Exhibition dates: 4th October 2019 – 19th January 2020
Visited October 2019 posted January 2020
Installation view of the exhibition Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art at the Barbican Art Gallery, London
Photo: Marcus Bunyan
I saw this exhibition in London in October, my last on my European research trip.
Having been a clubber since 1975, I was fascinated to see the history of cabarets and clubs in modern art. I remember going to gay clubs such as Scandals in Soho in the 1970s with their Saturday Night Fever lit up glass dance floor – except this one had a revolving glass turntable at its centre; or Adams under the the Leicester Square Odeon (I think it was the Odeon?) with walls padded and buttoned in red velvet, where they played the latest funk and international disco. Sylvester was the first out and out gay disco star, still beloved, who was taken from us by AIDS. And then there was Heaven, at the time of its opening in December 1979 the biggest gay club in Europe, housed in the arches beneath Charing Cross railway station – the site of many a debauched evening of gay disco, then hi-energy, and sex. We could dance for hours on that huge dance floor, under the lasers and neons, only leaving to get water at the bar, just dancing on pure energy, and then cruise the famous tunnels and bars of the club. Fabulous.
Getting back to the exhibition, Into the Night was a tale of two halves, as can be seen in the installation photographs. The upper level gallery at the Barbican was stirring, intoxicating, mesmerising, especially the sections on Vienna and the Cabaret Fledermaus (see below) and Berlin and the Weimar Nightlife 1920s-30s, always a favourite avant-garde era of mine (see part 2 of the posting). The lower level featured 3 separate rooms, recreations of the bar at the Cabaret Fledermaus; the Ciné-Dancing space of L’Aubette; and the shadow theatre of Chat Noir: interesting to see as a walk through but nothing more – then followed by some sparse sections on London’s Cave of the Golden Calf, Harlem’s Jazz Clubs and Cabarets and Tehran’s Rasht 29 (Part 2 of the posting). It felt to me as though the curators ran out of money / time? objects? and curatorial inspiration for the last sections of the exhibition.
Whatever the case, looking at the exhibition as a whole, this was a fascinating insight into cabaret and club art, architecture and design with gems such as Jeanne Mammen’s glorious watercolour paintings on queer female desire and Lohse-Watchler’s dark scenes of Hamburg nightlife. The complex breadth of bohemian and artistic culture covered in the exhibition was truly breathtaking.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
.
Many thankx to the Barbican Art Gallery for allowing me to publish the media photographs in the posting. All installation images are iPhone images by Dr Marcus Bunyan. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Catalogue cover for Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art at the Barbican Art Gallery, London
Vienna: Cabaret Fledermaus 1907-13 wall text
Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Josef Hoffmann (Austrian, 1870-1956)
Weiner Werkstätte Postkarte (left to right) (installation views)
No. 74 (Interior view of the bar at the Cabaret Fledermaus);
No. 75 (Interior view of the bar at the Cabaret Fledermaus);
No. 67 (Interior view of the auditorium with stage at the Cabaret Fledermaus)
1907
Lithograph postcards
Collection of Leonard A. Lauder
Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Wall text about the Weiner Werkstätte postcards
Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Josef Hoffmann (Austrian, 1870-1956)
Wiener Werkstätte Postkarte No. 74 (Interior view of the bar at the Cabaret Fledermaus)
1907
Collection of Leonard A. Lauder
Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art (downstairs gallery, room recreation)
Installation view Barbican Art Gallery 4 October 2019 – 19 January 2020
Recreation of the bar at the Cabaret Fledermaus, originally designed by Josef Hoffmann (1907), 2019
Conceived by the Barbican Art Gallery and Caruso St John, in collaboration with the University of Applied Arts, Vienna
© Tristan Fewings / Getty Images
Downstairs gallery, room recreation
Josef von Divéky (Hungarian, 1887-1951)
Poster design fro the Cabaret Fledermaus (unrealised) (installation views)
1907
Gouache over pencil on paper
University of Applied Arts Vienna, Collection and Archive
Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Carl Otto Czeschka (design)(Austrian, 1878-1960)
with illustrations by various artists
First programme for the Cabaret Fledermaus (installation view)
1907
Printed book
Publisher: Wiener Werkstate, Vienna
Printer: August Chwala, Vienna
Theatermuseum, Vienna
Photo: Marcus Bunyan
This programme for the opening night at the Cabaret Fledermaus on 19 October 1907 showcases its variety of experimental performances. Carl Otto Czeschka conceived the overarching design for the booklet, while vivid interior illustrations by contributing artists summon the spirit of the evenings activities.
Carl Otto Czeschka (design)(Austrian, 1878-1960)
with illustrations by various artists
First programme for the Cabaret Fledermaus (installation views)
1907
Printed book
Publisher: Wiener Werkstate, Vienna
Printer: August Chwala, Vienna
Theatermuseum, Vienna
Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Fritz Zeymer’s lyrical drawings capture the movements of Gertrude Barrison, who along with her sisters had become known in Europe and America for her bold, expressive dancing style. At the opening of the cabaret, Barrison performed solo to Edvard Greig’s romantic ‘Morgenstimmung’ (1875) in the ethereal white costume design by Zeymer himself (design shown here).
Carl Otto Czeschka (design)(Austrian, 1878-1960)
with cover design and illustrations by Moriz Jung
Second programme for the Cabaret Fledermaus (installation view)
1907
Printed book
Publisher: Wiener Werkstate, Vienna
Printer: August Chwala, Vienna
Ariel Muzicant Collection, Vienna
Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Le Corbusier (Swiss-French, 1887-1965)
Plan at 1:100 for the Cabaret Fledermaus (installation views)
1907
Graphite pencil, ink and wash on paper
Fondation Le Corbusier, Paris
Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Artefacts in display cabinet include Josef Hoffmann plant pot (1907), pepper mill (1907), vases for the Cabaret Fledermaus (1907) and an ashtray (1907) (installation views)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Installation views of the exhibition Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art at the Barbican Art Gallery
Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art
Installation view Barbican Art Gallery 4 October 2019 – 19 January 2020
© Tristan Fewings / Getty Images
Bertold Löffler (Austrian, 1874-1960)
Poster for the Cabaret Fledermaus (installation view)
1907
Lithograph
The Albertina Museum, Vienna
Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Bertold Löffler (Austrian, 1874-1960)
Poster for the Cabaret Fledermaus
1907
The Albertina Museum, Vienna
© The Albertina Museum, Vienna
Bertold Löffler (Austrian, 1874-1960)
Poster for a performance by Miss Macara at the Cabaret Fledermaus (installation view)
1909
Lithograph
The Albertina Museum, Vienna
Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Wall text about the poster for a performance by Miss Macara
Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Fritz Lang (Austrian-German-American, 1890-1976)
Poster for the Cabaret Fledermaus (installation view)
1911
Lithograph
The Albertina Museum, Vienna
Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Josef von Divéky (Hungarian, 1887-1951)
Design for ‘Green Domino’, ‘Orange Domino’ and ‘Blue Domino’ for the Cabaret Fledermaus (installation views)
1908
Ink and pencil on paper
MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna
Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art
Installation view Barbican Art Gallery 4 October 2019 – 19 January 2020
© Tristan Fewings / Getty Images
Eduard Josef Wimmer-Wisgrill (Austrian, 1882-1961)
Design for Maskenspiele (Masquerades) (two characters)
1907
MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna
© MAK
Opening 4 October 2019, Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art explores the social and artistic role of cabarets, cafés and clubs around the world. Spanning the 1880s to the 1960s, the exhibition presents a dynamic and multi-faceted history of artistic production. The first major show staged on this theme, it features both famed and little-known sites of the avant-garde – these creative spaces were incubators of radical thinking, where artists could exchange provocative ideas and create new forms of artistic expression. Into the Night offers an alternative history of modern art that highlights the spirit of experimentation and collaboration between artists, performers, designers, musicians and writers such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Loïe Fuller, Josef Hoffmann, Giacomo Balla, Theo van Doesburg and Sophie Taeuber-Arp, as well as Josephine Baker, Jeanne Mammen, Aaron Douglas, Jacob Lawrence, Ramón Alva de la Canal and Ibrahim El-Salahi.
Focusing on global locations from New York to Tehran, London, Paris, Mexico City, Berlin, Vienna and Ibadan, Into the Night brings together over 350 works rarely seen in the UK, including paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, films and archival material. Liberated from the confines of social and political norms, many of the sites provided immersive, often visceral experiences, manifesting the ideals of the artists and audiences who founded and frequented them. The exhibition features full-scale recreations of specific spaces, such as the multi-coloured ceramic tiled bar of the Cabaret Fledermaus in Vienna (1907), designed by Josef Hoffmann for the Wiener Werkstätte, and the striking abstract composition of the Ciné-Dancing designed by Theo van Doesburg for L’Aubette in Strasbourg (1926-28). The exhibition will feature a soundscape created by hrm199, the studio of acclaimed artist Haroon Mirza, specifically commissioned for the show.
Jane Alison, Head of Visual Arts, Barbican, said: “Into the Night casts a spotlight on some of the most electrifying cabarets and clubs of the modern era. Whether a creative haven, intoxicating stage or liberal hangout, all were magnets for artists, designers and performers to come together, collaborate and express themselves freely. Capturing the essence of these global incubators of experimentation and cross-disciplinarity, immersive 1:1 scale interiors will take the visitor on a captivating journey of discovery.”
Into the Night begins in Paris, on the eve of the 20th century, with two thrilling and iconic locations of the avant-garde. The theatrical shadow plays of the Chat Noir in the 1880s are brought to life through original silhouettes and works that decorated the interior of the cabaret, which acted as a forum for satire and debate for figures such as founder Rodolphe Salis, artist Henri Rivière and composer Erik Satie. The captivating serpentine dances of Loïe Fuller staged at the Folies Bergère in the 1890s were trail-blazing experiments in costume, light and movement. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec captured her performances in his extraordinary series of delicately hand-coloured lithographs, brought together for the exhibition. Visitors will encounter the immersive “Gesamtkunstwerk” (total work of art) design of the Cabaret Fledermaus (1907) in Vienna by the Wiener Werkstätte, where experimental cabaret productions were staged. The exhibition includes original documentation of Oskar Kokoschka’s exuberant puppet theatre and Gertrude Barrison’s expressionist dance.
The Cave of the Golden Calf (1912), an underground haunt in Soho epitomising decadence and hedonism, is evoked through designs for the interior by British artists Spencer Gore and Eric Gill, as well as Wyndham Lewis’s highly stylised programmes for the eclectic performance evenings – advertised at the time as encompassing “the picturesque dances of the South, its fervid melodies, Parisian wit, English humour.” In Zurich, the radical atmosphere of the Cabaret Voltaire (1916) is manifested through absurdist sound poetry and fantastical masks that deconstruct body and language, evoking the anarchic performances by Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings and Marcel Janco. This is the birthplace of Dada, where humour, chaos and ridicule reign. Two significant clubs in Rome provide insights into the electrifying dynamism of Futurism in Italy in the 1920s. Giacomo Balla’s mesmerising Bal Tic Tac (1921) is summoned by colour-saturated designs for the club’s interior, capturing the swirling movement of dancers. Also on show are drawings and furnishings for Fortunato Depero’s spectacular inferno-inspired Cabaret del Diavolo (1922) which occupied three floors representing heaven, purgatory and hell. Depero’s flamboyant tapestry writhes with dancing demons, expressing the club’s motto “Tutti all’inferno!!! (Everyone to hell!!!)”.
A few years later, a group of artists and writers from the radical movement Estridentismo, including Ramón Alva de la Canal, Manuel Maples Arce and Germán Cueto, began to meet at the Café de Nadie (Nobody’s Café) in Mexico City, responding to volatile Post-Revolutionary change and the urban metropolis. The ¡30-30! group expressed its values by holding a major print exhibition (partially reassembled here) in a travelling circus tent open to all. Meanwhile in Strasbourg, Theo van Doesburg, Hans Arp and Sophie Taeuber-Arp worked together to create the L’Aubette (1926-28), conceived as the ultimate “deconstruction of architecture”, with bold geometric abstraction as its guiding principle. The vast building housed a cinema-ballroom, bar, tearoom, billiards room, restaurant and more, each designed as immersive environments.
After a period of restraint in Germany during the First World War, the 1920s heralded an era of liberation and the relaxation of censorship laws. Numerous clubs and bars in metropolitan cities, such as Berlin, playing host to heady cabaret revues and daring striptease; the notorious synchronised Tiller Girls are captured in Karl Hofer’s iconic portrait. Major works by often overlooked female artists such as Jeanne Mammen and Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler, as well as George Grosz, Otto Dix and Max Beckmann, capture the pulsating energy of these nightclubs and the alternative lifestyles that flourished within them during the 1920s and 1930s. During the same time in New York, the literary and jazz scenes thrived and co-mingled in the predominantly African American neighbourhood of Harlem, where black identity was re-forged and debated. Paintings and prints by Aaron Douglas and Jacob Lawrence convey the vibrant atmosphere and complex racial and sexual politics of the time, while poetry by Langston Hughes and early cinema featuring Duke Ellington shed light on the rich range of creative expression thriving within the city.
Into the Night also celebrates the lesser known but highly influential Mbari Artists and Writers Club, founded in the early 1960s in Nigeria. Focusing on two of the club’s key locations, in Ibadan and Osogbo, the exhibition explores how they were founded as laboratories for postcolonial artistic practices, providing a platform for a dazzling range of activities – including open-air dance and theatre performances, featuring ground breaking Yoruba operas by Duro Ladipo and Fela Kuti’s Afro-jazz; poetry and literature readings; experimental art workshops; and pioneering exhibitions by African and international artists such as Colette Omogbai, Ibrahim El-Salahi and Uche Okeke. Meanwhile in Tehran, Rasht 29 emerged in1966 as a creative space for avant-garde painters, poets, musicians and filmmakers to freely discuss their practice. Spontaneous performances were celebrated and works by artists like Parviz Tanavoli and Faramarz Pilaram hung in the lounge while a soundtrack including Led Zeppelin and the Beatles played constantly.
The exhibition is curated and organised by Barbican Centre, London, in collaboration with the Belvedere, Vienna.
Press release from the Barbican Art Gallery [Online] Cited 28/12/2019
Rome: Cabaret Del Diavolo 1922 wall text
Installation views of the exhibition Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art at the Barbican Art Gallery showing Fortunato Depero’s tapestry Diavoletti neri e bianchi. Danza di diavoli (Black and White Little Devils: Dance of the Devils), 1922
Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Fortunato Depero wall text
Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art
Installation view Barbican Art Gallery 4 October 2019 – 19 January 2020
© Tristan Fewings / Getty Images
Fortunato Depero (Italian, 1892-1960)
Diavoletti neri e bianchi. Danza di diavoli (Black and White Little Devils: Dance of the Devils)
1922
Mart, Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto / Fondo Depero
© DACS 2019. Archivo Depero, Rovereto. Courtesy Mart – Archivio Fotografico e Mediateca
Rome: Bal Tic Tac 1921 wall text
Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Giacomo Balla (Italian, 1871-1958)
Design for the sign and flashing light for the facade of the Bal Tic Tac (installation views)
1921
Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Giacomo Balla wall text
Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Giacomo Balla (Italian, 1871-1958)
Design for the sign and flashing light for the facade of the Bal Tic Tac
1921
© DACS, 2019. Reproduced by permission of the Fondazione Torino Musei
Photo: Studio Fotografico Gonella 2014
Installation views of the exhibition Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art at the Barbican Art Gallery
Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Giacomo Balla (Italian, 1871-1958)
Dancer from the Bal Tic Tac (installation view)
1921
Pencil on paper
Biagiotti Cigna Foundation
Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Giacomo Balla (Italian, 1871-1958)
Design for a light for the Bal Tic Tac (installation view)
1921
Pencil and tempera on paper
Torino, GAM – Galleria Civica d’Arte moderna e Contemporanea, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe
Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Giacomo Balla wall text
Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Installation views of the exhibition Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art at the Barbican Art Gallery
Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Mexico City: Cafe De Nadie & Carpa Amaro 1920s wall text
Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Installation views of the exhibition Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art at the Barbican Art Gallery showing a group of Mexican woodcuts 1922-28
Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Justino Fernandez (Mexican, 1904-1972)
El corrido (The Corrido) (installation views)
1928
Woodcut
Fondo Diaz de León
Colección Andres Blastien, Mexico
Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Justino Fernandez (Mexican, 1904-1972)
La hora del mando (Market Time) (installation views)
1928
Woodcut
Fondo Diaz de León
Colección Andres Blastien, Mexico
Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Fernando Leal (Mexican, 1896-1964)
Danzantes (Dancers) (installation view)
1922
Woodcut
Fondo Diaz de León
Colección Andres Blastien, Mexico
Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Francisco Diaz de León (Mexican, 1897-1975)
Retablo (Altarpiece)
1928
Woodcut
Fondo Diaz de León
Colección Andres Blastien, Mexico
Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Isabella Villaseñor (Mexican, 1909-1953)
Autorretrato (Self-portrait) (installation view)
1928
Woodcut
Colecciones Carlos Monsivais
Museo del Estanquillo
Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Fernando Leal (Mexican, 1896-1964)
Dance of the Crescent Moon (installation view)
1922
Woodcut
Museo Nacional de Arte, INBA
Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Gabriel Fernández Ledesma (Mexican, 1900-1983)
Cabeza de Lenin (Head of Lenin) (installation view)
1927
Woodcut
Fondo Diaz de León
Colección Andres Blastien, Mexico
Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Gabriel Fernández Ledesma (Mexican, 1900-1983)
Tlacuache (Opposum) (installation view)
c. 1920s
Woodcut
Fondo Diaz de León
Colección Andres Blastien, Mexico
Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Gabriel Fernández Ledesma (Mexican, 1900-1983)
Patos Chinos (Chinese Ducks) (installation view)
1928
Woodcut
Fondo Diaz de León
Colección Andres Blastien, Mexico
Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art
Installation view Barbican Art Gallery 4 October 2019 – 19 January 2020
© Tristan Fewings / Getty Images
Installation view of the exhibition Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art at the Barbican Art Gallery showing Germán Cueto’s Máscara estridentista (Stridentist Masks), c. 1924
Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Germán Cueto (Mexican, 1893-1975)
Máscara estridentista (Stridentist Mask)
c. 1924
Colección Ysabel Galán, México
Photo: Cortesia del Museo Frederico Silva Escultura Contemporeana, San Luis Potosi, Mexico
Installation views of the exhibition Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art at the Barbican Art Gallery showing Ramón Alva de la Canal’s painting El Café de Nadie (Nobody’s Café), c. 1970
Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art
Installation view Barbican Art Gallery 4 October 2019 – 19 January 2020
© Tristan Fewings / Getty Images
Ramón Alva de la Canal (Mexican, 1892-1985)
El Café de Nadie (Nobody’s Café)
c. 1970
© DACS, 2019
Courtesy Private Collection
Installation views of the exhibition Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art at the Barbican Art Gallery showing Mexican printed books 1923-1927
Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Ramón Alva de la Canal (Mexican, 1892-1985)
El movimiento estridentista (The Stridentist Movement) (installation views)
1926
Woodcut
Francisco Reyes Palma Collection
Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Ramón Alva de la Canal (Mexican, 1892-1985)
Manuel Maples Arce en el Café de Nadie (Manuel Maples Arce in the Café de Nadie) (installation view)
c. 1924
Woodcut
Museo Nacional de Arte, Mexico City
Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Barbican Art Gallery
Silk Street, London
EC2Y 8DS
Opening hours:
Mon – Tue 12noon – 6pm
Wed – Fri 12noon – 9pm
Sat 10am – 9pm
Sun 10am – 6pm
Exhibition: ‘Balthasar Burkhard’ at Fotomuseum Winterthur and Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur, Zurich
Tags: "Click!" said the Camera, aerial photographs, aerial photography, Amsterdam Canvases 1969-70, arald Szeemann, architectural photography, Auf der Alp, avant-garde European photography, Balthasar Burkhard, Balthasar Burkhard arald Szeemann, Balthasar Burkhard Bernina, Balthasar Burkhard Bull, Balthasar Burkhard Camel, Balthasar Burkhard Design for Body II, Balthasar Burkhard early photographs, Balthasar Burkhard Ecosse, Balthasar Burkhard feet 2, Balthasar Burkhard in his studio, Balthasar Burkhard Jean-Christophe Ammann at Andy Warhol's Factory, Balthasar Burkhard Mexico City, Balthasar Burkhard Michael Heizer Berne Depression, Balthasar Burkhard Nuages 8, Balthasar Burkhard On the Alp, Balthasar Burkhard oT, Balthasar Burkhard Richard Serra Splash Piece, Balthasar Burkhard Rio Negro, Balthasar Burkhard Scotland, Balthasar Burkhard Silberen, Balthasar Burkhard Study of The Head, Balthasar Burkhard The Bed, Balthasar Burkhard The Knee, Balthasar Burkhard The Knie, Balthasar Burkhard the last day of documenta 5, Balthasar Burkhard The Reindeer, Berner Bohème, Bernese Seeland region, Bernina, Body and Sculpture, Chicago and the Self-Invention of the Artist, cloud photography, Conceptual Art, contemporary art, Design for Body II, documenta 5, Ecosse, emancipation of photography, Esther Altorfer, feet 2, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Fotostiftung Schweiz, Gotthard Schuh, Happening & Fluxus, Harald Szeemann, heliography, Jakob Tuggener, Jean-Christophe Ammann, Jean-Christophe Ammann at Andy Warhol's Factory, Jean-Christophe Ammann Balthasar Burkhard, Jean-Frédéric Schnyder, Kurt Blum, large format photography, large-scale photographic canvases, Markus Raetz, materiality of the image, Mexico City, Michael Heizer Berne Depression, Monika Raetz-Müller, monumental photographic tableaux, monumental tableau, nature and culture, Niele Toroni, nineteenth century photography, Nuages 8, On the Alp, Paul Senn, performance art, photo actuelle suisse, photo canvases, Photo works, photographic journal, photographic tableau, photography of cities, photography of clouds, Portraits: Types and Individuals, post-war humanist photography, Richard Serra Splash Piece, Rio Negro, sculptural human landscapes, self-invention of a photographer, Silberen, site-specific architectures, Study of The Head, Swiss art, Swiss art scene, Swiss artist, Swiss conceptual art, Swiss performance art, Swiss photographer, Swiss photography, The Amsterdam Canvases 1969-70, The Bed, The Knee, The Knie, the last day of documenta 5, The Reindeer, Thomas Kovachevic, Urs Dickerhof, Urs Lüthi, visible reality, Visualised thought processes, Visualisierte Denkprozesse, When Attitudes Become Form
Exhibition dates: 10th February – 21st May 2018
As is so often the case with an artist, it is the early work that shines brightest in this posting.
The works from On the Alp possess an essential power; the daring capture of actions and performances by the international avant-garde of the day make you wish you had been there; and the installation photograph of ‘The Knie’, Kunsthalle Basel in 1983 (below) makes me want to see more of his 1980s installations, with their shift in scale and repetitive nature. There are no more examples online, but a couple of photographs can be seen in the first installation photograph below.
I can leave the underwhelming aerial, cloud and landscape work well alone. There are many people in the history of photography who have taken better photographs of such subject matter. His life-sized photographs of animals again do nothing for me. They possess a reductive minimalism riffing on the canvas backgrounds of Avedon blown up to enormous size (as in most contemporary photography, as if by making something large the photograph gains aura and importance) but they lead nowhere. Perhaps in their actual presence (the physicality of the print) I might be transported to another place, but in reproduction they are a one-dimensional non sequitur.
From the energy of the earlier work emerges “a beauty contest between animals in a photo-shoot”, scrupulous studio photos that demand to be taken seriously, but mean very little. Here, passion has lost out to rigorous and deathly control.
Marcus
.
Many thankx to Fotomuseum Winterthur and Fotostiftung Schweiz for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Together, Fotomuseum Winterthur and Fotostiftung Schweiz will showcase the oeuvre of Swiss artist Balthasar Burkhard (1944-2010) in a major retrospective. Burkhard’s work spans half a century: from his early days as a trainee photographer with Kurt Blum to his seminal role in chronicling the art of his time, eventually becoming a photographic artist in his own right who brought photography into the realms of contemporary art in the form of the monumental tableau. More than 150 works and groups of works chart not only the progress of his own photographic career, but also the emergence of photography as an art form in the second half of the twentieth century. An exhibition in collaboration with Museum Folkwang, Essen, and Museo d’arte della Svizzera italiana, Lugano.
Balthasar Burkhard (1944-2010)
from On the Alp
1963
© Estate Balthasar Burkhard
Balthasar Burkhard (1944-2010)
oT (Urs Luthi, Balthasar Burkhard, Jean-Frederic Schnyder), Amsterdam
1969
© Estate Balthasar Burkhard
Balthasar Burkhard (1944-2010)
Untitled (Jean-Christophe Ammann at Andy Warhol’s Factory), New York
1972
© Estate Balthasar Burkhard
Jean-Christophe Ammann
oT (Balthasar Burkhard), USA
Venice, 1972
© Estate Balthasar Burkhard
Together, Fotomuseum Winterthur and Fotostiftung Schweiz have launched a major retrospective exhibition dedicated to the lifetime achievement of Swiss artist Balthasar Burkhard (1944-2010). His oeuvre is almost unparalleled in the way it reflects not only the self-invention of a photographer but also the emancipation of photography as an artistic medium in its own right during the second half of the twentieth century.
The exhibition charts the many facets of Burkhard’s career, step by step, from his apprenticeship with Kurt Blum – in which he adhered closely to the traditional reportage and illustrative photography of the 1960s, and undertook his first independent photographic projects – to his role alongside legendary curator Harald Szeemann, and his documentation of Bern’s bohemian scene in the 1960s and 1970s. Balthasar Burkhard is the author of many iconic images of such groundbreaking exhibitions as When Attitudes Become Form at Kunsthalle Bern in 1969 and the 1972 documenta 5, capturing radical and frequently ephemeral works, actions and performances by the international avant-garde of the day.
Meanwhile, Burkhard endeavoured to make his mark both as a photographer and as an artist, developing his first large-scale photographic canvases in collaboration with his friend and colleague Markus Raetz, trying out his skills as an actor in the USA, and ultimately being invited to hold his own highly influential exhibitions at Kunsthalle Basel and Musée Rath in Geneva in 1983 and 1984. These enabled him to liberate photography from its purely documentary role by creating monumental tableaux in which he developed the motif of the body into sculptural human landscapes and site-specific architectures.
Throughout the course of his career, Burkhard turned time and again to portraiture. Whereas his early photographs tended to show artists in action within their own setting, his later portraits adopted an increasingly formalised approach. During the 1990s, he transposed this stylistic reduction to a wide-ranging series of animal portraits reminiscent of the encyclopaedic style of nineteenth century photography.
Another milestone of Burkhard’s oeuvre can be found in his vast aerial photographs of major mega cities such as Tokyo and Mexico City. These images, shot from an aircraft, like his images of the earth’s deserts, were destined to become a personal passion. Balthasar Burkhard’s quest for a morphology, for a formula that could encapsulate both nature and culture, is particularly evident in his later work, which ranges from pictures of waves and clouds, Swiss mountains and rivers, to the delicate fragility of plants. His interest was always focused on the materiality of the image. Alongside the highly idosyncratic and somewhat darkly sombre tonality of his prints, Burkhard constantly sought to explore every aspect of photography’s aesthetic and technical potential.
Encompassing half a century of creativity, the joint exhibition by Fotomuseum and Fotostiftung not only shows individual works, but also reflects on Balthasar Burkhard’s own view of how his photographs should be presented, underpinned by a wealth of documents from the archives of the artist. The exhibition is divided in two parts and shown in parallel in the exhibition spaces of Fotomuseum and Fotostiftung.
Press release
Balthasar Burkhard (1944-2010) / Markus Raetz
The Bed
1969/70
© Estate Balthasar Burkhard
Balthasar Burkhard (1944-2010)
oT (Michael Heizer, Berne Depression), Berne
1969
© J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
Balthasar Burkhard (1944-2010)
Untitled (Richard Serra, Splash Piece), Berne
1969
© J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
Balthasar Burkhard (1944-2010)
oT (Harald Szeemann, the last day of documenta 5), Kassel
1972
© Estate Balthasar Burkhard
With this major retrospective, Fotomuseum Winterthur and Fotostiftung Schweiz pay homage to the Swiss artist Balthasar Burkhard (1944-2010). His oeuvre is almost unparalleled in the way it reflects not only the self-invention of a photographer, but also the emancipation of photography as an artistic medium in its own right during the second half of the twentieth century.
Together, the two institutions chart the many and varied facets of Burkhard’s career, step by step. Fotostiftung presents early works from the days of his apprenticeship with Kurt Blum and his first independent documentary photographs. The exhibition also traces Burkhard’s role as a photographer alongside the curator Harald Szeemann and capturing images of Bern’s bohemian scene in the 1960s and 1970s. During that time, Burkhard carved his niche as a photographer and artist, developing his first large-scale photographic canvases in collaboration with his friend Markus Raetz and eventually breaking away from the European art world in search of both himself and new inspiration in the USA.
The second part of the exhibition at Fotomuseum shows the work created by Burkhard after his return to Europe, and his exploration of the photographic tableau. It was during this phase that he largely succeeded in emancipating photography from its purely documentary function. Using monumental formats, he translated the motif of the human body into sculptural landscapes and site-specific architectures. He went on to apply his stylistic device of formal reduction to portraits and landscapes. This marked the beginning of a series of experiments in the handling of photographic techniques. From long-distance aerial photographs of mega-cities such as Mexico City and Tokyo to close-up studies of flowers and plants, Burkhard seemed to be constantly seeking a formula that would embrace both nature and culture, encapsulating a sensory and sensual grasp of visible reality.
Encompassing half a century of creativity, the exhibition not only shows individual works, but is also underpinned by applied projects, films and many documents from the archives of the artist. This wealth of material allows a reflection both on Balthasar Burkhard’s own view of how his photographs should be presented in the exhibition space as well as his constant weighing-up of other media.
Part I (Fotostiftung Schweiz)
Early photographs
Balthasar Burkhard was just eight years old when his father gave him a camera to take along on a school excursion. Burkhard himself describes this early experience with the camera as the starting point of his career. It was also his father who suggested an apprenticeship with Kurt Blum, one of Switzerland’s foremost photographers, ranking along-side Paul Senn, Jakob Tuggener and Gotthard Schuh. Blum taught the young Balz, as he was nicknamed, all the finer points of darkroom technique as well as the art of large-format photography. The earliest work from Burkhard’s apprentice years is a reportage of the school, in the form of a book, while his documentation of the Distelzwang Society’s historic guildhall in the old quarter of Bern was clearly a lesson in architectural photography. Yet, no sooner had he completed his apprenticeship than Burkhard was already embarking on his very own independent projects inspired by post-war humanist photography, such as Auf der Alp, a study of rural Alpine life, for which he was awarded the Swiss Federal Grant for Applied Arts in 1964.
Chronicler of Bohemian Life in Bern
Even during his apprenticeship, Burkhard moved in the Bernese art circles to which his teacher Kurt Blum also belonged. In 1962, he created a first portrait, in book form, of painter and writer Urs Dickerhof. Shortly after that, he became friends with his near-contemporary Markus Raetz, and started taking photographs for the charismatic curator Harald Szeemann, who was director of Kunsthalle Bern from 1961 to 1969. Burkhard immersed himself in the vibrantly dynamic Swiss art scene, documenting the often controversial exhibitions of conceptual art at the Kunsthalle, and capturing the lives of Bern’s bohemian set with his 35mm camera. These visual mementos would later be collated in a kind of photographic journal. Initial collaborative projects with artists included a 1966 artists’ book about the village of Curogna (Ticino) and a window display for the Loeb department store in Bern featuring photographic portraits of the Bernese artist Esther Altorfer, devised in collaboration with Markus Raetz and his later wife, fashion designer Monika Raetz-Müller.
Landscapes 1969
Inspired by his friend Raetz, Burkhard photographed bleak and rugged snow-covered landscapes in the Bernese Seeland region. Heaps of earth piled up along the wayside reminded him of Robert Smithson’s Earthworks, which had just emerged in contemporary art. As Burkhard would later explain, “I wanted to leave out everything relating to myself, so that I could truly relate to what remained. I distanced myself from my subject-matter. I succeeded in stepping back both from myself and from my work.”
A close-up of bare agricultural soil, vaguely reminiscent of a lunar landscape, forms the basis for an object with a neon tube created in 1969 for the legendary exhibition When Attitudes Become Form in collaboration with Harald Szeemann, Markus Raetz and Jean-Frédéric Schnyder. In 1969, Burkhard’s brown-toned landscapes were included in the 1969 exhibition photo actuelle suisse in Sion. They were subsequently published as his first independent portfolio by Allan Porter in the May issue of Camera magazine, which was dedicated to avant-garde European photography and its affinity with contemporary art.
The Amsterdam Canvases 1969-70
When Markus Raetz took a studio in Amsterdam in 1969, he and Burkhard continued to work on joint projects. Photographs of everyday motifs were enlarged, practically life-sized, onto canvas, and caused a sensation in the spring 1970 exhibition Visualisierte Denkprozesse (Visualised thought processes) at Kunstmuseum Luzern, curated by Jean-Christophe Ammann, who wrote: “On huge canvases, they [Raetz and Burkhard] showed, among other things, a spartan studio space, a bedroom, a kitchen, a curtain. They relativised the purely object-like character by hanging the canvases on clips. The resulting folds enriched the images by adding a new dimension.” In other words, the folds in the canvas created a “quasi ironic and disillusioning barrier.” Burkhard’s large-format works foreshadowed the monumental photographic tableaux that would eventually herald the ultimate march of photography into the museum space some ten years later.
Documentarist of the International Art Scene
By the end of the 1960s, Harald Szeemann and his polarising, controversial exhibitions were drawing increasing attention far beyond the boundaries of Switzerland. In particular, his (in)famous 1969 show When Attitudes Become Form unleashed heated debates that ultimately led to Szeemann’s resignation as director of Kunsthalle Bern. Then, in 1970, he shocked the members and visitors of the Kunstverein in Cologne with an exhibition dedicated to Happening & Fluxus. Here, too, Burkhard was on hand with his camera. Jean-Christophe Ammann, with whom Burkhard undertook a research trip to the USA in 1972, photographing many artists’ studios, proved no less controversial a figure. Moreover, Burkhard also photographed artists, actions and installations at the 1972 documenta 5 in Kassel, which was headed by none other than Szeemann himself. Given the expanded concept of art that prevailed at the time, which strengthened the role of performance art and installation works alike, photography, too, gained a newfound core significance. Indeed, it was only through photography that many of these innovative works were preserved for posterity.
Chicago and the Self-Invention of the Artist
Following a relatively unproductive period in the wake of documenta 5, during which he worked, among other things, on an unfinished documentary project about the small Swiss town of Zofingen, Burkhard spent the years between 1975 and 1978 in Chicago, where he taught photography at the University of Illinois. It was while he was there that he once again reprised the series of photo canvases he had been working on in Amsterdam between 1969 and 1970. This led to new large-format works portraying everyday scenes such as the back seat of an automobile or the interior of a home with a TV, as well as three now lost photographs of roller skaters and a very androgynous back-view nude study of a young man. In 1977 the Zolla/Lieberman Gallery in Chicago presented these canvases together with a selection of the Amsterdam works in what was Burkhard’s first solo exhibition. Critics were impressed by his “soft photographs”. The Chicago Tribune, for instance, enthused: “‘European’ grace is wedded to ‘American’ strength in a supreme artistic fiction that suggests the wide-screen format of film.”
Self-Portraits
In Chicago, Burkhard rekindled his friendship with performance and conceptual artist Thomas Kovachevic, whom he had first met at documenta 5 and who now introduced him to the local art scene. At the same time, Burkhard toyed with the notion of trying his chances as a film actor in Hollywood. With Kovachevich’s help, he produced a series of self-portraits, both Polaroids and slides, which he presented in a small snakeskin-covered box as his application portfolio. He approached Alfred Hitchcock and Joshua Shelley of Columbia Pictures, albeit unsuccessfully. His only film role was in Urs Egger’s 1978 Eiskalte Vögel (Icebound; screened in seminar room I). Burkhard later transformed some of his self-portraits into large-scale canvases, through which he asserted his newfound sense of identity as an artist, making himself the subject-matter of his own artistic work. One of these was also shown in the Photo Canvases exhibition at Zolla/Lieberman Gallery.
Balthasar Burkhard (1944-2010)
feet 2
1980
© Estate Balthasar Burkhard
Balthasar Burkhard (1944-2010)
‘The Knie’, Kunsthalle Basel (installation view)
1983
© Estate Balthasar Burkhard
Balthasar Burkhard (1944-2010)
Study of The Head
c. 1983
© Estate Balthasar Burkhard
Balthasar Burkhard (1944-2010)
Design for Body II
c. 1983
© Estate Balthasar Burkhard
Part II (Fotomuseum Winterthur)
Body and Sculpture
The 1980s heralded the advent of a particularly productive period for Balthasar Burkhard in which he adopted a more sculptural approach to photography, treating his prints as an integral part of the exhibition architecture. Just as he himself had witnessed how the generation of artists before him had called the classic exhibition space into question, so too did his own latest works now begin to take control of that space. Burkhard became one of the foremost proponents of large-scale photographic tableaux, as evidenced by his groundbreaking exhibitions at Kunsthalle Basel in 1983 and Museé Rath, Geneva, in 1984.
It was in the photo canvases he made in Chicago during the late 1970s that Burkhard first turned towards the motif of the body as a sculptural form with which he would continue to experiment over the coming years. Such an overtly sculptural approach to the body and to the nude as landscape soon began to demand a larger format than Burkhard had previously been using. An arm, almost four metres long, framed by heavy steel, or the multipart installation Das Knie (Knee), reflect the very core of his creative oeuvre in all its many facets: monumentality, fragmentation and the breaking of genre boundaries by transposing two-dimensional images into spatially commanding installations.
Portraits: Types and Individuals
The increasing formal reduction of Balthasar Burkhard’s images continued in the field of portraiture. He invited fellow artists such as Lawrence Weiner and Christian Boltanski to sit for him. With this series, it seemed that he had finally put behind him his days as a chronicler of the art scene, reliant on the techniques of applied photography.
Portraits of a rather different kind are his profiles of animals, in an equally reduced setting, against the backdrop of a tarpaulin. Redolent of Renaissance drawings or nineteenth century animal photography, his images of sheep, wolves and lions come across as representing ideal and typical examples of their species without anthropomorphising them, while at the same time wrenching them out of their natural environment. These images reached a broad audience through the popular 1997 children’s book “Click!”, said the Camera, which was republished in its second edition in 2017.
Architectural Photography
Given his increasing success in the art world, Burkhard could well afford to be selective about his choice of commissioned works. He had already been taking photographs for architects connected with the Bern-based firm Atelier 5 back in the 1960s, and was still accepting commissions in this field in the 1990s. Burkhard’s photographic essay on the Ricola building designed by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron indicates just how thoroughly his own distinctive artistic syntax permeates his commissioned and architectural photography, right through to the details of fragments and materials. These photographs were shown in the Swiss Pavilion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 1991, having been explicitly designed for this particular exhibition space. As in his artistic oeuvre, Burkhard operates here with spatially commanding installations, skilfully dovetailing the architectural motif with the presentational form.
Aerial Photography
In the 1990s, before the art world had even begun to turn its attention to the subject of megacities, Burkhard was already taking a keen interest in the world’s major conurbations. Following in the footsteps of his father, who had been a Swiss airforce pilot, he took bird’s-eye-view photographs from a plane. His panoramic shots of cities such as London, Mexico City and Los Angeles were preceded by small-format studies of clouds: the so-called Nuages series. Having incorporated a study of rural Switzerland into his formative training in 1963 with the series Auf der Alp (On the Alp), he returned once more to focus on the landscape of his homeland in the early 2000s with an entire series of aerial photographs of the Bernina mountain range.
Landscape and Flora
In the last two decades of his life, Burkhard concentrated primarily on landscape and flora, turning to historical precedents both in his techniques and in his choice of motif. The desert formations of Namibia, in which all sense of proportion is lost amid the remote and untouched wilderness, set a counterpoint to the sprawling urban expanses of Mexico City and London. The diptych Welle (Wave), by contrast, pays homage to the work of French artist Gustave Courbet, with Burkhard making a pilgrimage to the tide swept shores where the father of Realism had painted in 1870.
In another series, Burkhard adapts the aesthetics of botanical plant studies, which were as widely used around the turn of the twentieth century as the complex photographic process of heliography, and transposes these to larger-than-life formats. Whereas Burkhard, as a young photographer, had captured the exuberant art scene of the 1960s and 1970s, snapshot-style, he later went on, as an artist-photographer, to explore the potential of the photographic tableau, diligently researching near-forgotten techniques and the sensual details of the visible world.
Artwork and Commissioned Work
The site-specific installations of his photographs and Burkhard’s own dedicated approach to museum spaces warrant an excursion into the archives of the artist, paying particular attention to four exemplary exhibitions.
One spectacular and iconic show was the Fotowerke (Photo works) exhibition at Kunsthalle Basel in 1983. Curated by artist Rémy Zaugg, the installations can be reconstructed thanks to the catalogue and copious documentation. Contact prints and studies, for instance, help to give an insight into the no longer extant thirteen metre work Körper I (Body I) as well as shedding light on the choice of motif for further body fragments.
A 1984 solo exhibition at the Le Consortium in Dijon, on the other hand, shows how Burkhard responded with his group of works Das Knie (Knee) to an entirely different installation context within the given space. Similarly, at the Musée Rath in Geneva that same year, Burkhard, together with his friend Niele Toroni, instigated a radical juxtaposition of photography and painting based on the pillars of the exhibition venue.
At Grand-Hornu in the Belgian town of Mons, by contrast, his life-sized photographs of animals were mounted at eye level. While Burkhard chose a large format for the exhibition venue, the images in his children’s book “Click!”, said the Camera tell of a beauty contest between animals in a photo-shoot. This apparent discrepancy between artwork and commissioned work never seemed to be relevant to Burkhard. The sheer volume of his studio photos, alone, indicates just how scrupulously precise he was about the way he wanted to be perceived as a serious photographer.
Wall text from the exhibition
Installation views of the exhibition Balthasar Burkhard at Fotomuseum Winterthur and Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur, Zurich February – May 2018
Balthasar Burkhard (1944-2010)
Balthasar Burkhard in his studio
1995
© Estate Balthasar Burkhard
Balthasar Burkhard (1944-2010)
Camel
1997
© Estate Balthasar Burkhard
Balthasar Burkhard (1944-2010)
Bull
1996
© Estate Balthasar Burkhard
Balthasar Burkhard (1944-2010)
The Reindeer
1996
© Estate Balthasar Burkhard
Balthasar Burkhard (1944-2010)
Mexico City
1999
© Estate Balthasar Burkhard
Balthasar Burkhard (1944-2010)
Mexico City
1999
© Estate Balthasar Burkhard
Balthasar Burkhard (1944-2010)
Nuages 8
1999
© Estate Balthasar Burkhard
Balthasar Burkhard (1944-2010)
Ecosse (Scotland)
2000
© Estate Balthasar Burkhard
Balthasar Burkhard (1944-2010)
Bernina
2003
© Estate Balthasar Burkhard
Balthasar Burkhard (1944-2010)
Silberen
2004
© Estate Balthasar Burkhard
Balthasar Burkhard (1944-2010)
Rio Negro
2002
© Estate Balthasar Burkhard
Fotostiftung Schweiz
Grüzenstrasse 45
CH-8400 Winterthur (Zürich)
Tel: +41 52 234 10 30
Opening hours:
Daily 11 am – 6 pm
Wednesday 11 am – 8 pm
Closed on Mondays
Fotostiftung Schweiz website
Fotomuseum Winterthur
Grüzenstrasse 44 + 45 CH-8400
Winterthur (Zürich)
Opening hours:
Tuesday to Sunday 11 am – 6 pm
Wednesday 11 am – 8 pm
Closed on Mondays
Fotomuseum Winterthur website
LIKE ART BLART ON FACEBOOK
Back to top