Exhibition dates: 15th November 2014 – 6th April 2015
The artists: Eugène Atget – Herbert Bayer – Hans Bellmer – Aenne Biermann – Brassaï – František Drtikol – Jaromír Funke – Florence Henri – André Kertész – Germaine Krull – Herbert List – Man Ray – László Moholy-Nagy – Albert Renger-Patzsch – August Sander – Josef Sudek – Maurice Tabard – Raoul Ubac – Umbo – Wols – and others
Albert Renger-Patzsch (German, 1897-1966)
Self-Portrait
1926/27
Gelatin silver paper
16.9 x 22.8cm
Photo: Christian P. Schmider, Munich
© Albert Renger-Patzsch Archiv / Ann and Jürgen Wilde / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2014
Thought photography
Here are some names to conjure with (above). And what an appropriate word “conjure” is to illuminate these images:
: to charge or entreat earnestly or solemnly
: to summon by or as if by invocation or incantation
: to affect or effect by or as if by magic
: to practice magical arts
: to use a conjurer’s tricks
: to make you think of (something)
: to create or imagine (something)
For what is photography, if not magic?
These images are conjured from both the imagination of the artist… and reality itself. One cannot live, be magical, without the other. “Beneath the surface of visible things the irrational, the magical, and the contradictory could be discovered and explored.”
Still waters run deep.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
.
Many thankx to the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Brassaï (Hungarian-French, 1899-1984)
Occasional Magic (Sprouting Potato)
1931
Gelatin silver paper
28.8 x 23cm
Photo: Christian P. Schmider, Munich
© ESTATE BRASSAÏ – RMN
František Drtikol (Czech, 1883-1961)
Circular Segment (Arc)
1928
Carbon print
21.3 x 28.7cm
Photo: Christian P. Schmieder, Munich
© František Drtikol – heirs, 2014
Hans Bellmer (German, 1902-1975)
The Doll
1935
Gelatin silver paper
17.4 x 17.9cm
Photo: Christian P. Schmieder, Munich
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2014
Grete Stern (German-Argentine, 1904-1999)
The Eternal Eye
c. 1950
Photomontage on gelatin silver paper
39.5 x 39.5cm
Photo: Christian P. Schmieder, Munich
© Estate of Grete Stern courtesy Galería Jorge Mara – La Ruche, Buenos Aires, 2014
Installation views of the exhibition RealSurreal at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg showing at bottom right in the bottom image, Erwin Blumenfeld’s Skull 1932/1933
Is a photograph a true-to-life reproduction of reality, or is it merely a staged image? This year – the 175th anniversary of the invention of photography – the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg responds to this question with a comprehensive survey of avant-garde photography between 1920 and 1950. The exhibition RealSurreal presents around 200 masterpieces from the eminent Siegert Collection in Munich. This collection, which has never been shown in its entirety, contains photographs from the Neues Sehen (New Vision) movement, covering everything from New Objectivity to Surrealism in Germany, France, and Czechoslovakia.
Das Neue Sehen (New Vision)
Notions about photography’s visual veracity are as old as the art itself. As early as the nineteenth century there were arguments as to whether or not photography – with its mechanical ability to record ‘reality’ – was better suited to portray life more comprehensively and truthfully than other visual arts of the period. An inevitable reaction to what were considered photography’s shortcomings was Pictorialism, which approached photography according to the conventions of painting, in an attempt to lend it more artistic credibility. But around 1920 a new generation of international photographers began reconsidering the specific characteristics of photography as tools for developing it into a more modern method of appropriating reality. Rapid progress in technologising modern society affected the adoption of and attitudes toward photography: convenient cameras that used rolls of film came onto the market in greater numbers, making it easy for even the greenest of amateurs to take photographs. Photographs were increasingly used as illustrations in mass media, and in advertising, leading to a rising demand for accomplished images and professional image makers. These developments also changed the public’s visual habits, so that the New Vision arose as an expression of the perception of this new media-fabricated reality. Positions ranged from the precise recordings of what was seen in portrait and industrial photography, via the use of new framings and perspectives at the Bauhaus, all the way to the photomontage and technical experiments such as the photogram and solarisation, as well as Surrealism’s staged images.
The Mechanical Eye
Photographers of the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) movement wanted to show the world as it was. For Albert Renger-Patzsch, photography was the “most dependable tool” for objectively reproducing the visible things of this world, especially the results of modern technology, and in this respect, it was superior to the subjective perception of the human eye. László Moholy-Nagy went a step further, with his famous verdict that “the illiterate of the future will be the person ignorant of the use of the camera as well as the pen.” To the camera he attributed the crucial function of technically expanding human perception. Whilst adequately depicting machines, mass society, and modern metropolitan life: “the photographic apparatus can perfect or supplement our Photographs were increasingly used as illustrations in mass media.” Unusual aspects and viewpoints led to striking images. From a bird’s-eye perspective, buildings and streets became compositions made up of lines and planes, while a low-angle shot could create an unforeseen dynamic and greatly enlarging an object resulted in magical dissociations.
The Real and the Surreal
Ultimately, the Surrealists identified in the “realistic” recording tool of photography yet another artistic means of “écriture automatique,” which André Breton also described as “thought photography.” Beneath the surface of visible things the irrational, the magical, and the contradictory could be discovered and explored. Documentary photographers such as Eugène Atget and Karl Blossfeldt became inspirational figures in this movement. Their work was printed in the Surrealist magazines, because a plant, staged and isolated in a photograph, could trigger all kinds of magical associations beyond its botanical context. Meanwhile manipulated and staged photographs benefitted from the truthfulness of “this is the way it was,” since they could only reinforce their mysterious statements. One of Surrealism’s most important artistic means – the combinatory creation (including, of course, the photomontage) – was particularly effective because heterogeneous visual elements were joined to form new, surprising contexts of meaning. Like Brassaï’s photographs of a nocturnal Paris, Karel Teige’s collages have a surreal quality which can also be found in a different form in Man Ray’s dreamlike photograms. Both staged photography and – with many experiments with photographic techniques, such as multiple exposures, negative printing, and solarisation – strove to achieve the melding of dream and reality, a goal postulated by Breton in his first Surrealist manifesto. In New Vision photography this could generally result in images that could “go either way,” depending on the viewpoint of the real/surreal photographer and observer; they could be seen as sober, objective reproductions of the visible world, or as imaginary, subjective reflections of reality.
The exhibition RealSurreal leads the visitor through Neues Sehen in Germany, Surrealism in Paris, and the avant-garde in Prague, alongside themes such as portraits, nudes, objects, architecture, and experimental. Opening with a prologue of exemplary nineteenth-century photographs which are compared and contrasted with Neues Sehen, one can literally experience the Neues Sehen in the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg via rare original prints by notable photographers, while rediscovering the broad spectrum and complexity of photographs from real to surreal. Besides approximately 200 photographs, the exhibition contains historical photography books and magazines, as well as rare artists’ books and examples of avant-garde cover design, making it possible to experience this new view of the world.
RealSurreal also features several famous clips from key films by Luis Buñuel, László Moholy-Nagy, Hans Richter, and others, shown continuously in a 45-minute loop, which highlight the fruitful interplay between avant-garde photography and the-then contemporary cinema. Important photographs and photo installations by Nobuyoshi Araki, Gilbert & George, Paul Graham, Andreas Gursky, Cindy Sherman, Jeff Wall, and James Welling, from the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg’s collection, will also demonstrate that the artistic questions posed by Neues Sehen are still relevant today.
Press release from the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg website
Erwin Blumenfeld (American, born Germany 1897-1969)
Skull
1932/1933
Solarisation on gelatin silver paper
29.6 x 24cm
Photo: Christian P. Schmieder, Munich
© The Estate of Erwin Blumenfeld
Josef Sudek (Czech. 1896-1976)
Plaster Head
c. 1947
Gelatin silver paper
23.5 x 17.5cm
Photo: Christian P. Schmieder, Munich
© Estate of Josef Sudek
Herbert Bayer (Austrian, 1900-1985)
Lonely Metropolitan
1932/1969
Photomontage on gelatin silver paper
35.3 x 28cm
Photo: Christian P. Schmieder, Munich
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2014
Herbert Bayer (Austrian, 1900-1985)
Self-Portrait
1932
Photomontage on gelatin silver paper
35.3 x 27.9cm
Photo: Christian P. Schmieder, Munich
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2014
Man Ray (American, 1890-1976)
Electricity
1931
Photogravure
26 x 20.6cm
Photo: Christian P. Schmieder, Munich
© Man Ray Trust, Paris/ VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2014
Man Ray (American, 1890-1976)
Rayography (spiral)
1923
Photogram on gelatin silver paper
26.6. x 21.4cm
Photo: Christian P. Schmieder, München
© Man Ray Trust, Paris/ VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2014
Florence Henri (European born America, 1893-1982)
Portrait Composition (Erica Brausen)
1931
Gelatin silver paper
39.9 x 29cm
Photo: Christian P. Schmieder, Munich
© Galleria Martini & Ronchetti, Genova, Italy
Atelier Manassé
My Little Bird
c. 1928
Gelatin silver paper
21 x 16cm
Photo: Christian P. Schmieder, Munich
© IMAGNO/Austrian Archives
Genia Rubin (Russian, 1906-2001)
Lisa Fonssagives. Gown: Alix (Madame Grès)
1937
Gelatin silver paper
30.3 x 21.5cm
Photo: Christian P. Schmieder / Siegert Collection, Munich
© Sheherazade Ter-Abramoff, Paris
Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg
Abteilung Kommunikation
Hollerplatz 1 38440
Wolfsburg
Phone: +49 (0)5361 2669 69
Opening hours:
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Monday closed
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