Nicolas Reinhart

From the project 'Failed Film' by Nicolas Reinhart

Biography

Instagram:  @nicolasreinh.art

Website: www.nicolasreinh.art

Nicolas Reinhart (*1991) is a visual artist based in Germany. Engaging with photographic methods lies at the center of his artistic practice. His work has been awarded internationally, he is a winner of the competition "reStart '22" by the Lithuanian Photographers Association, received an Honorable Mention at the Vintage Photo Festival, was shortlisted for the international BarTur Photo Student Award 2022 and the 2023 Felix Schoeller Photo Award in the category "Best Work by an Emerging Photographer" and was named one of the New Talents 2022 by the Photographic Exploration Project. His work has been shown internationally in group and solo shows in Belgium. Germany, Sweden, Poland, Lithuania.

The project

"›Filmfehler‹ (›Failed Film‹) is an ongoing artistic research project centered around a collection of photographic failure from the archive of the former film factory in Wolfen, Germany. Starting in the early 20th century, film and photographic materials were produced in Wolfen under the label agfa, later orwo, until the factory stopped the production after the collapse of the GDR in the 1990s. During its operation, supervisors at the factories kept a collection of mistakes and failures that were made during the production cycle. Official documents suggest that this material was collected to prevent making the same mistakes in the future, while handwritten notes by technicians foreshadow a fascination with the poetic quality of these mistakes. Parts of this collection remain in the archive of the former film factory, hitherto unseen.

›Filmfehler‹ (›Failed Film‹) is centered around fundamental questions about photographic failure, archives and their function and use in contemporary art practice. A core interest of the project is the examination of Wolfen’s “failed film” in regard to its visual potential. Using actual film material from the archive, the artist creates analog chromogenic and silver gelatin prints as physical interpretations of these mistakes."