Exhibition dates: 18th February – 8th May, 2022
Curator: Carmen Perrotta
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
View of Portal de l’Àngel
1902
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
At the moment I’m still recovering from my appendicitis operation… slowly, slowly.
While Adolf Mas is certainly not in the league of the great Eugène Atget in terms of his importance to the history of art photography1, nor are his photographs of Barcelona to the standard of the latter’s “records of a rare and subtle perception” – vis a vis Atget’s subtle placement of the camera and his visionary, almost hallucinatory, renditions of Old Paris – the documentary photographs by Mas of the old and new city have a certain, stimulating, viscerality to them (a quality of being related to the physical as opposed to the virtual or imaginary world or reality).
Unlike Atget’s photographs of a deserted Paris, it is wonderful to see Mas’ early photographs of Barcelona grounded in the people who lived in the city: playing games, watching entertainment, waiting for a train and, in groups (mainly children), watching the performance of the photographer with unabashed inquisitiveness. Mas’ city photographs are more reminiscent of the photographs of an earlier era (notably those of the Danish-American social documentary photographer Jacob Riis and those taken by the photographers of the Society for Photographing Relics of Old London directed by Alfred Marks) than those of Atget. They are direct and frontal but still possess a delightful “atmosphere”. Just look at the light in Carrer del Sant Crist de l’Argenteria des del carrer Argenteria (before 1911, below) and Pati de la casa núm. 25 del carrer dels Mercaders (before 1911, below) and tell me this man didn’t know his business.
Just as impressive are Mas’ staged mise-en-scène group portraits such as Ramon Casas painting Júlia and Flora Peraire in the presence of Adolf Mas (1912, below) and Lactation House (1903, below). The formal arrangement of figures is like a piece of music as it rises and falls: chairs to people to easels to screens or, the curve of the adult figures as they spiral in towards the baby on the weighing apparatus. The men have an almost idealistic, Rembrandt-esque feel to them, such as the figures in The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (1632) … surrounded by Baroque chairs, cupboards of instruments and the mechanics of medicine. And the light, the light!
If ever there were such a thing, I wonder whether Mas died at the right time (1936). Although I don’t know his political values any artist who produces an extraordinary record of the intellectual and artistic circles of his time would surely have been dismayed, had he lived, at the outcome of the Spanish Civil War, with the “long Spanish postwar recovery during the 1940s and 1950s creating a cultural wasteland within the destroyed, hungry and isolated Spain, exacerbated by repression, the ‘purification’ of the educational system and cultural institutions, the purges of books, and widespread censorship. Compared with the preceding period, called the Silver Age (la Edad de Plata), shows one of the clearest contrasts in the cultural history of Spain.”2
It’s such a pity, with 100,000 negatives to play with, that there aren’t other photographs available to publish online. I would have liked to have seen more of this artist’s work.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
- Atget’s documentary vision proved highly influential, first on the Surrealists, in the 1920s, who found his pictures of deserted streets and stairways, street life, and shop windows beguiling and richly suggestive (these were published in La Révolution surréaliste in 1926, with a fourth, of a crowd gathered to watch an eclipse, on the cover); and then on two generations of American photographers, from Walker Evans to Lee Friedlander … In 1931, four years after Atget’s death, the American photographer Ansel Adams wrote, “The Atget prints are direct and emotionally clean records of a rare and subtle perception, and represent perhaps the earliest expression of true photographic art.”
Ansel Adams, in The Fortnightly (San Francisco) 1, no. 5 (Nov. 5, 1931), 25 quoted in Natalie Dupêcher. “Eugène Atget,” on the MoMA website 2017 [Online] Cited 23/04/2022.
- “Art and culture in Francoist Spain,” on the Wikipedia website [Online] Cited 23/04/2022
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Many thankx to Fundación MAPFRE for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Born in Solsona (Lérida) on September 28, 1860, Adolf Mas moved to Barcelona shortly before 1890. He left his hometown and a job as a solicitor for an uncertain future in the big city and initially made a niche for himself in the textile industry. A few years later he frequented the local Els Quatre Gats, where he established relationships with intellectuals and artists of the time. After his training as a photographer, in 1901 he founded his first establishment selling photographic material, which would become, a few years later, the “Estudio de Fotografía A. Mas”, the predecessor of “Archivo Mas”.
Mas established himself as the photographer of reference for architects such as Josep Puig i Cadafalch, who hired him to photograph their buildings as an inventory. The author produced a wide range of reports, most notably images of the Sagrada Familia.
A pioneer of photojournalism in Catalonia at the beginning of the 20th century, his commissioned portraits for illustrated magazines are an extraordinary record of the intellectual circles of the time. From 1910 onwards, his production focused on recording artistic and monumental heritage, especially after being commissioned to compile an iconographic catalogue of Spain in 1915. His work therefore focused on the administration of a powerful archival structure for public consultation which, in 1936, the year of his death, contained approximately 100,000 negatives.
Text from the Fundación MAPFRE website
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
The “Xiquets de Valls”
June 29th 1907
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
Games. Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes
1906
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Arxiu Mas (Mas Archive)
Neighbourhood of La Barceloneta
1916
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
In collaboration with the Mas Archive of the Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic, Fundacion MAPFRE presents Adolf Mas: The Eyes of Barcelona, a journey through the work of this Catalan photographer, recognised for his major contribution to the field of heritage photography, and a figure of paramount importance for understanding the social transformation of Barcelona during the early 20th century.
Born in Solsona (Lleida) on September 28, 1860, Adolf Mas moved to Barcelona prior to 1890. He left his hometown and his work as a solicitor for an uncertain future in the Condal city, initially making his way in the textile industry. A few years later, he became a regular at the Els Quatre Gats café where he established contacts with the intellectuals and artists of the day. In 1901, after training as a photographer, he founded his first business selling photographic materials, a business that years later would become the “Estudi de Fotografía A. Mas” (the A. Mas Studio of Photography), the predecessor of the “Mas Archive.”
Mas became the main photographer for architects such as Josep Puig i Cadafalch, who commissioned him to photograph his buildings, as if he were compiling an inventory. He also produced a repertoire of other images, of which those of the Sagrada Familia stand out.
A pioneer of photojournalism in Catalonia, he documented a wide range of cultural and current events, as well as the new infrastructures and healthcare initiatives that were flourishing in Barcelona in the early 20th century. His commissioned portraits produced for illustrated magazines are an extraordinary testimony of the intellectual circles of the time.
From 1910 his production was centred on compiling a registry of artistic and monumental heritage, and in 1915 he received a commission to produce an iconographic repertoire of Spain. From this time on his work would focus on the administration of an impressive archival resource which was intended for public consultation; by 1936, the year of his death, it consisted of approximately 100,000 negatives.
“The photographs by Adolf Mas portray Barcelona in the midst of a socio-cultural, artistic, political, and urban transformation. The graphic narrative constructed by the photographer allows us to explore a reality that was rapidly changing, and understanding his photographic legacy is fundamental for the correct interpretation of the dynamics linked to early 20th-century Barcelona.
Adolf Mas is mainly known for the creation and consolidation of the renowned Mas Archive and for being one of the first heritage photographers in Catalonia. However, he is also a more complex photographer. His beginnings as a photojournalist ran in parallel with something akin to artistic photography, which became apparent in his portraits. These were not traditional, and brought his work closer to the artistic circles of the time. Although Mas’s production cannot be included in the movement known as pictorialism, it undoubtedly goes beyond what was being done in other contemporary photographic studios, and it is an aspect of his work that this exhibition highlights.
Over the years, many national and international exhibitions covering a wide range of topics have included works by Adolf Mas and other photographers. However, Adolf Mas. The Eyes of Barcelona is a monographic project that aims to present him in the round, as a photographer and as manager of one of the most important photographic archives in Spain.”
Adolf Mas: The Eyes of Barcelona offers a broad overview of the work of this key figure in Catalan Noucentista photography through 200 photographs and a wide range of documentary material that are divided into four thematic sections and address the main aspects of his career.
The core of the show includes the author’s photographic production centring on the city of Barcelona. Adolf Mas captured the architectural, social and cultural changes in the city through images that combine aspects of documentary recording with the aesthetic concerns of contemporary European artistic movements. Barcelona was a city of contrasts, ranging from the slums on the periphery to the mansions of the Eixample district; and from the luxurious cafés frequented by the bourgeoisie to the shanty towns built by panhandlers in the Barceloneta area.
The exhibition ends with a section dedicated to the campaigns on heritage indexing undertaken by Adolf Mas and the articulation of what has been recognised as the most important photographic archive on Spanish heritage in Europe: the Mas Archive.
Works by artists such as Ramon Casas, Alexandre de Riquer, and Eusebi Arnau produced in the context of Adolf Mas’s photographic studio business will be on display along with the author’s photographs.
The exhibition is part of the program Fundación MAPFRE has established at KBr Barcelona Photo Center in collaboration with Catalan institutions dedicated to preserving Catalonia’s rich photographic heritage. On this occasion, the exhibition has been organised in collaboration with Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic. It has been supported by the Diputació de Barcelona. Arxiu General; the Biblioteca Nacional de Catalunya in Barcelona; the Arxiu Històric de la Ciutat de Barcelona; the Arxiu Fotogràfic de Barcelona, Barcelona City Hall; the MAE-Theater Institute; and the private collection of the Pasans Bertolin Family, who have all generously loaned their works.
Adolf Mas: The Eyes of Barcelona brings together the extraordinary visual landscape and collective memory of early 20th-century Barcelona as seen through the eyes of Adolf Mas, one of the key figures in the history of modern photography in Spain.
Press release from Fundación MAPFRE
Pau Audouard Deglaire (Spanish, 1857-1918)
Adolf Mas touching up an image
c. 1909
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Pau Audouard (1857-1918) was a photographer active in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain at the end of the 19th century.
Adouard was born in Havana, Cuba. He moved with his family to Barcelona in 1879, where he opened a studio. He became one of the most important photographers in Spain in the late 19th century, winning two gold medals for his work from the Real Sociedad Económica Aragonesa in 1886. Two years later, he was appointed official photographer of the 1888 Barcelona World’s Fair. Adouard was a member of the French Société française de photographie from 1879 to 1894. From 1905 to 1915, he lived and worked in the Casa Lleó Morera, built by architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner.
Text from the Wikipedia website
Pau Audouard Deglaire (Spanish, 1857-1918)
Adolf Mas touching up an image (detail)
c. 1909
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
Carrer d’Aragó Station
c. 1903
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
Carrer d’Aragó Station (detail)
c. 1903
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
Interior of a Tower in the Sagrada Familia
1905
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
Sagrada Familia
1927
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Arxiu Mas (Mas Archive)
Barcelona at Night (Passeig de Gràcia)
1917
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
Carrer de les Donzelles (Street of the Maidens)
c. 1908
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
Sunset at the Llobregat River
c. 1911
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
The exhibition Adolf Mas. Los ojos de Barcelona traces the work of this key figure in Catalan noucentista photography, through 200 photographs and diverse documentary material, divided into four thematic sections that deal with the central aspects of his career.
The central core of the exhibition features the photographs taken by the author in the context of Barcelona. Adolf Mas captures the architectural, social and cultural changes of the city in images that interweave a documentary record with the aesthetic lines of contemporary European artistic tendencies: a Barcelona of contrasts, stratified between the barraca shacks in the suburbs and the mansions of the Eixample, between the luxurious cafés in the centre for the pleasure of the bourgeoisie and the shantytowns built by beggars in Barceloneta.
The exhibition is part of the program that Fundación MAPFRE has initiated in Barcelona in collaboration with Catalan institutions that house a rich photographic heritage. On this occasion, the exhibition has been organised in collaboration with the Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic. We have also benefited from the generosity of the Diputació de Barcelona. Arxiu General; Biblioteca de Catalunya. Barcelona; the Arxiu Històric de la Ciutat de Barcelona; the Arxiu Fotogràfic de Barcelona. Barcelona City Hall; the MAE-Institut del Teatre; and the Familia Pasans Bertolin private collection, who have altruistically lent their works.
Four key features
Archivo Mas
Created by Adolf Mas in 1900 for the purpose of inventorying the iconographic catalog of Catalonia and, subsequently, the whole of Spain, this is the most important photographic archive in Europe on Spanish heritage. A monumental work developed over more than thirty years in which an avant-garde idea, conceived originally for commercial purposes, materialised without losing sight of the importance of documenting and disseminating a shared cultural heritage. After the Spanish Civil War, the Archivo Mas was acquired by Teresa Amatller in 1941, and is now part of the holdings of the Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic.
Els Quatre Gats
On June 12, 1897, Els Quatre Gats, designed by a young Josep Puig i Cadafalch, opened its doors on the first floor of the Casa Martí on Carrer Montsió in Barcelona. A famous café that was modelled after Le Chat Noir in Paris, as intended by its founders: Ramon Casas, Pere Romeu, Santiago Rusiñol and Miquel Utrillo. Over the six year period that it was active, the celebrated café was a landmark in Catalan modernism. A catalyst of ideas and trends in Barcelona’s artistic and intellectual scene, the place was frequented by figures such as Antoni Gaudí, Isidre Nonell and Pablo Picasso. Adolf Mas documented its interior from 1900 onwards and forged important links with the artists associated with the establishment, in particular with Ramon Casas, whose friendship would continue over the years.
Artistic competition on old Barcelona
In 1908, the construction of the future Via Laietana, foreseen by the great urban reform implemented by the “Pla Cerdà” plan, led to the demolition of a densely populated area in Barcelona’s old town. The city council, at the request of the Barcelona artists’ union, organised a competition to document the architectural heritage destined to be torn down. The initiative was very successful and 38 series of drawings and photographs were submitted. Adolf Mas was one of the most decorated artists. His images, reminiscent of Eugène Atget’s photographs of Old Paris, show the presence of people who humanise the architectural vistas, in a clear attempt to dignify the history of those buildings, as well as their inhabitants, in the face of their imminent disappearance.
Photographs of spectacle
Within the framework of his activity as a portraitist, Mas developed a range of works specifically linked to the show business sector. Examples of this activity include the reports made between 1914 and 1915 dedicated to two iconic figures of the time: the dancer Tórtola Valencia (1882-1955) and the soprano María Barrientos (1884-1946). The spectacular nature of the images in these series, in which technical execution and the charisma of the artists themselves are undoubtedly fundamental, is highlighted by a striking chromaticism that references an interest in the exotic.
Text from Fundación MAPFRE
Estudi de Fotografia A. Mas
Ramon Casas painting Júlia and Flora Peraire in the presence of Adolf Mas
1912
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Ramon Casas i Carbó (Catalan pronunciation: [rəˈmoŋ ˈkazəs]; 4 January 1866 – 29 February 1932) was a Catalan artist. Living through a turbulent time in the history of his native Barcelona, he was known as a portraitist, sketching and painting the intellectual, economic, and political elite of Barcelona, Paris, Madrid, and beyond. He was also known for his paintings of crowd scenes ranging from the audience at a bullfight to the assembly for an execution to rioters in the Barcelona streets (El garrot). Also a graphic designer, his posters and postcards helped to define the Catalan art movement known as modernisme.
Text from the Wikipedia website
Estudi de Fotografia A. Mas
Ramon Casas painting Júlia and Flora Peraire in the presence of Adolf Mas (detail)
1912
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
Lactation House
1903
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
Lactation House (detail)
1903
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
Nuns and children from the Sanatori Marítim de Sant Josep in the neighbourhood of La Barceloneta
1913
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
Nuns and children from the Sanatori Marítim de Sant Josep in the neighbourhood of La Barceloneta (detail)
1913
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
Relining of “La Batalla de Tetuan” by Marià Fortuny in one of the halls of the Diputació Provicial
1914
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Marià Josep Maria Bernat Fortuny i Marsal (Catalan pronunciation: [məɾiˈa ʒuˈzɛb məˈɾi.ə βəɾˈnat fuɾˈtuɲ i məɾˈsal]; Spanish: Mariano José María Bernardo Fortuny y Marsal; June 11, 1838 – November 21, 1874), known more simply as Marià Fortuny or Mariano Fortuny, was the leading Spanish painter of his day, with an international reputation. His brief career encompassed works on a variety of subjects common in the art of the period, including the Romantic fascination with Orientalist themes, historicist genre painting, military painting of Spanish colonial expansion, as well as a prescient loosening of brush-stroke and colour. …
Legacy
Fortuny paintings are colorful, with a vivacious iridescent brushstroke that at times recalls the softness of Rococo painting but also anticipates impressionist brushwork. Richard Muther states:
his marvellously sensitive eye … discerned the stalls of Moorish carpet-sellers, with little figures swarming, and the rich display of woven stuffs of the East; the weary attitude of old Arabs sitting in the sun; the sombre, brooding faces of strange snake-charmers and magicians. This is no Parisian East… every one here speaks Arabic.
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Fortuny often painted scenes where contemporary life had still not shaken off the epaulets and decorations of ancient traditions such as the “Burial of a matador” and couples signing marriage contracts (La Vicaria). Each has the dazzle of bric-a-brac ornament, but as in his painting of the Judgement of the Model, that painterly decorative air of Rococo and Romanticism was fading into academicism and left to confront the naked reality of the represented object. He inherited Goya’s eye for the paradox of ceremony and reality.
Text from the Wikipedia website
Marià Fortuny Marsal (Spanish, 1838–1874)
La Batalla de Tetuan
Between 1862 and 1864
Oil on canvas
300cm (118.1 in) x 972cm (10.6 yd)
Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
Relining of “La Batalla de Tetuan” by Marià Fortuny in one of the halls of the Diputació Provicial (detail)
1914
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Arxiu Mas (Mas Archive)
Work Room and Library at the Mas Archive
1927
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Adolf Mas: The Eyes of Barcelona
When ADOLF MAS GINESTÀ (1860-1936) – solicitor by obligation and photographer by vocation – journeyed through the streets of Barcelona in around 1900, the city’s walls had already disappeared decades ago and its urban layout was being enriched by the effervescence of Modernism. The city was changing and the people of Barcelona were witnessing the establishment of new social infrastructures.
At that time, camera in hand, Mas captured in his photographs a profound and simultaneously dynamic vision of a city that had just shed its provincial reputation. His eyes became a vehicle through which to approach this new reality. The illustrated press found its way into people’s homes, and so did the photographer’s reportages. His photographs provided insight into a new urban, social, and institutional reality by portraying current and public events, as well as the city’s new infrastructures. The paths he traced between the broad arteries of the Eixample district and the narrow alleys of the city’s old quarter – sometimes awaiting their imminent demolition – configured a collective memory of early 20th century Barcelona.
But Mas’s photographic work went beyond urban reportage. The relationships he established with important architects and art historians of the time led to his specialisation in the subject of heritage. In 1907 his participation in the mission set up by the Institut d’Estudis Catalans with the objective of documenting Pyrenean artistic heritage signified a turning point for his career and for his business; indeed his business would go on to become the main photographic archive in Europe specialising in Spanish heritage.
Carmen Perrotta, curator of the exhibition
Adolf Mas Ginestà was one of the key figures in the field of Catalan photography in the early 20th century. Born into a wealthy family from Solsona (Lleida), he renounced a stable job as a solicitor in order to move to Barcelona, the city where he trained as a photographer. He must have arrived in the city before 1890, because that year he married Apolonia Castañeda de Ortega (1866-1954), a young seamstress from Itero de la Vega (Palencia) with whom he had two children: Pelai (1891-1954) and Màrius (1896-1902).
Although evidence exists of his activity as a photographer during the last decade of the 19th century, it was not until the early 20th century that his first reportages were published in the press. In 1901, as the director of Helius, he combined his role as manager of the business with that of a photojournalist. From 1905 Helius, a newly renamed commercial enterprise, would become known as Etablissements “MASS” (also Estudi de Fotografia A. Mas, Estudio de Fotografia A. Mas and Photographic Studio A. Mas). In the decade of 1910 further restructuring of the business would lead to the consolidation of the Mas Archive as we know it today. In 1924 the business moved its commercial headquarters located on Carrer del Rosselló to Carrer de la Freneria, leaving the recently renovated Eixample district behind and taking over a space in the old quarter that had once belonged to two important figures in Catalan art nouveau, Alexandre de Riquer and Miquel Utrillo.
Mas’s ties to the cultural and artistic circles of the time were reflected in his photographic repertoires – which ranged from artists’ studios to portraits of the musicians, poets and intellectuals of the time – and also in the graphic and advertising materials produced for the business from its early beginnings as Helius until its final years as the Mas Archive. Ramon Casas, a friend of the photographer and a great exponent of Catalan art nouveau, was one of the renowned artists Mas commissioned to produce emblematic logos for the business.
The famous café Els Quatre Gats (1897-1903), located on the ground floor of Casa Martí on Carrer del Montsió and designed by Josep Puig I Cadafalch, was an important catalyst in Mas’s relationship with the artistic trends linked to Barcelona. A drawing by Ricard Opisso from 1900 is proof that Adolf Mas was a regular visitor at the café, possibly since it first opened. His familiarity with the cultural circles linked to the establishment undoubtedly allowed him to come into contact with the great figures of the time, such as Santiago Rusiñol and Ramon Casas. The reportages he produced in the company of the most important artists of his generation give a perspective on the interiors of the main studios operating at the time, from the studio of Lluís Masriera to that of Manuel Cano de Castro, and from the studio of Salvador Alarma to that of Félix Urgellés de Tovar.
The elite of early 20th century Catalan society – painters, architects, sculptors, musicians, dancers, singers, intellectuals, collectors and politicians, among others – posed in front of Mas’s camera at some point during their time in the limelight. These images were mostly unpublished portraits and allow an even more precise understanding of Mas’s position in contemporary artistic circles, while also revealing a previously unknown aspect – one that was far from the kind of documentary photography with which he is generally associated. Although he cannot be directly linked to pictorialism, his portraits were reminiscent of an aesthetic search and his use of formal devices such as blurring, contrasts in lighting, and the representation of introspective states of mind sets them apart from the structure of conventional portraiture; in this way they are similar to the artistic movement known as pictorialism which clearly influenced Mas. The interplay of light and shadow, and the use of extreme close-ups on the subjects’ faces, give the portraits a strength and intensity and in some cases a resemblance to phantasmagoric apparitions.
The first reportages by Adolf Mas were set in Barcelona, a city that from a social, cultural and urban planning perspective was undergoing a radical change. Assignments produced for illustrated magazines such as Los Deportes, Álbum Salón, Ilustració Catalana, Femina and Ilustración Artística, among others, led to the substantial growth of Mas’s photographic repository. His collaboration with the publishers Editorial López, at the time managed by Antoni López i Benturas, resulted in his reportages being circulated in the main journalistic outlets of the day. Mas began to make his way in photojournalism and was one of the first photojournalists of his generation in Catalonia.
Among his first repertoires are those of the main sporting events that took place in the early 20th century, such as the celebrations of the Spanish Gymnastics Federation (1900); the grand political events linked to the Liga Regionalista, among others; and a wide range of recreational events like the Fiesta de las Palomas, organised by the Real Sociedad Colombófila de Cataluña (1904), and the traditional Batalla de Flores (1907).
Mas also participated in the documentation of ambitious urban projects like the construction of Via Layetana, and took part in the Old Barcelona artistic competition (1908).
In 1909 his camera bore witness to the dramatic event of the Semana Trágica. In addition to his documentation of the destruction suffered by ecclesiastical heritage, there were other images related to a wide range of motifs such as his portrayal of the Compañía Barcelonesa de Electricidad, which he photographed after the building had been raided. Within the framework of his production, it is also important to note Mas’s documentation of the avant-garde infrastructures that were being implemented by a number of institutions at this time. These included social initiatives promoted by the Diputació de Barcelona and led to a turning point in welfare practices. Early 20th century Barcelona cannot be properly understood without the photographic repertoires of Adolf Mas: his wide-ranging body of work not only encompasses images of recreational, political, and religious events, but also documents Spain’s cultural heritage.
Perfumería Ideal and Bar Torino
Perfumería Ideal (established by Teodoro Sánchez Illá at number 642 Gran Vía de les Corts Catalanes) and bar Torino (founded at number 18 Passeig de Gràcia by Faminio Mezzalama, the representative of Martini & Rossi vermouth in Barcelona) [see photograph below] were the finalists of the first annual competition for urban buildings and businesses awarded by Barcelona City Hall in 1902, in the new category for best decorated business opened that year. Both were included in the Anuario estadístico de la ciudad de Barcelona (1903), which highlighted Perfumería Ideal’s “ostentatious richness […] boasting its grandiose construction and splendid decorations” while Bar Torino’s “flattering simplicity and its fine and aristocratic elegance […] surpass anything seen before.” Ultimately, the latter – which was the work of Ricard Capmany, Antoni Gaudí, Pere Falqués, Josep Puig I Cadafalch, Eusebi Arnau, and Ricard Urgell, among others – became the winner of the competition.
Photography and Press
Photography became fully integrated into the Spanish press from the 1890s, when the great illustrated magazines – such as Blanco y Negro, which stands out for its track record – began to appear. At the turn of the century, the growing demand for photographic repertoires by newspapers, magazines, and large editorial projects, which illustrated their pages with photographs, consolidated the profession of the photojournalist. It was during the first three decades of the century that Spanish photojournalism achieved a high degree of professionalism, and photographic techniques advanced considerably. Text and photography began to be regarded as an informative unicum and Noucentista reporters were faced with readers who were eager to consume eloquent and immediate images capable of relaying information while remaining clear and understandable. The binary relationship between press and photography allowed public figures to enter readers’ homes enabling their deferred participation in the most contemporary current affairs.
The legacy of Adolf Mas goes beyond his work as a photographer. In order to fully understand his oeuvre one must look at the photographic repository and business model he established, which was unlike any other at that time. The innovative nature of this enterprise, on which Mas spent nearly twenty years, was based on a hybrid formula offering both the sale of photographic materials and the possibility of consulting the collections on-site, following the model of a public archive. Anyone interested in consulting the photographic materials at the archives could do so in dedicated rooms by means of “graphic cards”. These were presented in the form of postcards printed directly onto photographic paper which showed an image of the subject on the front and provided basic information on the location and characteristics of the subject on the back. The system was unique in Europe and Mas took advantage of the 1925 VI Congrès International de Photographie in Paris to reveal it to an international audience.
At this point Mas’s business had already moved toward a specialisation in heritage photography. Its participation in the expedition organised by the Institut d’Estudis Catalans with the object of documenting Pyrenean heritage would be another turning point. In 1915 Adolf Mas was commissioned to compile an iconographic repertoire of Spain for what would become the 1929 Barcelona International Exhibition. The scope of the project led him to expand the number of staff photographers as his son Pelai, who had been officially working alongside his father since 1907, was no long able to cover all the business’s production requirements.
The success of the Mas Archive, which survives today as part of the repository at the Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic, must be understood as the result of the work of its founder Adolf Mas, his wife Apolonia, and their son Pelai. It is also important to highlight the work of archive staff, a team comprising apprentices, archivists, typists, photographers, officers and lab directors.
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
Bar Torino
1905
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
Bar Torino (detail)
1905
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
Montserrat Blanc
c. 1909
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
Palau de la Música Catalana
1908
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
Photograph for an automobile catalog. Barral Brothers Workshop
1909
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
María Barrientos. Opera “Carmen”
1915
© MAE-Institut del Teatre
María Alejandra Barrientos Llopis (4 March 1884 – 8 August 1946) was a Spanish opera singer, a light coloratura soprano.
Barrientos was born in Barcelona on 4 March 1884. She received a thorough musical education (piano and violin) at the Municipal Conservatory of Barcelona, before turning to vocal studies with Francisco Bonet. She made her debut at the Teatro Novedades in Barcelona, as Ines in L’Africaine, on March 10, 1898, aged only 15, quickly followed by the role of Marguerite de Valois in Les Huguenots.
She was immediately invited to all the major opera houses of Europe, singing in Italy, Germany, England, France, to great acclaim. It is however in South America, especially at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, that she enjoyed her greatest triumphs. Her career was temporarily interrupted in 1907 by her marriage and the birth of a son, the union did not prove a happy one and she returned to the stage in 1909.
Barrientos made her Metropolitan Opera debut on January 31, 1916, in the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor with Giovanni Martinelli as Edgardo, Pasquale Amato as Enrico, and Gaetano Bavagnoli conducting. She remained committed to that house through 1920 where her other roles included Adina in L’elisir d’amore, Amina in La sonnambula, Elvira in I puritani, Gilda in Rigoletto, Rosina in The Barber of Seville, and the title roles in Lakmé and Mireille. She notably portrayed The Queen of Shemakha in Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Golden Cockerel for the opera’s United States premiere on March 6, 1918. Her Met career came to an end on May 1, 1920 with a tour performance of L’elisir d’amore opposite Enrico Caruso.
Barrientos continued appearing on stage in standard coloratura roles until 1924. She then restricted herself to recitals, and became an admired interpreter of French and Spanish songs.
Barrientos was a singer with a voice of almost instrumental limpidity. She made a valuable set of recordings for Fonotipia Records and Columbia Records. She retired to the south-west of France, where she became an enthusiastic bridge player. She died at Ciboure on 8 August 1946.
Text from the Wikipedia website
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
Tórtola Valencia. The Dance “La Bayadère”
1914
© MAE-Institut del Teatre
Carmen Tórtola Valencia
Carmen Tórtola Valencia (June 18, 1882 – February 13, 1955) was a Spanish early modern dancer, choreographer, costume designer, and painter, who generally performed barefoot. Tórtola Valencia is said to have been the inspiration for Rubén Darío’s poem, La bailarina de los pies desnudos (“The Barefoot Dancer”).
Biography
Born in Seville to a Catalan father (Florenç Tórtola Ferrer, d. 1891) and Andalusian mother (Georgina Valencia Valenzuela, d. 1894), she was three years old when her family emigrated to London. In his book Tortola Valencia and Her Times (1982), Odelot Sobrac, one of her early biographers, said Tórtola Valencia developed a style that expressed emotion through movement and that she was inspired by Isadora Duncan. A member of Generación del 13, her costumes are part of the collection of Centre de Documentació i Museu de les Arts Escèniques. Her Spanish modernismo style enabled a career as a solo concert dance artist who performed classic, Oriental, and Spanish pieces. She made her debut at the Gaiety Theatre in London (1908), appearing at the Berlin Wintergarten theatre and the Folies Bergère of Paris in the same year. She performed in Nuremberg and London in 1909. One of the people she taught was the Anglo-Indian dancer Olive Craddock aka Roshanara. In 1911, she made her Spanish debut at the Romea Theatre of Madrid. She was at the Ateneo de Madrid in 1913.
The feminist
Tórtola Valencia was also a “pioneer Spanish feminist of the 20th century”. Being gay and having leftist ideas, Tórtola Valencia was jailed at the end of the Spanish Civil War. In 1928, she met Magret Angeles-Vila and they were inseparable thereafter. She danced for the last time in 1930 in Quito. She began painting in Barcelona where she died in 1955 and is buried at Poblenou Cemetery.
Text from the Wikipedia website
La Bayadère
La Bayadère (“the temple dancer”) (ru. «Баядерка», Bayaderka) is a ballet, originally staged in four acts and seven tableaux by French choreographer Marius Petipa to the music of Ludwig Minkus. The ballet was staged especially for the benefit performance of the Russian Prima ballerina Ekaterina Vazem, who created the principal role of Nikiya. La Bayadère was first presented by the Imperial Ballet at the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, on 4 February [O.S. 23 January] 1877. From the first performance the ballet was universally hailed by contemporary critics as one of the choreographer Petipa’s supreme masterpieces, particularly the scene from the ballet known as The Kingdom of the Shades, which became one of the most celebrated pieces in all of classical ballet. By the turn-of-the 20th century, The Kingdom of the Shades scene was regularly extracted from the full-length work as an independent showpiece, and it has remained so to the present day.
Nearly all modern versions of La Bayadère are derived from the Kirov Ballet’s production of 1941, which was a severely redacted edition staged by Vakhtang Chabukiani and Vladimir Ponomarev in Leningrad in 1941. Natalia Makarova’s 1980 production of La Bayadère for American Ballet Theatre was the first full-length production to find a permanent place in the repertories of western ballet troupes, having been staged by several theatres throughout the world. Makarova’s version is itself derived from Chabukiani and Ponomarev’s 1941 redaction for the Mariinsky Theatre.
Text from the Wikipedia website
Carl Van Vechten (American, 1880-1964)
(Portrait of Adolfo Mas, Barcelona)
June 17, 1935
Gelatin silver print
Library of Congress
Jacob Riis (1849-1914)
Bandits’ Roost, 59 1/2 Mulberry Street
1888
Gelatin silver print, printed 1958
Museum of Modern Art
Public domain
Jacob August Riis (May 3, 1849 – May 26, 1914) was a Danish-American social reformer, “muckraking” journalist and social documentary photographer. He contributed significantly to the cause of urban reform in America at the turn of the twentieth century. He is known for using his photographic and journalistic talents to help the impoverished in New York City; those impoverished New Yorkers were the subject of most of his prolific writings and photography. He endorsed the implementation of “model tenements” in New York with the help of humanitarian Lawrence Veiller. Additionally, as one of the most famous proponents of the newly practicable casual photography, he is considered one of the fathers of photography due to his very early adoption of flash in photography.
While living in New York, Riis experienced poverty and became a police reporter writing about the quality of life in the slums. He attempted to alleviate the bad living conditions of poor people by exposing their living conditions to the middle and upper classes.
Text from the Wikipedia website
Alfred Bool (British, 1844-1926) and John Bool (British, 1850-1933)
The entrance to the Oxford Arms
1875
Carbon print
Yale Center for British Art
The first photograph released by the Society for Photographing Relics of Old London.
Alfred and John Bool were a pair of British brothers who photographed 19th century London. Alfred Henry Bool (1844-1926) and John James Bool (1850-1933) were both born in London. They opened a photo studio together in Pimlico in the 1860s, and John Bool worked there until 1918.
In 1875 the brothers were hired by Alfred Marks, the director of the Society for Photographing Relics of Old London, and would go on to photograph historic buildings including the Oxford Arms Inn, Lincoln’s Inn, the Smithfield area, Temple Bar, Gray’s Inn, St. Bartholomew’s and the Cloth Fair. The album prints were made by the brothers in the company of Henry Dixon.
Text from the Wikipedia website
[Alfred] Marks was well-positioned for such nostalgia. He was an antiquarian scholar, and his father had been a coach builder, which may explain his particular attachment to the Oxford Arms. When he heard the building was to be demolished, Marks raised money from a few friends. He hired Alfred and John Bool, a father-son photography team best known for their landscapes, to take photos of the Arms. He then started looking for others who felt the same way he did, and might want to buy the work. “Should any readers … interested in London antiquities desire to join the subscription, I shall be happy to hear from them,” he announced in the London Times.
The Society launched “one of the first efforts” to use photography to document endangered buildings, says Foote. It was also special in that its photos were meant to be collected, like fine art. All were printed in carbon – an expensive process – to ensure they wouldn’t fade.
The first photograph set, released in 1875, consisted of six different views of the Oxford Arms, including the entrance, the yard, and the galleries. The second, which came a year later, focused on old houses and inns near Wynch Street and Drury Lane. In 1878, Marks doubled his production speed, going from six photos per year to 12. Three years later, he began writing up short texts about the buildings, printing them out, and issuing them to subscribers along with the photographs.
“The project became much bigger than he originally intended,” says Chitra Ramalingam, the Assistant Curator of Photography at the Yale Center for British Art, which exhibited SPROL’s photographs in 2016. Still, Marks ran the show, choosing which buildings to focus on, and particular details to highlight. (Despite its name, there’s no evidence the Society ever met up in real life, or had any true members besides Marks.) …
Marks gave such scrupulous instructions to the Bools – as well as to Henry and Thomas James Dixon, who he hired to replace them in 1879 – that each photograph was effectively “a collaboration between Marks and the photographer,” says Ramalingam. …
Marks disbanded his Society in 1886, 11 years after he’d started it. By this point, he had released 120 photographs, in 12 sets, and had enjoyed a certain amount of commercial success, selling over 100 subscriptions. “It is not suggested that the subject has been exhausted,” he wrote at the time, “but it is hoped that the work may be regarded as fairly complete within the lines at first marked out.”
Cara Giaimo. “The Victorian Photographic Society That Tried to Preserve ‘Old London’,” on the Atlas Obscura website June 13, 2018 [Online] Cited 23/04/2022
Further photographs
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
Carrer de l’Arc de Sant Francesc (Street of the Arch of St. Francis)
Before 1911
Gelatin silver print
10.5 x 8cm
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Public domain
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
Carrer Tarascó (Tarascó Street)
Before 1911
Gelatin silver print
12 x 5.6cm
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Public domain
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
Entrades als carrers Graciamat i Sant Crist de la Tapineria
Before 1911
Gelatin silver print
11.5 x 8.1 cm
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Public domain
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
Carrer del Sant Crist de l’Argenteria des del carrer Argenteria
(Street of the Sant Crist de l’Argenteria from Argenteria street)
Before 1911
Gelatin silver print
16.1 x 8.5cm
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Public domain
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
Pati de la casa núm. 25 del carrer dels Mercaders
(Patio of house no. 25 of the Street of the Merchants)
Before 1911
Gelatin silver print
9.9 x 8.6cm
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Public domain
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
Interior del pati de la casa núm. 6 de la Riera de Sant Joan
(Interior of the patio of house no. 6 of the Riera of Saint Joan)
Before 1911
Gelatin silver print
11.7 x 8.3cm
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Public domain
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
Plaça Nova (plaça de l’Àngel) i entrades als carrers de la Princesa i de la Bòria
(Nova Square (Square of the Angel) with the entrance to the Street of the Princess and the Boria)
Before 1911
Gelatin silver print
11.7 x 8.3cm
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Public domain
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
Sense títol (Plaça en obres) (Untitled (Place under construction))
About 1908-1911
Gelatin silver print
17.3 x 12.2cm
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Public domain
The banner says “the bakery moves to the same street no. 27”
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
Untitled (Street)
Before 1911
Gelatin silver print
17.3 x 12.1cm
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Public domain
Adolf Mas (Spanish, 1861-1936)
Santa Maria del Mar
Nd
Albumen print
28 x 21cm
© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic
Public domain
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Exhibition: ‘After August Sander: People of the 21st Century’ at Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen
Tags: A Possible Mutation, After August Sander, After August Sander: People of the 21st Century, After Cindy Sherman, Alice Ïfergan-Rey, Angst, Antlitz der Zeit, Artur Żmijewski, Artur Żmijewski Dieter Patricia Ursula, August Sander, August Sander Bauernpaar - Zucht und Harmonie, August Sander Boxers, August Sander Bricklayer, August Sander Circus performer, August Sander Cleaning woman, August Sander Coal Delivery Man, August Sander Cretin, August Sander Der erdgebundene Mensch, August Sander Der Maler Anton Räderscheidt, August Sander Farmer on his Way to Church, August Sander Handlanger, August Sander Jungbauern, August Sander Mother and Daughter, August Sander Painter Anton Räderscheidt, August Sander Pastry Cook, August Sander Peasant Woman, August Sander People of the 20th century, August Sander Police Officer, August Sander Polizeibeamter Der Wachtmeister, August Sander Putzfrau, August Sander The earthbound human, August Sander The Industrialist, August Sander Village Band, August Sander Working-class Mother, August Sander Young Farmers, August Sander Zirkusartistin, Bauernpaar - Zucht und Harmonie, Bouchra Khalili, Bouchra Khalili The Tempest Society, Boxers Paul Röderstein and Hein Hesse, Bricklayer, Calcutta and Howrah, Circus performer, Classes and Professions, Cleaning woman, Coal Delivery Man, Collier Schorr, Collier Schorr A Possible Mutation, Collier Schorr After Cindy Sherman, Collier Schorr Swimming Pool Eyes, Collier Schorr Wes Portrait, Comizi d'amore, contemporary portrait photography, Der erdgebundene Mensch, Der Maler Anton Räderscheidt, Der Wachtmeister, Dieter Patricia Ursula, Face of Our Time, Farmer on his Way to Church, German portrait photography, German portraiture, Handlanger, Hans Eijkelboom, Hans Eijkelboom Photo Notes, Howrah Railway Station, I tell you how Mohamed Bourouissa changed unemployed people into sculpture in a truck in Marseille, Ilya Lipkin, Je vous raconte comment Mohamed Bourouissa a changé des chômeurs en sculpture dans un camion à Marseille, Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys, Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys Madame Legrand, Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys Mondo Cane, Jungbauern, Kontaminierte Landschaften, L'Utopie d'August Sander, living spaces, Love Meetings, Madame Legrand, Mohamed Bourouissa, Mohamed Bourouissa and Alice Ïfergan-Rey L'Utopie d'August Sander, Mondo Cane, Mondo Cane (The Town Crier), Mother and Daughter, Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen, Omer Fast, Omer Fast August, Painter Anton Räderscheidt, Pastry Cook, Peasant Woman, People of the 20th century, Photo Note October 21 2006, Photo Note October 23 2015, Photo Notes, Polizeibeamter Der Wachtmeister, portrait photography, Putzfrau, Ricerche one, Riga's queer underground scene, Sandra Schäfer, Sandra Schäfer Kontaminierte Landschaften, Sandra Schäfer Westerwald, Sandra Schäfer Westerwald: Eine Heimsuchung, Sharon Hayes, Sharon Hayes Ricerche one, Skandalous, social and visual codes, Soham Gupta, Soham Gupta Angst, strategies of portraiture, Swimming Pool Eyes, The Artists, The City (city dwellers), The Earthbound Human, The Farmer, The Industrialist, The Last People, The Skilled Tradesmen, The Tempest Society, The Woman, Tobias Zielony, Tobias Zielony Golden, Tobias Zielony Jay, Tobias Zielony Skandalous, Tobias Zielony Two boys, Village Band, Wes Portrait, Westerwald, Westerwald: Eine Heimsuchung, Working-class Mother, Young Farmers, Zirkusartistin
Exhibition dates: 28th January – 29th May 2022
Curator: Thomas Thiel
August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
Der erdgebundene Mensch (The earthbound human) / Peasant Woman, Westerwald
1912
Gelatin silver print
Contemporary Collection, MGKSiegen
© Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Köln – August Sander Archiv/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2022
I am not sure any of these kinds of exhibition – supposed extrapolations on the work of an earlier famous photographer, in this case contemporary photographers responding in diverse ways to renowned German photographer August Sander (1876-1964), icon of 20th century photography – serve any kind of lasting useful purpose, other than perhaps to acknowledge the alleged and, in most cases, slight influence of the earlier photographer.
While the contemporary work is strong in its own right, too often it seems shoehorned into the concept of the exhibition, artistic positions exhibited in order to revitalise the work of August Sander both directly and indirectly. Sander does not need revitalising… nor do the contemporary artists need the prop of his fame nor his conceptualisation of German identity, family and life to succeed with their projects. Their changed views of life and new influences on the individual are cogent enough – clear, logical, and convincing – not to need a conceptual walking frame.
However, the exhibition does give us the ability to, once more, marvel at the apparent simplicity and directness of Sanders’ portraits and the monumentality of his project “People of the 20th Century”. Frontal, low depth of field, beautiful light, tightly framed photographs which portray individuals as true characters who have undeniable “presence” in the viewers eyes. When thinking about the human condition, nothing in the rest of the exhibition comes close to their insight and intensity…
Dr Marcus Bunyan
.
Many thankx to the Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
At second left, August Sander’s Pastry Cook 1928; at fifth left, Coal Delivery Man c. 1915; at seventh left, Handlanger (Bricklayer / Handyman) 1928; and at eighth right, Working-class Mother 1927
At left, Mother and daughter 1912; at third left, August Sander’s Village Band 1913; and at fourth left, Farmer on his Way to Church 1925-1926; and at right, Cretin 1924
After August Sander, Exhibition view, MGKSiegen
Work by August Sander, Portraits of People of the 20th Century, 1912-1932, printed 1961-1963
Contemporary Collection MGKSiegen
© Die Photographische Sammlung / SK Stiftung Kultur, Köln – August Sander Archiv; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2022
Photo: Philipp Ottendörfer
With his collection of portraits, “People of the 20th Century”, August Sander (1876-1964) produced a monumental life’s work that not only made photographic history but went on to influence generations of artists. The photographer, who was born in Herdorf near Siegen, depicted professional groups and social classes for several decades. Altogether he collected more than 600 images in forty-five portfolios, organising them into seven categories: The Farmer, The Skilled Tradesmen, The Woman, Classes and Professions, The Artists, The City (city dwellers), and The Last People, who were found on the fringes of society. A selection was first assembled in the publication “Face of Our Time” (1929). By working on a portrait of society during his time, Sander not only developed archetypal images but also aimed to study the nature of man in relation to his community.
“After August Sander” combines the work of the world-famous yet regionally-based photographer with a contemporary perspective of 13 artists. At the heart of the exhibition is a group of 70 large-format photographs that Sander compiled as late as the early 1960s, also for presentations in the Siegerland. As a gift from Barbara Lambrecht-Schadeberg to mark the MGKSiegen’s 20th birthday, these are now being shown here for the first time. Starting out from this important group of works, the exhibition directs attention towards portraits of people in the 21st century and initiates further examination of images showing contemporary types.
The artistic positions exhibited revitalise the work of August Sander both directly and indirectly. The deliberate leap in time of about 100 years visualises our changed views of life and new influences on the individual. Despite the historical reference, “After August Sander” does not stick exclusively to the medium of photography, but presents video installations and sculptures in a reflection of our times.
With contributions by August Sander, Mohamed Bourouissa, Alice Ifergan-Rey, Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys, Hans Eijkelboom, Omer Fast, Soham Gupta, Sharon Hayes, Bouchra Khalili, Ilya Lipkin, Sandra Schäfer, Collier Schorr, Tobias Zielony and Artur Zmijewski.
Supported by Kunststiftung NRW
Text from the Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen website
Rooms 1 and 2
August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
Bauernpaar – Zucht und Harmonie
1912
Gelatin silver print
Contemporary Collection, MGKSiegen
© Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Köln – August Sander Archiv/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2022
August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
Mother and Daughter
1912
Gelatin silver print
Contemporary Collection, MGKSiegen
© Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Köln – August Sander Archiv/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2022
August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
Village Band
1913
Gelatin silver print
Contemporary Collection, MGKSiegen
© Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Köln – August Sander Archiv/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2022
August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
Jungbauern (Young Farmers)
1914
Gelatin silver print
Contemporary Collection, MGKSiegen
© Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Köln – August Sander Archiv/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2022
August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
Coal Delivery Man
c. 1915
Gelatin silver print
Contemporary Collection, MGKSiegen
© Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Köln – August Sander Archiv/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2022
August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
Polizeibeamter. Der Wachtmeister (Police Officer)
1925
Gelatin silver print
Contemporary Collection, MGKSiegen
© Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Köln – August Sander Archiv/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2022
August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
Der Maler Anton Räderscheidt (Painter Anton Räderscheidt)
1926
Gelatin silver print
Contemporary Collection, MGKSiegen
© Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Köln – August Sander Archiv/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2022
August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
Zirkusartistin (Circus performer)
1926-1932
Gelatin silver print
Contemporary Collection, MGKSiegen
© Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Köln – August Sander Archiv/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2022
August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
Handlanger (Bricklayer / Handyman)
1928
Gelatin silver print
Contemporary Collection, MGKSiegen
© Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Köln – August Sander Archiv/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2022
August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
Pastry Cook
1928
Gelatin silver print
Contemporary Collection, MGKSiegen
© Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Köln – August Sander Archiv/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2022
August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
Boxers. Paul Röderstein and Hein Hesse. Köln
c. 1928
Gelatin silver print
Contemporary Collection, MGKSiegen
© Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Köln – August Sander Archiv/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2022
August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
The selection of large-format exhibition copies of People of the 20th Century being shown for the first time in the Museum für Gegenwartskunst was compiled from various portfolios by Sander himself in 1961/63. They were intended for presentations in the Siegerland region and printed by his son Gunther Sander under his own supervision. The occasion for this was provided by, amongst others, two exhibitions entitled Antlitz der Zeit (Face of Our Time), shown in Siegen in 1964 and in the fire station close to Herdorf town hall in 1965. Beyond its international significance, for several reasons August Sander’s work also has considerable regional identification value. Sander was born in Herdorf and spent his childhood between Siegerland and the Westerwald. Siegen-based photographers Friedrich Schmeck and Carl Siebel inspired the young Sander to take up photography. Photographs dating from before 1914 were taken in or near his hometown and were subsequently included in the well-known picture atlas. He frequently spent time in the Westerwald and moved his residence to Kuchhausen due to the war in 1942. This exhibition brings a circle to a close in the MGKSiegen. Works by August Sander can now be shown permanently and as part of the collection in Siegen for the first time since the museum’s opening in 2001.
August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
Cretin
1924
Gelatin silver print
Contemporary Collection, MGKSiegen
© Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Köln – August Sander Archiv/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2022
August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
Farmer on his Way to Church
1925-1926
Gelatin silver print
Contemporary Collection, MGKSiegen
© Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Köln – August Sander Archiv/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2022
August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
Working-class Mother
1927
Gelatin silver print
Contemporary Collection, MGKSiegen
© Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Köln – August Sander Archiv/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2022
August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
Putzfrau (Cleaning woman)
1928
Gelatin silver print
Contemporary Collection, MGKSiegen
© Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Köln – August Sander Archiv/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2022
August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
The Industrialist
1929
Gelatin silver print
Contemporary Collection, MGKSiegen
© Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Köln – August Sander Archiv/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2022
Rooms 3 and 4
After August Sander, Exhibition view, MGKSiegen, Contemporary Collection MGKSiegen showing at left, a work by Sandra Schäfer Kontaminierte Landschaften, (2021); and at right, August Sander’s Bauernpaar – Zucht und Harmonie (1912) from “People of the 20th Century”, 1912-1932
© Die Photographische Sammlung / SK Stiftung Kultur, Köln – August Sander Archiv; © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2022
Photo: Philipp Ottendörfer
Sandra Schäfer (German, b. 1970)
Westerwald: Eine Heimsuchung
2021
Still showing the cover of August Sander – Líchtbíldner folio Der Bauer (The farmer)
© Sandra Schäfer/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2022
After August Sander, Exhibition view, MGKSiegen
Work by Sandra Schäfer, Kontaminierte Landschaften, 2021, Courtesy the artist
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2022
Photo: Philipp Ottendörfer
Sandra Schäfer (German, b. 1970)
Sandra Schäfer’s artistic practice is concerned with the development of urban and geopolitical space and its history. Her works are often based on long-term research that involves a re-presentation of images, documents, and narratives. In her video installation Westerwald: Eine Heimsuchung (2021), Schäfer – starting out from August Sander’s series of Westerwald farmers and rural labourers – deals with the transformation of the rural region in which she grew up, and by which she has been strongly influenced. Her great-greatgreat- aunt Katharina Horn, born Schäfer, and her husband Adam Horn, were also the famous farming couple that Sander photographed as early as 1912. The artist juxtaposes August Sander’s perspective with her own, contemporary view in the form of a double projection and two photographs. Schäfer shows how the landscape depicted and its agricultural use have changed over the course of time. She talks to relatives and farmers, as well as to photographic curators about Sander, his photos and the situation in the village of Kuchhausen. She is also interested in the value and varying attributions that the images have experienced in the art world and in private memories. The artist questions existing pictorial orders and narratives with her work, and so ventures her own personal search for home.
Sandra Schäfer (German, b. 1970)
Westerwald: Eine Heimsuchung (installation view not at Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen)
2021
© Sandra Schäfer/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2022
Sandra Schäfer (German, b. 1970)
Westerwald: Eine Heimsuchung
2021
Still
© Sandra Schäfer/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2022
Room 5
After August Sander, Exhibition view, MGKSiegen
Work by Hans Eijkelboom, Photo Notes, 1994-2022, Courtesy the artist
© Die Photographische Sammlung / SK Stiftung Kultur, Köln – August Sander Archiv; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2022
Photo: Philipp Ottendörfer
Hans Eijkelboom (Dutch, b. 1949)
Photo Note October 21, 2006 (Camouflage)
2006
Courtesy the artist
Hans Eijkelboom (Dutch, b. 1949)
Photo Note October 21, 2006 (Camouflage) (detail)
2006
Courtesy the artist
Hans Eijkelboom (Dutch, b. 1949)
As early as 1981, Hans Eijkelboom realised an “Ode to August Sander” by asking and categorising citizens of Arnhem, where he lived at the time, on the basis of their distinguishing features and developing the results into a multi-part series of street photographs. Since the early 1990s, the artist has been taking photographs in the business districts of large cities around the world. Unnoticed, he analyses the pedestrians passing by and focuses on them according to formal criteria of their external appearance. Eijkelboom’s gaze – with a thoroughly benevolent sense of humour – falls on the people’s clothing. Fashion statements and similarities in behaviour interest him in formal terms, as uniform codes. He arranges his snapshot-like Photo Notes into groups according to the motif and date of the shot, and then presents them in wall-sized tableaus. Arranged in this way, the exclusively colour portraits direct the viewer’s attention towards the human need to distinguish oneself by means of external features and so underline one’s own identity. In Eijkelboom’s photographs, this striving for individuality is exposed as an illusion due to global trends and milieu-related codes.
Hans Eijkelboom (Dutch, b. 1949)
Photo Note October 23, 2015 (Hoed)
2015
Courtesy the artist
Hans Eijkelboom (Dutch, b. 1949)
Photo Note October 23, 2015 (Hoed) (detail)
2015
Courtesy the artist
Room 6
Omer Fast (Israeli, b. 1972)
August
2016
Still
Courtesy the artist
Photo: Stephan Ciupek/Filmgalerie 451
Omer Fast (Israeli, b. 1972)
In his films, Omer Fast frequently tells stories of trauma, war and relationships. His working method enables him to question current and historical events as well as the conventions of the cinematic narrator. The short film August (2016), shot in 3D, revolves around the life and work of August Sander, painting a fictional picture of his last days in the early 1960s. The cinematic flashbacks are oriented on biographical facts. In surreal dream sequences, Sander is haunted by memories: recalling his son Erich, who died as a victim of political persecution in a Nazi prison in 1944, as well as iconic motifs such as the Young Farmers or Workers hauling bricks. The film August shows both the visionary artist and the powerless man, scarred by personal loss and entangled in the political circumstances. Omer Fast deconstructs and at the same time contextualises the artist and man August Sander on the basis of his attitudes in an extremely difficult time politically, the late phase of the Weimar Republic and the transition to National Socialist Germany.
New Pictures: Omer Fast, Appendix exhibition video
This “New Pictures” exhibition [at the Minneapolis Institute of Art 2018] features two films by the Berlin-based Israeli artist Omer Fast (b. 1972), along with more than 20 portraits by the German photographer August Sander (1876-1964) from his series People of the Twentieth Century, selected from Mia’s and Minneapolis-based collections. Through reflections of Sander’s portraits, including Young Farmers (1914) and Bricklayer (1928), Fast’s latest film, August (2016), portrays Sander at the end of his life, tracing the photographer’s career during the transition from the Weimar Republic to Nazi Germany. Fast’s para-fictional (i.e., blending facts and fiction) film subverts the boundary between collective history and personal memory, questioning photography’s ability to tell the truth.
Text from the YouTube website
Omer Fast (Israeli, b. 1972)
August
2016
Still
Courtesy the artist
Photo: Stephan Ciupek/Filmgalerie 451
Room 7
Jos de Gruyter (Belgium, b. 1965) and Harald Thys (Belgium, b. 1966)
Mondo Cane (The Town Crier)
2019
Courtesy the artists and Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin
Photo: Nick Ash
Jos de Gruyter (Beligian, b. 1965) and Harald Thys (Belgian, b. 1966)
Jos de Gruyter’s and Harald Thys’ works are devoted to the absurdity of the everyday. Their interest in the psychological state of societies leads them to create portraits of human existence both tragic and comical. The figures assembled here were part of the exhibition Mondo Cane (eng. Dog World) produced for the Belgian Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019. The presentation was conceived as a kind of folkloristic museum examining the human condition and its grotesque diversity. In the shape of partly mechanised, life-sized dolls, it gathered together simple artisans as well as madmen and outcasts. The doll heads were modelled on fictional characters as well as real people. Scattered throughout the exhibition rooms in Siegen we find a ventriloquist, a town crier, a Stasi spy and a French denunciator from the World War II era. As protagonists, they occupy the museum for the duration of the exhibition and interact with the other works. As representatives, the humorous and sinister characters refer to popular stereotypes as well as to historical attitudes and relationships within Europe.
Jos de Gruyter’s and Harald Thys’ work Mondo Cane (2019) at Biennale Arte 2019 – Belgium
After August Sander, Exhibition view, MGKSiegen
Work by Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys, Madame Legrand, 2019
Courtesy the artists and Galerie Micheline Szwajcer
Photo: Philipp Ottendörfer
Room 8
Sharon Hayes (American, b. 1970)
Ricerche: one
2019
Still
Courtesy the artist and Tanya Leighton, Berlin
Sharon Hayes (American, b. 1970)
Sharon Hayes’ videos, performances and installations address the complex processes of shaping public opinion on politics, history, identity and language. Her film series Ricerche (engl. Research) began in 2013 and now consists of five parts. Her starting point was the documentary film Love Meetings (1964, ital. Comizi d’amore) by Pier Paolo Pasolini, who travelled through Italy to ask people of different ages and social backgrounds explicit questions about love, sexuality, and morality. Hayes follows the structure of the film and the conceptual idea of interviewing people outdoors and in groups. The video diptych Ricerche: one (2019) portrays two age groups: 5-8 year olds and young adults. All the participants in the video, shot in Provincetown (Massachusetts, USA), are children of queer parents. Depending on their age, they give fragmented or detailed insights into their complex family structures. The artist mirrors social understanding of gender dominated by the norm, sexuality and family constellations. She shows how present conditions shape national, religious and ethnic identities.
Biennale Arte 2013 – Sharon Hayes
After August Sander, Exhibition view, MGKSiegen
Work by Sharon Hayes, Ricerche: one, 2019, Courtesy the artist and Tanya Leighton, Berlin
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2022
Photo: Philipp Ottendörfer
Room 9
Mohamed Bourouissa and Alice Ifergan-Rey
Je vous raconte comment Mohamed Bourouissa a changé des chômeurs en sculpture dans un camion à Marseille
I tell you how Mohamed Bourouissa changed unemployed people into sculpture in a truck in Marseille
2019
Still
© Mohamed Bourouissa /VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2022 and Alice Ifergan-Rey
L’Utopie d’August Sander, Mohamed Bourouissa, Alice Ïfergan-Rey
After August Sander, Exhibition view, MGKSiegen
Work by Collier Schorr, Castle, 1994, Collier as Horst, 2021, Swimming Pool Eyes, 1996, A Possible Mutation, 1994, After Cindy Sherman, 1994
© the artist, Courtesy Stuart Shave/ Modern Art, London and 303 Gallery, New York
Photo: Philipp Ottendörfer
Collier Schorr (American, b. 1963)
Swimming Pool Eyes
1996
Black and white photograph
Courtesy the artist and Modern Art, London and 303 Gallery, New York
Collier Schorr (American, b. 1963)
A Possible Mutation
1994
C-print
Courtesy the artist and Modern Art, London and 303 Gallery, New York
Collier Schorr (American, b. 1963)
Collier Schorr’s portraits can be positioned in the border area between documentation, staging and fiction. Her photographs explore the relationship between nationality, gender, and identity. For over 20 years, Schorr travelled to southern Germany every summer to visit the small town of Schwäbisch Gmünd. Her portraits of the town’s inhabitants taken against an authentic local backdrop reflect a fascination with a culture that was initially foreign to her. Collier Schorr places androgynous-looking teenagers in the German landscape, which she sees as pastoral. They are mostly male adolescents from her close environment, photographed in the garden, in front of and on trees, or in the forest. One of the main characters is Horst, and she adds a later self-portrait to this group: Collier as Horst (2021), wearing men’s underpants and gripping her crotch. These stagings, which dissolve gender boundaries by means of clothing, makeup and props, also include portraits of uniformed soldiers as pictorial subjects. In Matti at Attention (Durlangen) (2001), which shows a young man as a soldier in a forest clearing, the landscape takes on a symbolic charge and becomes a speculative space of remembrance. Aware of Sander’s photographic approach and the gaps in his reception, Schorr sets out to find her own Face of our Time that incorporates her Jewish origins and personal ideas of Germany.
After Horst
“I had these ideas about modern West Germany. It was silent. It was empty. The figures were small, or they were art students lined up in front of coloured squares of paper. Whatever I saw in the work of Andreas Gursky and Thomas Struth and Thomas Ruff was somewhat perfect, organised, static, airless. And frozen in time that looked like the 70’s. West Germany itself, a word I might see on a watch face or an Olympic memorial to the Israeli wrestlers killed by Palestinians in Munich. Somehow, I was there and not there. Dead, memorialised, alive and dead again.
I went to Germany in 1989. And again, for 20 summers. During the third summer I started taking photographs. I was convinced the German landscape held some truth other than the one I had seen in the large-scale imports I saw at 303 Gallery and Marian Goodman Gallery. Schwäbisch Gmünd was soft and pastoral. And the local boys seemed soft and pastoral. I would have never made photos in New York. Nan Goldin, Jack Pierson and Larry Clark already made them. But in Germany, I could take a figure of my imagination and place them in the landscape memorialised by the Düsseldorf School. And I could as they say now – queer the space. So I shot my girlfriend’s nephew Horst and a fusion of myself and him, of a young girl and of a young boy of a woman who looked like a boy. I wanted to make him suffer for his luxury… as if he knew he had this luxury which I can never know. Ultimately, it’s a simple proposition. An image of queerness in an open airfield, rather than a club or a closet or a tenement New York apartment or West Side street corner. One image is called After Cindy Sherman because of how I wished I could use myself to talk about myself. But to do that I would have to find my image bearable and I did not. I saw Germany as a very romantic place and I attacked it and was seduced by it every year. I took the one category in August Sander’s work that the Düsseldorf kids didn’t touch: the Nazi’s. I thought to myself, wow, they really left those soldiers out. Don’t they realise that’s the guts and the ghosts worth tearing apart? I began to enjoy the fact that my story about Germany, my Antlitz Der Zeit, was completely ignored. Too romantic, too gay but not authored by a gay male, too Jewish but not Jewish enough, too personal.
Now I look at Horst and I think about my own body naked on the cover of Frieze magazine and dancing in a ballet I’m making. And posing with Jordan Wolfson in Fantastic Man. The same face the same hair. Over 30 years difference. Suddenly acceptable. Perhaps because the queer figure has more presence agency representation. I still find Horst, with his Levis’s and sweat socks, the tropes of Christopher Street and his teenage girl make up somewhat radical. Because he looks like a living paper doll. Dressed and pasted into a landscape to disrupt the pristine crisis of a German photograph, transmounted, with a wide white border, expansive and somewhat toeing the line.”
Collier Schorr. “After Horst,” on the Modern Art website March 2021 [Online] Cited 02/04/2022
Collier Schorr (American, b. 1963)
After Cindy Sherman
1994
C-print
Courtesy the artist and Modern Art, London and 303 Gallery, New York
Collier Schorr (American, b. 1963)
Wes Portrait
2009-2018
Black and white photograph
Courtesy the artist and Modern Art, London and 303 Gallery, New York
Room 10
Bouchra Khalili (Moroccan-French, b. 1975)
The Tempest Society
2017
Still
Courtesy mor charpentier, Paris
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2022
Bouchra Khalili (Moroccan-French, b. 1975)
In her films, photographs, installations and publications, Bouchra Khalili examines the effects of colonial history on migration and political self-image. She provides a voice for social minorities, repeatedly formulating the links between individual actions and collective history. For the video work The Tempest Society (2017), which was shown for the first time at documenta 14, a group of Athenians come together on the stage of a former factory to talk about Europe and their own homeland. It is a portrait of three people from different social backgrounds who joined together to form a theatre group called The Tempest Society. The title is homage to Al Assifa (arab: The Tempest), a project by North African workers and French students who founded an ensemble in Paris in the 1970s to address issues such as racism and social inequality. The individuals in Khalili’s The Tempest Society also address similar problems in contemporary society: Ghani, Katerina and Malek talk about their experiences as people living in Europe and share their stories with each other. At the same time, it is about sharing a collective space – both on stage and in life, and about how the European continent may provide a home.
Bouchra Khalili. The Tempest Society / Twenty-Two Hours 24. August – 21. Oktober 2018
After August Sander, Exhibition view, MGKSiegen
Work by Bouchra Khalili, The Tempest Society, 2017, Courtesy the artist
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2022
Photo: Philipp Ottendörfer
Room 11
Artur Żmijewski (Polish, b. 1966)
Dieter, Patricia, Ursula
2007
Still
Courtesy the artist, Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zürich, and Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warschau
Artur Żmijewski (Polish, b. 1966)
Artur Żmijewski is known for his works investigating historical as well as current social orders – often in a radical way, employing mechanisms of power and oppression. The human body is an essential means of expression in his provocative works, which are mainly interviews, documentaries or experimental settings. The trilogies Dieter, Patricia, Ursula (2007) and Katarzyna, Barbara, Zofia (2012) belong to a ten-part series, for which Żmijewski observed people in Germany, Italy, Mexico and Poland with his camera – each for over 24 hours, as they carried out a simple but often physically strenuous activity. In this case, he accompanies an excavator driver, a snack vendor, a tram driver and three cleaners in their everyday lives – from the moment they get up in the morning until they go to bed. From the footage, Żmijewski created a 15-minute portrait of each person, following the artist’s narrative structure alone, and simply showing what happens without any commentary. Routine and moments of repetition are common to all the portraits. Apparently individual, they are also representative of a group within society. The artist therefore functions, on the one hand, as a sociological catalyst of snapshots; on the other hand, the medium of documentary filming operates as an objective instance.
After August Sander, Exhibition view, MGKSiegen
From left, work by Tobias Zielony, Selection of: Curfew, 2001, Ha Neu, 2003, Quartier Nord, 2003, Big Sexyland, 2006, The Cast, 2007, Trona – Armpit of America, 2008, Manitoba, 2009-2011, Jenny Jenny, 2013, Golden, 2018, Courtesy the artist and KOW, Berlin; and at right, Artur Żmijewski’s Dieter, Patricia, Ursula, 2007 (still), © the artist, Courtesy Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zürich and Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warschau
Photo: Philipp Ottendörfer
Room 12
After August Sander, Exhibition view, MGKSiegen
Work by Ilya Lipkin, Untitled, 2019, Courtesy the artist and Lars Friedrich, Berlin
Photo: Philipp Ottendörfer
Ilya Lipkin (Latvian, b. 1982)
Untitled
2019
Courtesy the artist and Lars Friedrich, Berlin
Ilya Lipkin (Latvian, b. 1982)
In his work, Ilya Lipkin breaks with the conventions of applied and artistic photography, moving playfully between fashion and art, studio and street photography. His work is characterised by a self-reflective approach incorporating contemporary trends and styles. The series Untitled (2019) assembles a number of photographs of young women, all taken in public places in various cities around the world, including on Alexanderplatz in Berlin. Photographed with a fast-focus digital camera in burst mode, the images have been retouched and edited according to the usual standards of fashion photography. In some cases, the background was removed and replaced with bright red or neutral white. This immediacy reveals a generation of girls and young women who are extremely conscious of their own image, but also influenced visually by the clichéd image conventions of social media channels. Quite intuitively, they seem to deny us any insight into their inner selves. By means of clothing, style and technology, they express their desire to please in a global society rather than in specific subcultures.
Ilya Lipkin (Latvian, b. 1982)
Untitled
2019
Courtesy the artist and Lars Friedrich, Berlin
Ilya Lipkin (Latvian, b. 1982)
Untitled
2019
Courtesy the artist and Lars Friedrich, Berlin
After August Sander, Exhibition view, MGKSiegen
Work by Tobias Zielony, Selection of: Curfew, 2001, Ha Neu, 2003, Quartier Nord, 2003, Big Sexyland, 2006, The Cast, 2007, Trona – Armpit of America, 2008, Manitoba, 2009-2011, Jenny Jenny, 2013, Golden, 2018, Courtesy the artist and KOW, Berlin
Photo: Philipp Ottendörfer
Tobias Zielony (Germany, b. 1973)
Jay
2007
Courtesy the Artist and KOW, Berlin
Tobias Zielony (Germany, b. 1973)
Skandalous
2007
Courtesy the Artist and KOW, Berlin
Tobias Zielony (Germany, b. 1973)
In his photographs and videos, Tobias Zielony directs artistic attention towards youth subcultures and marginalised groups in society. His image cycles, developed over a long period of time and drawing on various means of pictorial reportage, are always characterised by a special intimacy and direct proximity. Social, media and subcultural changes provide the thematic framework for these photographs. In his work, Zielony has dealt frequently with the significance of origins, fashion, and the representation of identity. For this exhibition and with a view to August Sander’s portfolio work, he has now assembled a first selection of portraits from the last twenty years. On view are single, double, and group portraits ranging from the early series Curfew (2001), depicting youths in Bristol, to a more recent series, Golden, featuring Riga’s queer underground scene. The presentation highlights strategies of portraiture, masking as well as the increased intermingling of social and visual codes in global, mediatised cultural development. Zielony’s fascination with the people photographed reveals a fundamental human interest in the Other in the sense of experiencing foreignness and vibrancy apart from traditional social categories.
Tobias Zielony (Germany, b. 1973)
Two boys
2008
Courtesy the Artist and KOW, Berlin
Tobias Zielony (Germany, b. 1973)
From the series Golden
2018
Courtesy the Artist and KOW, Berlin
Room 13
After August Sander, Exhibition view, MGKSiegen
Work by Soham Gupta, Untitled, from the series Angst (2013-2017), Courtesy the artist
Photo: Philipp Ottendörfer
Soham Gupta (Indian, b. 1988)
Untitled
From the series Angst (2013-2017)
Collection Museum Folkwang Essen
Courtesy the artist
Soham Gupta (Indian, b. 1988)
As early as 10 years ago, Soham Gupta began photographing people he encountered in the darkness by Howrah Bridge in the Indian megacity, Calcutta. The bridge connects the two Indian cities of Calcutta and Howrah across the Hugli River. Nearby is Howrah Railway Station, one of the largest railway stations in India. His photographs in colour and black and white capture people across all age groups, who seem to belong to the lower class. The living spaces captured in the photographs leave no doubt about their poverty and their status as social outsiders, abandoned and cast out. While these snapshots – glaring flash images set against dark backdrops – have a certain fleeting character and convey the impression of spontaneous shots, they are in fact the partly staged results of a development in the relationship between the photographer and the respective sitter. These people – individuals, couples or small groups – look towards the camera, towards the artist or their bodies are angled in his direction. Sometimes, they assume poses that seem grotesque. The series Fear poses the question of the photographer’s ambivalent role between the apparent objectivity of documentary photography and the importance of a subjective perspective. In essence, Gupta’s photographs focus on the human condition and search for a connection with marginalised groups in a society.
Soham Gupta (Indian, b. 1988)
Untitled
From the series Angst (2013-2017)
Collection Museum Folkwang Essen
Courtesy the artist
Soham Gupta (Indian, b. 1988)
Untitled
From the series Angst (2013-2017)
Collection Museum Folkwang Essen
Courtesy the artist
Soham Gupta (Indian, b. 1988)
Untitled
From the series Angst (2013-2017)
Collection Museum Folkwang Essen
Courtesy the artist
Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen
Unteres Schloss 1
57072 Siegen
Phone: 0271 405 77 10
Opening hours:
Monday Closed
Tuesday 11am – 6pm
Wednesday 11am – 6pm
Thursday 11am – 8pm
Friday 11am – 6pm
Saturday 11am – 6pm
Sunday 11am – 6pm
Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen website
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