Götz Diergarten’s interest in glass—employing it as a semi-transparent filter and a design element—emerged during a project by Wilhelm Opatz and the Deutscher Werkbund, in which Diergarten photographed ecclesiastical architecture in Frankfurt. Through this work, he discovered the aesthetic diversity of glass—be it fluted, ornamental, wired, or glass blocks—and its unique ability to refract light and transform reality in abstract ways. Later, still in Frankfurt, he encountered similar structural elements in the residential estates of Das Neue Frankfurt, developed under Ernst May’s direction during the 1920s.

The resulting photographs hover at the boundary between the concrete and the abstract. Depending on the angle of view, the quality of light, and the background, amorphous color fields emerge, placing familiar motifs in a new context, while streets, trees, or architectural details recede into the background. Diergarten’s window images evoke digital effects such as grids, pixels, or distortions, creating a dialogue between contemporary visual language and traditional photography.

Götz Diergarten (1972) studied Fine Arts and Artistic Photography from 1993 to 1998 at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under Professor Bernd Becher, as well as at the Zurich University of the Arts. Since the publication of his first book, Ravenoville (2001), his ‘photo-paintings’ have been exhibited internationally in numerous museums, galleries, and major art fairs. A member of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie (DGPh) and the Werkbund Hessen, Diergarten is also the chairman and a founding member of the international photographers’ network Piece of Cake. He has taught at various art schools, at the shift school of photography, and in China. Götz Diergarten lives and works in Frankfurt am Main and Volxheim.