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Tom Fecht launched his artistic career in 1992 at Jan Hoet’s Documenta IX. In the late 1990s, he embraced photography as his preferred medium. Since then, he has produced an extensive body of landscape and portrait work. In recent years he became in particular known for his seascapes and night photography focusing phenomena invisible to the naked eye. His large-scale minimalist works cross the line between the physical world and the invisible, magic part of our universe while pushing photography to the edge of quantum physics.

 

Inspired by the Apollo moon missions he studied cybernetics, engineering, and art history at Columbia University New York and Technische Universität Berlin. As a young engineer, Fecht was involved in developing fax machines and computer-based imaging at IBM. In the 1970s, Fecht founded the gallery and publishing company Elefanten Press in Berlin. During the next two decades, Fecht worked as a gallerist, publisher, and editor focused on documentary and artistic photography. Fecht enjoys exploring photography as a tool in art, architecture, and design; he also teaches at the Royal College of Art and Imperial College in London currently conducting scientific research on a new generation of scientific lenses and silver gelatins.

 

As of 2012, his photographic works are limited to one unique vintage print. His work is regularly presented at TEFAF Maastricht and New York and has featured in numerous museum exhibitions and collections, including the New National Galerie and Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn; Royal College of Art, London; Helmhaus Zurich, MuCEM Marseille and Musée des Beaux-Arts LAAC, Dunkerque – also including corporate and private collections in Europe, the US and Asia. As of May 20128 The Museum DKM in Duisburg, Germany, will present a room with 12 large-format works by Tom Fecht as part of their permanent collection.

 

His work is continuously exhibited in Paris, Düsseldorf, and Munich and regularly presented at TEFAF Maastricht and TEFAF Spring, New York.

 

Recent Exhibitions 

2017 :
Gravity Fields, SETAREH GALLERY, Düsseldorf (D)

DeepTime / TiefenZeit, Museum DKM, Duisburg (D)
GRAVITY MIRROR, Laffanour Gallery DOWNTOWN, Paris (F)
DARK MATTERs, SETAREH GALLERY, Düssseldorf (D)

2016 :
Magic Moments, Château Palmer, Margaux 2016 (F)
Prouvé – Takis, Collection François Laffanour La Patinoire Royale, Brussels 2016 (BE)

Selected Exhibitions 2000 - 2015


Entre 6 & 8, Galerie Saluden, Quimper 2015 (F), 
Downtown @ Monaco, Electric Cinema, Colombia Gallery, Monaco 2015

Retour de mer
Curated by Jean Attali
Musée des Beaux-Arts LAAC, Dunkerque 2014 (F)
Masterpieces (Group show)
Galerie Downtown Paris, 2014 (F)
Magic Divan – A portrait of Daniel Barenboim
and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra.
Installation for “An Ocean of Possibilities”
at Noorderlicht Photofestival Groningen (NE)
and Singapore International Photography Festival (SIPF), 2014
The Water Line – Video installation for “The Politics and Pleasures of Food”
funded by Kulturstiftung des Bundes, ACC Galerie Weimar, 2014 (D)
Surface tension – An accidental meeting of ocean and slaughterhouse (with J. Zissovici).
ENSA École nationale d’architecture Malaquais. Galerie J. Callot, Paris 2013 (F)
Equilibre Les Vivres de l’Art / Fondation du Patrimoine.
Photo installation in the former slaughterhouse of Bordeaux, 2013 (F)
Trait pour trait – Autoportraits
Galerie Saluden, Quimper 2012 (F)
Land’s end – Photographies
Galerie Saluden, Quimper 2010 (F)
Equilibrium
Galerie Gisèle Linder, Basel 2009 (CH)
Ma couleur préférée
Galerie Gisèle Linder, Basel 2009 (CH)
Names and Stones – Cold Square
New installation for the Art and Exhibition Hall
of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn 1993 / 2008 (D)
Fotografie – On Landscape
Galerie Schöneck, Basel 2008 (CH)
Unstern Sinistre Disastro – 7 Studies on Gravity
ACC Galerie, Weimar 2008 (D)
London Confidential – The Chinese Suite
Galerie Mews42 / Vanessa Suchar, London 2008 (UK)
All Under One Heaven – The Chinese Suite
Royal College of Art, London 2007 /(UK)
Finis Terrae – Seascapes and Photo-Glasses
Galerie Downtown, Paris 2007 (F)
Portraiture – The Chinese Suite
Eyestorm Gallery, London 2007 (UK)
Rendez-Vous – La Nouvelle Athènes. Seascapes.
Gallery Vanessa Suchar, Paris 2007 (F)
Namaste – Land and Seascapes.
Gallery Vanessa Suchar, London 2006 (F)
Cause and Effect – The Dust of Childhood.
Hartwell Gallery / Cornell University, NY 2005
Movement Into the Open – Seascapes.
Ahorn Grieneisen AG, Berlin 2005 (D)
Transformation – Seascapes
Art Home Gallery, Istanbul 2004 (Catalog) (TUR)
Silent Images – Photographs and Works on Paper.
Ahorn Grieneisen AG, Berlin 2004 (D)
Food For Thought: An Evening with Siegfried Zielinski.
Performance at V2 Dutch Electronic Art Fair, Rotterdam 2004 (NE)
Torso – Cité des Sciences, Paris 2003 (F)
Approaching the Unpredictable – Paper Art 8. Milk Skin (Milchhaut).
Installation at Leopold Hoesch Museum, Düren 2002 (Catalog) (D)
En Face – Gisèle Freund photographed by Tom Fecht.
Martin Gropius Bau – Werkbund Archiv / Museum der Dinge, Berlin 2001 (Catalog) (D)
Sense of Space – Noorderlicht Photofestival, Groningen 2001 (Catalog) (NE)
Homage – Galerie Nina Beskow, Paris Photo 2000 (F)
Kaltes Tor Commission for EXPO 2000, Hanover (D)

 

Collections

Museums :
Neue National Galerie / Hamburger Bahnhof Berlin (SMPK), Germany
Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland Bonn, Germany
MuCEM – Museé National des Civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée Marseille, France
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Liège, Belgium
Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany
Museum DKM, Duisburg, Germany
Karl Ernst Osthaus-Museum Hagen, Germany
Kunst und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland Bonn, Germany

Corporate and private collections
Allianz Immobilien GmbH, Stuttgart
Ahorn Grieneisen AG, Berlin
Artprice.com – Collection Thierry Ehrman, Lyon
Benoit Herault (Clos du Léthé), St. Mediers
Château Palmer Collection, Margaux
Christian Langlois-Meurinne, Paris
DKV AG, Berlin
and Cologne
Decaux Collection, Paris
Nicolas Ferretjans, Zürich
François Laffanour, Paris
Christian Langlois-Meurinne, Paris
Françoise Louis, Liège

SheltonMindel Collection, New York
Guy Porré, Bruxelles
Claude Serra, Paris
Shinsegae Corporation Collection, Seoul
Vanessa Suchar-Marcus, San Francisco
Yumiko Seki, Paris
Société Financière St. James, Paris
Pierre Thonon, Liège
Eduard Viollier AG, Basel

Public Comissions
Seven Stones (Zen Garden with YoshiyukiKakaedo). EXPO 2000 Hanover, Germany
Chiffre (Relief). Hospice Hamburg, Germany 1998
L’amour blessé. Memorial at St. Peter”s Kirchhof, Frankfurt am Main, Germany 1994

Names and Stones started at Documenta IX in Kassel, Germany in 1992 in collaboration with the German AIDS-Foundation. Over the next
Permanent installations in 27 cities across Europe 1992-2012.
NAMES and STONES
years it developed into a pan-European epitaph comprised of sculptural installations in major museums and public places across 40 cities. The work includes a pendant body of 1000+ works on paper, entitled Milk Skins (Milchhäute). A photographic record unifies this geographically complex memorial, it still maintains an active role in contemporary memorial culture across Europe.
The entire project was documented and published in three successive editions: Ulrich Heide / Dietmar Kamper (ed.): Tom Fecht, NAMEN und STEINE – Mémoire Nomade
(Köln 1993, Bonn 1998, Springer Verlag Wien New York, 2001) 
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