Born in Munich, Germany
1971 – 1972 North Toronto Collegiate Institute, Toronto, Canada
1972 - 1973 UC Berkeley, CA
1973 - 1976 Studied photography and visual communications at the University of Essen, Germany, with Otto Steinert; Degree in Visual Communication
Exhibitions
2010
“Architecture of Density”, Venice Biennale of Artchitecture, Venice, Italy
“Architecture of Density”, m97 Gallery at ART HK 2010, Hong Kong
“Paris Street VIews”, Foam Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2009
“Transparent City”, Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago, IL, USA
“Entropya/Art in Progress", Gallery, Naples, Italy
Gallery 51, Antwerp, Belgium
Elipsis Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey
Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2008
“Transparent City”, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL, USA
“Butterfly Dream: Shanghai MoCA Envisage II,” MoCA, Shanghai, China
"Translocalmotion: Shanghai Biennale", Shanghai Art Museum. Shanghai, China
“China Design Now: The Real Toy Story", Liberty Storefronts, London, England
“China Design Now”, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England
"AIPAD Photography Show", The Armory, New York, NY, USA
"ArtChicago Photography Show", Chicago, IL, USA
"Hong Kong Back Door", Lumenvisum Gallery, Hong Kong
“The Real Toy Story and Architecture of Density: China Design Now”, London, England
“Eastern Standard: Western Artists in China", MassMoCA, MA, USA
“Heritage: Hong Kong Corner Houses”, Goethe Institute, Hong Kong
“Real Fake Pictures and Architecture of Density”, Gallerie Wouter van Leeuwen, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2008-2007
“Pieces of China: A Retrospective of Michael Wolf’s China Projects”, Museum Center Vapriikki, Tampere, Finland
2007
“China Projects: The Real Toy Story, China Copy Art, 100x100”, m97 Gallery, Shanghai
“Fake. Portraits of Chinese Copy Art”, Goethe Institute, Hong Kong
“Hong Kong Industrial”, Ursula Huber Gallery, Basel, Switzerland
生于德國慕尼黑
1971 – 1972 加拿大 North Toronto Collegiate Institute, Toronto
1972 - 1973 美国 UC Berkeley, CA
1973 - 1976 德国 Studied photography and visual communications at the University of Essen with Otto Steinert; Degree in Visual Communication
展览
2010
《城市密度》, 威尼斯建筑双年展，威尼斯，意大利
《城市密度》, m97画廊，香港2010艺术节，香港
《Paris Street Views》, Foam Museum, 阿姆斯特丹, 荷兰
2009
《透明的城市》 展览
Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago, IL, 美国
《Entropya/Art in Progress》, Gallery, Naples, 意大利
Gallery 51, Antwerp, 比利时
Elipsis Gallery, Istanbul, 土耳其
Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen, Amsterdam, 荷兰
2007
《香港产业》, Ursula Huber Gallery, Basel, 瑞士
《中国项目: 真实的玩具总动员, 中国拷贝艺术, 100x100》, m97 画廊, 上海
Chicago, like many urban centers throughout the world, has recently undergone a surge in new construction, grafting a new layer of architectural experimentation onto those of past eras. In early 2007, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College Chicago, in collaboration with the U.S. Equities Realty artist-in-residence program, invited Michael Wolf to photograph the Chicago cityscape. Bringing his unique perspective on changing urban environments to a city renowned for its architectural legacy, Wolf chose to photograph the central downtown area, focusing specifically on issues of voyeurism and the contemporary urban landscape in flux.
This is Wolf’s first body of work to address an American city. Whereas prior series have juxtaposed humanizing details within the surrounding geometry of the urban landscape, in The Transparent City, his details are fragments of life—digitally distorted and hyper-enlarged—snatched surreptitiously via telephoto lenses: Edward Hopper meets Blade Runner. The material resonates with all the formalism of the constructed, architectonic work for which Wolf is well-known, but also emphasizes the conceptual underpinnings of his ongoing engagement with the idea of how modern life unfolds within the framework of the ever-growing contemporary city.
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"What I found, actually, is how boring everyday life is. When I thought about it, one of the fantasies that I had was that I would get up onto these rooftops every night—for four or five or six hours—and I would look into hundreds of windows, and I would see all these thrilling things going on. But, ultimately, all I saw was either people sitting and reading or people sitting in front of a computer. In the condominiums, it was people sitting in front of big flat-screen TVs eating dinner—and there were a lot of people alone.
It was like an Edward Hopper painting. In fact, I was greatly influenced by Hopper, taking these photographs—even walking along the streets at night and looking into restaurants. It was almost a cliché. You’d see these Nighthawks-like scenes at eleven at night—two people sitting at a table discussing things or a waiter wiping a table—and so Hopper’s paintings were in my mind while taking these. But it was a little sad to see, night after night, in all these buildings, that it was really just single people between the ages of twenty-five and forty, tired after work, sitting on the sofa watching TV. I was a bit disillusioned. I thought it would be more exciting than that."
-Michael Wolf
