Helmut Middendorf was born in 1953 in Dinklage (Lower Saxony). From 1973 to 1979 he studied painting at the University of Arts, West Berlin, and was a master student under K. H. Hödicke. In 1977 he co-founded the Galerie am Moritzplatz in West Berlin and numbered among the Neue Wilde. In 1979 Middendorf taught experimental film at the University of Arts, West Berlin, then spent a period in New York with a DAAD scholarship. Middendorf lives and works in Berlin and Athens.