Anna and Bernhard Blume

They created sequences of large black-and-white photos of staged scenes in which they appeared themselves, with objects taking on a "life" of their own.

That included designing the sets and costumes, developing the negatives, and producing enlargements; at each stage the artwork was refined, polished and painted.

Anna said: "Wir malen mit der Kamera, und diese malerische Arbeit findet auch noch im Labor statt."

Taking pictures of a "flying, crashing, and swirling world", the artists used safety features such as ropes, nets and mattresses.

[16] In 1989 MoMA in New York presented their works in a solo show, including Küchenkoller (Kitchen Frenzy, 1986), Opposites D (1989) and Demonstrative Identification with the universe (1971).

They treated the genre of the artist's self-portrait to a transformation, distorting their faces with trivial objects such as coat hangers and household utensils, in order to "put to rest the myth of the portrait and the autonomy of the subject it seeks to convey.

According to the museum, the works provide "an overview of the ironical and philosophical strategy of this artistic team" and show "intensive dedication to a continuous process of self-experimentation", with the Blumes having "performed groundwork on the nature of German existence" by investigating "'home sweet home' for every conceivable form of misery" rather than entering the wider world.

[23] He also spoke on 21 April 2016 at an exhibition Transcendental Constructivism of both artists at the Kolumba in Cologne, which showed their work in several rooms and ran from 2015 to 2016.