Science has always played a crucial role in advancing medical treatment, and nowhere is this more relevant than at Sartorius, a leading German technology company for laboratories and the biopharmaceutical industry whose self-declared mission is no less than to "empower scientists and engineers to simplify and accelerate progress in life science and bioprocessing, enabling the development of new and better therapies and more affordable medicine." Yet how to share such a complex vision with the world in accessible terms? The answer lies in Process - People - Product, three photobooks and a text booklet that form a dynamic portrait of the company and lead us behind its normally closed doors.
In "Process" Timm Rautert takes us directly into Sartorius' laboratories and production facilities, depicting what he calls an "architecture of process" and conveying the sense of wonder it creates. "People" is Juergen Teller's candid look at the creative personalities that drive the company, though his fascination goes far beyond any standard portrait: "I was keen to photograph everything: the building, the flowers, the donkey, life around the lunchtime ice-cream parlor, the high-tech machines." Finally, Henry Leutwyler brings a selection of machines from Sartorius' rich archive to life, from an imperial patent of 1890 to today's most advanced circuit boards, microbalances and bioreactors. The result is an intricate publication that not only celebrates a groundbreaking organization but reminds us of the vital relationship between science and technology.
Author Biography:
Born 1941 in Tuchel, West Prussia, in 1941, Timm Rautert studied photography with Otto Steinert at the Folkwang School of Design in Essen in the 1960s. Starting in the 1970s, he mainly concentrated on photojournalism and documentary work, and in 1993 was appointed professor of photography at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig, where he taught until 2008. In the same year, he was the first photographer to receive the Lovis Corinth Prize. His books with Steidl include When We Don't See You, You Don't See Us Either (2007), No Photographing (2011), Josef Sudek, Prague 1967 (2016), Vintage (2017), Germans in Uniform (2018), Anfang/Beginnings (2019) and Bildanalytische Photographie / Image-Analytical Photography, 1968-1974 (2020).
Born in 1961 in Switzerland, Henry Leutwyler moved to Paris in 1985 and established himself there as an editorial photographer. In 1995 he moved to New York City where he lives and works today. Leutwyler's photos have been published in the New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, Vanity Fair and The Wall Street Journal, among others. His books with Steidl are Neverland Lost: A Portrait of Michael Jackson (2010), Ballet. Photographs of the New York City Ballet (2012), Document (2016), Hi there! (2020) and the upcoming Philippe Halsman. A Photographer's Life.
Juergen Teller, born in Erlangen, Germany, in 1964, studied at the Bayerische Staatslehranstalt für Photographie in Munich. His work has been published in influential magazines such as Vogue, System, i-D, POP and Arena Homme+, and has been the subject of solo exhibitions including those at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Paris and Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin. Teller won the prestigious Citibank Photography Prize in 2003, and from 2014 to 2019 held a professorship at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste Nürnberg. His books with Steidl include Louis XV (2005), Marc Jacobs Advertising, 1998-2009 (2009), Siegerflieger (2015), The Master IV (2019), Handbags (2019), Leben und Tod (2020) and William Eggleston 414 (2020).
Born in 1981, Sibylle Anderl completed a double degree in physics and philosophy in Berlin, in preparation for her astrophysics doctorate in Bonn exploring interstellar shock waves. Until the end of 2016 Anderl was based in Grenoble, researching questions of star formation, and the philosophy of science and specifically astrophysics. Since 2017 she has worked as a science editor in the literature and arts section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Hanser Verlag published Anderl's popular science book Das Universum und ich: Die Philosophie der Astrophysik (The Universe and Me: The Philosophy of Astrophysics) in 2017, and in 2019 she was awarded the Roelin-Preis for Science Journalism.
