His education at UCLA was definitely relaxed and personal, almost un-academic, says Florian Maier-Aichen. With a DAAD scholarship in hand, he went to California in 1999 to study art and photography. “UCLA is known for casual education. There wasn’t so much theoretical teaching; instead there was more discussion of the actual work.” When he was asked whether he would like to stay and do his Master of Fine Arts degree, Maier-Aichen didn’t hesitate. He had studied art at the University of Essen, but hadn’t been happy there. “Back then there was a small course in art photography, but an exchange with other disciplines was generally lacking. You were stuck in the field of applied arts: product photography, graphic design and advertising.”

The decision to go to Los Angeles was also a conscious reaction to the predominant style of photography in Germany. “I wanted to break out of German photography with its diffuse light and its inflexibility. If I had stayed in Germany, I’m sure I would have been lost,” he says today.

Thus it was the Americans who discovered the artist. Two of the most important young American galleries, 303 Gallery and Blum & Poe, devoted one-man shows to Maier-Aichen — as did the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles. Maier-Aichen’s pictures have also been shown at the 2006 Whitney Biennial in the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and at the Baronian-Francey gallery in Brussels. The young artist is currently working on a new exhibition to open in June at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum of Art in Madrid as part of the PHotoEspaña Festival.

Maier-Aichen shoots very little, but “all over the place,” as he puts it. “I photograph only on film, 4×5 or 8×10 inch, because I greatly appreciate the texture of film and the conventions of photography.” He then scans the photos and edits them on the computer. “I think of a subject, make a few test photos and drawings, and then I take the actual photograph.” After scanning, he takes a great deal of time perfecting the photograph on the computer. Maier-Aichen calls himself a slow worker: “It can take me months to intensify the works. When I’m done, I print them on conventional photo paper again.”