. From 2008 till 2014 I worked on book titled Reading the Landscape, which discusses the worldwide deforestation of primary forests and the current rearrangement of our understanding of nature. In my work I combine my personal and artistic approach with documentary intention and socio-cultural questions. Photography should have something to say about the present. Yet, only the eyes perceive the meaning of my work and therefore the viewer is challenged to “read the landscape” with me. My landscape photographs are presented worldwide at international photography festivals, museums, and galleries, and they can be found in numerous private and public collections. In Germany I am represented by Gallery f5,6; my Austrian Gallery is the Gallerie Ruzicska, and in the Netherlands I am represented by the Wouter van Leuwen Gallery.