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Studied (1973-79) at the Berlin Art Academy. At the suggestion of his teacher, Karl Horst Hödicke, the doyen of Berlin Neo-Expressionists, Middendorf switched in the late 1970s to working in a pointedly representational, painterly style. He is numbered among the ranks of the 'Young Wild Ones' who propagate 'vehement painting'. Middendorf varies themes chosen from his immediate environment and personal experience In 1977 Middendorf and other pupils of Hödicke's founded the legendary 'Galerie am Moritzplatz' in Berlin-Kreuzberg, which showed films, photos and performances as well as painting, drawing and objects. Since 1979 Middendorf has been instructing experimental film at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin, a medium which he was even working in while he was a student, laying the groundwork for a parallel career. However, what made the artist famous overnight was a group-show of 'Vehement Painting' mounted in the early 1980s at the Berliner Haus am Waldsee, where work of his was shown together with work done by Rainer Fetting, Salomé and Bernd Zimmer. That same year he received a study grant from DAAD and went to New York. .As reflections on his life, the late 1980s 'Black Pictures' signalize a new departure.

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