Obituary: Kai Wiedenhöfer

Kai Wiedenhöfer is counted among the most important documentary photographers of his generation. He was, however, much more than just a documentarist: while his images underlined social and political confrontations, they also enabled a strong emotional approach to the conflicts.

Born on March 3, 1966 in Schwenningen am Neckar, Wiedenhöfer completed studies – with an emphasis on Documentary Photography and Editorial Design – at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, in 1995. In 1991/1992 he took Arabic courses at the Institut français d’études arabes in Damascus. He was still a photography student when he documented the fall of the Berlin Wall, which he defined as a “key political event”. The experience of having been a witness of history in the making, proved to be his most important motivation over the following years. He took pictures in numerous conflict regions, revealing the consequences of war and strife; yet his hopeful motifs always reflected a humanistic component in the disputes, in order to express the longing for peace. One focus of his work was to take photographs of walls and barrier fences: in Berlin, Belfast, Mexico, Ceuta and Melilla, Baghdad and, time and again, the wall with which Israel has surrounded itself. Between 2003 and 2018, he travelled to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories ten times, to document the fences, walls and check-points. His images are more current than ever, and clearly confirm that the hope of peace can not be realised by building walls, and that separation fences do not solve conflicts in the long run. The photographer always considered his pictures as a way to provoke discussions, particularly when his motifs were displayed in large format, at exhibitions and in open spaces. His long-term projects have lost none of their impact; his photographs show both the inhumanity and the absurdity of the constructs, which continue to be enormous signs of helplessness in the face of unsolved problems.

Wiedenhöfer and his work have been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Leica Medal of Excellence in New York in 2002, the Alexia Grant for World Peace and Cultural Understanding (2002), two World Press Photo Awards (2002 and 2004), the W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography (2002) and the Carmignac Gestion Photojournalism Award, Paris (2009). His series have appeared in many photo books, such as Perfect Peace (2002), Wall (2007), The Book of Destruction (2010) and Confrontier (2013), published by Steidl. The large-format book, Wall and Peace, announced for this year, will now become a visual obituary for the photographer.

As a photojournalist, he knew mortal danger as part of his everyday life; in the end, he suffered a heart attack while cycling in Swabia, and died as a result. The world of photography has lost a courageous, honest and intelligent observer.