AUGUST SANDER – Portrait I Landscape I Architecture at Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow

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PORTRAIT | LANDSCAPE | ARCHITECTURE

MULTIMEDIA ART MUSEUM, MOSCOW
August Sander

February 21st – May 19th, 2013

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‘Photography is by nature a documentary art,’ Sander declared in 1931 during one of his radio lectures, voicing the artistic credo to which he remained faithful all his life. Sander owes his fame and status as a master of photography to the vast series of portraits begun at the very outset of his career. The German photographer’s portraits are full-face and typically quite uncompromising shots with carefully considered composition, where nothing is intended for effect or spectacle. Sander was able to capture the individuality and character traits of his subjects, while openly demonstrating that they belonged to a specific social group. Consequently his photographs are a representative slice of interwar German society and also a fascinating historical document, rather than merely a collection of portraits.

In the early 1920s August Sander spent much of his time with the artists of the German avant-garde and in particular Otto Dix, who became one of his closest friends. The money earned from commercial commissions allowed Sander to work in his spare time on a grandiose documentary project entitled ‘People of the 20th Century’, aimed at compiling a typology of contemporary Germans and devising a social portrait of his epoch. Subjects for these images were selected from his acquaintances and customers.

Since Sander could not conceive of humanity separately from the environment, he conducted an active study of fauna and worked on a topographical description of German territories in parallel to the portrait photography. In 1933 the photographer began producing thematic albums dedicated to various regions in Germany, including the Rhine valley. Although August Sander never achieved widespread recognition as a topographer, he can rightly be considered the forerunner of modern landscape and architectural photography.

Sander’s creative style, his methodical approach, objectivity and specific method of working on photographic series greatly influenced luminaries such as Walker Evans, Irving Penn, Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth and Andreas Gursky.

This exhibition was conceived by the photographer’s grandson Gerd Sander whose work is continued now by Julian Sander, the great grandson of August Sander. The exhibition is organised in collaboration with the Galerie Priska Pasquer (Cologne) and is curated by Julian Sander.

When asked in November 1927 what prompted him to create ‘People of the 20th Century’, August Sander wrote: ‘Look, observe and think’. These three words were engraved on Gerd Sander’s heart from childhood, and like his father before him, he is devoted to preserving, describing and popularising his grandfather’s artistic legacy.

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‘Photography is by nature a documentary art,’ Sander declared in 1931 during one of his radio lectures, voicing the artistic credo to which he remained faithful all his life. Sander owes his fame and status as a master of photography to the vast series of portraits begun at the very outset of his career. The German photographer’s portraits are full-face and typically quite uncompromising shots with carefully considered composition, where nothing is intended for effect or spectacle. Sander was able to capture the individuality and character traits of his subjects, while openly demonstrating that they belonged to a specific social group. Consequently his photographs are a representative slice of interwar German society and also a fascinating historical document, rather than merely a collection of portraits.

In the early 1920s August Sander spent much of his time with the artists of the German avant-garde and in particular Otto Dix, who became one of his closest friends. The money earned from commercial commissions allowed Sander to work in his spare time on a grandiose documentary project entitled ‘People of the 20th Century’, aimed at compiling a typology of contemporary Germans and devising a social portrait of his epoch. Subjects for these images were selected from his acquaintances and customers.

Since Sander could not conceive of humanity separately from the environment, he conducted an active study of fauna and worked on a topographical description of German territories in parallel to the portrait photography. In 1933 the photographer began producing thematic albums dedicated to various regions in Germany, including the Rhine valley. Although August Sander never achieved widespread recognition as a topographer, he can rightly be considered the forerunner of modern landscape and architectural photography.

Sander’s creative style, his methodical approach, objectivity and specific method of working on photographic series greatly influenced luminaries such as Walker Evans, Irving Penn, Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth and Andreas Gursky.

This exhibition was conceived by the photographer’s grandson Gerd Sander whose work is continued now by Julian Sander, the great grandson of August Sander. The exhibition is organised in collaboration with the Galerie Priska Pasquer (Cologne) and is curated by Julian Sander.

When asked in November 1927 what prompted him to create ‘People of the 20th Century’, August Sander wrote: ‘Look, observe and think’. These three words were engraved on Gerd Sander’s heart from childhood, and like his father before him, he is devoted to preserving, describing and popularising his grandfather’s artistic legacy.

EXPERIMENT – LIFE – POLITICS | Bauhaus Photography x Russian Avant-Garde

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EXPERIMENT – LIFE – POLITICS
Bauhaus Photography X Russian Avant-garde

March 2nd – May 14th, 2013

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Mit der Ausstellung “EXPERIMENT – LIFE – POLITICS” präsentiert die Galerie Priska Pasquer Fotografien aus der Zeit zwischen den beiden Weltkriegen, die als eine der bedeutendsten in der Entwicklung der Fotografie gilt. Während in Deutschland Bauhaus-Künstler vor allem Ende der 20er Jahre die Fotografie unter dem Schlagwort des „Neuen Sehens“ als Experimentierfeld nutzten, wurde das Medium in Russland zum Ausdruck politscher Veränderungen und gesellschaftlicher Idealvorstellungen.

Gezeigt werden Fotografien und Fotocollagen aus den Jahren 1919 bis 1939, unter anderem von T. Lux Feininger, Grit Kallin-Fischer, Alexander Rodchenko, Gustav Klutsis und Valentina Kulagina.

In der Umbruchszeit nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg experimentierten Künstler mit einer neuen Formensprache, die das zeitgemäße Verlangen nach einer gesellschaftlichen Neudefinition widerspiegelten. Die drastischen soziopolitischen Veränderungen, die durch den Untergang der Monarchien und den revolutionären Bestrebungen ausgelöst wurden, führten zu einer neuen kollektiven Wahrnehmung der Realität. Diese konnte durch das von vielen Zeitgenossen als demokratisch definierte Medium der Fotografie, das sich technisch zu einem dynamischen Bildaufzeichnungsgerät entwickelt hatte, dokumentiert werden. Alexander Rodchenko zum Beispiel nutzte die Kamera, um den in der Ausstellung gezeigten “Puschkin-Platz” aus einer ungewöhnlich schrägen Vogelperspektive abzulichten.

Die enge Verbindung zwischen öffentlichem Ausdruck und privatem Lebensweg demonstrieren die ausgestellten Werke des Künstlerpaars Gustav Klutsis und Valentina Kulagina, das sich der Entwicklung der Propagandakunst verschrieben hatte. Gustav Klutsis, der 1935 sein Manuskript “Das Recht auf ein Experiment” im selben Jahr begann, in dem Walter Benjamin seinen bekannten Aufsatz “Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit” schrieb, nutzte neben extremen Perspektiven die Fotomontage, um soziopolitische Ziele der Öffentlichkeit näherzubringen.

Auch in den Werken seiner Lebensgefährtin Valentina Kulagina kommen dieselben Verfahrensweisen zum Einsatz. Dass die politische Dimension der Fotografien von Klutsis-Kulagina nicht zuletzt auf ihrem privaten Lebensweg fußten, verdeutlichen Bilder wie Klutsis’ “Selbstporträt”, in dem sich der Künstler als konzentrierter Dokumentarist seiner Zeit präsentiert.

In den Anfangsjahren des Bauhaus nahm die Fotografie vornehmlich die Rolle als ein dienendes Medium ein, das vor allem dazu genutzt wurde, die am Bauhaus entstandenen Arbeiten zu dokumentieren. Schüler wie Erich Consemüller fotografierten zum Beispiel ihre Vorkursarbeiten. Unter dem Einfluss des Bauhaus-Lehrers Laszlo Moholy-Nagy blühte um 1927 die Fotografie bei Bauhausschülern auf. Sie begannen mit dem Medium zu experimentieren und nahmen dabei Einflüsse des von Moholy-Nagy propagierten „Neuen Sehens“ als auch solche von den verschiedenen Avantgarde-Strömungen wie Surrealismus und Konstruktivismus auf. Die Ausstellung zeigt z. B. eine abstrakte Objektstudie von Piet Zwart von 1931, Inszenierungen menschlicher Rollenspiele von T. Lux Feininger mit extremen Licht- und Schattenspielen oder Porträts von Grit Kallin-Fischer, die aus ungewöhnlichen Perspektiven Momente des tiefen Nachsinnens und der Konzentration zeigen.

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With the exhibition EXPERIMENT – LIFE – POLITICS, Galerie Priska Pasquer presents photographs from the period between the two world wars, which is regarded as a key development phase for photography. While Bauhaus artists in Germany were using photography primarily in the late 1920s as an experimental field under the catchphrase of the “New Vision”, the medium in Russia evolved to become an expression of political changes and social ideals.

The exhibition will feature photographs and photo collages from the years 1919 to 1939 among others by T. Lux Feininger, Grit Kallin-Fischer, Alexander Rodchenko, Gustav Klutsis and Valentina Kulagina.

During the tumultuous years that followed the First World War, artists experimented with new forms of expression that echoed the contemporary desire to redefine society. The dramatic social-political upheaval that was triggered by declining monarchies and rising revolutionary movements led to a new collective perception of reality. Artists found that it was possible to document these events using photography, which many contemporaries defined as a democratic medium, and which had technologically advanced to become a dynamic tool for recording images. Alexander Rodchenko, for instance, used his camera to photograph “Pushkin Square” from an unusually oblique bird’s-eye perspective, as can be seen in the exhibition.

The close connection between public expression and private lives is demonstrated by the exhibited works of the artistic couple Gustav Klutsis and Valentina Kulagina, who had devoted themselves to the development of propaganda art. Klutsis, who began working on the manuscript for his book “The Right for an Experiment” in 1935, the same year in which Walter Benjamin wrote his famous essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, used extreme perspectives along with photomontage to convey his social-political objectives to the general public.

The same approach can also be found in the works of his wife, Valentina Kulagina. Images such as Klutsis’ “Self-portrait”, in which the artist presents himself as a dedicated documentarian of his day and age, demonstrate that the political dimension of the photographs of Klutsis-Kulagina was also rooted in their private lives.

In the early Bauhaus years, photography was primarily employed as a medium to document designs that had been created at the school. Students such as Erich Consemueller, for example, took photos of their preliminary course work. In 1927, under the influence of Bauhaus teacher Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, photography blossomed among the students. They began to experiment with the medium, incorporating the influences of the New Vision propagated by Moholy-Nagy, along with diverse avant-garde movements such as Surrealism and Constructivism. The exhibition includes an abstract design study by Piet Zwart from 1931, interpretations of human role plays by T. Lux Feininger with extreme interplays of light and shadow, and portraits by Grit Kallin-Fischer that show moments of deep contemplation and concentration viewed from unusual angles.

LIEKO SHIGA, Canary at FOAM, Amsterdam

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CANARY
FOAM AMSTERDAM
Lieko Shiga

March 22nd – May 12th, 2013

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Foam presents the Canary series by Japanese photographer Lieko Shiga (1980). In her work, Shiga combines local myths with stories of ordinary people and their personal memories, feelings and experiences. She thus creates fantastical and often dramatic images that make reference to the twilight area between dream and reality. Her often-dark work is deeply rooted in the Japanese folkloric tradition and the supernatural as a self-evident presence. Shiga is part of a new generation of Japanese photographers. Her photos are characterised by a distinctive use of light and colour and a powerful visual language based on her own fantasy.

Canary consists of about 50 works in various formats. In addition to photos, a film will be shown with the same title, and the images accompanied by a stirring audio track (composed by Yuta Segawa). The works in the series were shot in Brisbane (Australia), Singapore and northern Japan. In order to establish contact with local people in these areas, Shiga formulated a list, and asked questions about specific places, personal experiences and anecdotes. Her contact with the people and the places they referred to served as the starting point for the series. Ultimately, however, the photos mainly reflect the fantasy world of the artist.

In her first meeting with a person or a place, or even before, Shiga visualises the definitive image she is going to create – it is as if she steps beyond herself and her body and finds herself in another existential state. The title of the series is based on this state of mind: ‘The body is simply a medium, I kept a canary inside my stomach.’

In most cases, the photos are deliberately staged, such as Wedding Veil, for which Shiga decorated a bare tree with thousands of paper blossoms or the surrealistic My Husband. For this intriguing image she created a huge animal skull, and posed alongside it. The series also contains several purely recorded images, such as Man Wearing Fur, for which she travelled to the mountains of northern Japan with a group of bear hunters.

Lieko Shiga was born in 1980 in the prefecture of Aichi. She presently lives and works in Sendai, Japan. In 2004 she graduated from the Chelsea University of Art and Design, London, earning a BA in Fine Arts and New Media. Canary won Lieko Shiga the ‘Infinity Award (Young Photographer)’ from the International Center of Photography, New York, in 2009. In 2007, her portfolio was published in Foam Magazine #12.

Photographs courtesy Galerie Priska Pasquer, Cologne

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Foam presents the Canary series by Japanese photographer Lieko Shiga (1980). In her work, Shiga combines local myths with stories of ordinary people and their personal memories, feelings and experiences. She thus creates fantastical and often dramatic images that make reference to the twilight area between dream and reality. Her often-dark work is deeply rooted in the Japanese folkloric tradition and the supernatural as a self-evident presence. Shiga is part of a new generation of Japanese photographers. Her photos are characterised by a distinctive use of light and colour and a powerful visual language based on her own fantasy.

Canary consists of about 50 works in various formats. In addition to photos, a film will be shown with the same title, and the images accompanied by a stirring audio track (composed by Yuta Segawa). The works in the series were shot in Brisbane (Australia), Singapore and northern Japan. In order to establish contact with local people in these areas, Shiga formulated a list, and asked questions about specific places, personal experiences and anecdotes. Her contact with the people and the places they referred to served as the starting point for the series. Ultimately, however, the photos mainly reflect the fantasy world of the artist.

In her first meeting with a person or a place, or even before, Shiga visualises the definitive image she is going to create – it is as if she steps beyond herself and her body and finds herself in another existential state. The title of the series is based on this state of mind: ‘The body is simply a medium, I kept a canary inside my stomach.’

In most cases, the photos are deliberately staged, such as Wedding Veil, for which Shiga decorated a bare tree with thousands of paper blossoms or the surrealistic My Husband. For this intriguing image she created a huge animal skull, and posed alongside it. The series also contains several purely recorded images, such as Man Wearing Fur, for which she travelled to the mountains of northern Japan with a group of bear hunters.

Lieko Shiga was born in 1980 in the prefecture of Aichi. She presently lives and works in Sendai, Japan. In 2004 she graduated from the Chelsea University of Art and Design, London, earning a BA in Fine Arts and New Media. Canary won Lieko Shiga the ‘Infinity Award (Young Photographer)’ from the International Center of Photography, New York, in 2009. In 2007, her portfolio was published in Foam Magazine #12.

Photographs courtesy Galerie Priska Pasquer, Cologne