Photograph, Ed. 1 von 5 / + 2 AP, Städtische Sammlung Erlangen
In Michael Ullrich's photography, the urge to put (oneself) in the limelight is made photographically productive by all those involved - and is thus a fundamental theme in the pictures. Not in the sense of narcissism or exhibitionism. Rather as an equivalent for the possible modes of behavior and “role plays” that we all perform and enact every day in our relational and thus flexibly defined individuality. In this respect, Michael Ullrich's stagings and self-stagings do not come into conflict with any expectations of authenticity, which have long characterized portrait photography in particular. At the moment when absolute authenticity has been exposed as a construct and has become fragile as an ideologem, there is no reason to hold on to it as a guiding constant in photography anyway. Especially since, as we have long known, something authentic can also (if not more emphatically) reveal itself in the posed. But it is less about authenticity here. The strength of Michel Ullrich's pictures derives from something else: from a decided subjectivity, from sovereignty and, above all, from connection.
Dr. Lars Blunck (excerpt from the text Michael Ullrich - a homo empathicus)
