Faces. The Power of the Human Visage
Until 20 June 2021
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Starting from Helmar Lerski’s outstanding photo series Metamorphosis through Light (1935/36), the exhibition Faces presents portraits from the period of the Weimar Republic.
The 1920s and ’30s saw photographers radically renew the conventional understanding of the classic portrait: their aim was no longer to represent an individual’s personality; instead, they conceived of the face as material to be staged according to their own ideas. In this, the photographed face became a locus for dealing with avant-garde aesthetic ideas as well as interwar-period social developments. And it was thus that modernist experiments, the relationship between individual and general type, feminist roll-playing, and political ideologies collided in—and thereby expanded—the general understanding of portrait photography.
Artists:
Gertrud Arndt, Marta Astfalck-Vietz, Irene Bayer, Aenne Biermann, Erwin Blumenfeld, Max Burchartz, Suse Byk, Paul Citroen, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Andreas Feininger, Werner David Feist, Trude Fleischmann, Jozef Glogowski, Paul Edmund Hahn, Lotte Jacobi, Grit Kallin-Fischer, Edmund Kesting, Rudolf Koppitz, Kurt Kranz, Germaine Krull, Erna Lendvai-Dircksen, Helmar Lerski, László Moholy-Nagy, Lucia Moholy, Oskar Nerlinger, Erich Retzlaff, Hans Richter, Leni Riefenstahl, Franz Roh, Werner Rohde, Ilse Salberg, August Sander, Franz Xaver Setzer, Robert Siodmak, Anton Stankowski, Elfriede Stegemeyer, Edgar G. Ulmer, Umbo, Robert Wiene, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Willy Zielke
On view from 12 February bis 20 June 2021.
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Faces. The Power of the Human Visage
Starting with Helmar Lerski’s outstanding photo series Metamorphosis through Light (1935/36), this volume presents portraits from the period of the Weimar Republic. During the 1920s and ’30s, photographers radically revised the conventional understanding of the portrait. No longer were photographs intended to show the personality of the subject, rather the face was viewed as material for staging the photographer’s ideas and aesthetic agenda.
Faces. The Power of the Human Visage
Ed. Walter Moser
Hirmer Verlag
2021
248 pages
28.5 x 23 cm / soft cover
German EUR 34,90
English EUR 34,90
Helmar Lerski: Metamorphosis, 588, 1935–1936
29 x 23 cm, Gelatin silver print
(The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna © Estate Helmar Lerski – Museum Folkwang, Essen)
Helmar Lerski: Metamorphosis, 604, 1935–1936
29 x 23 cm, Gelatin silver print
(The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna © Estate Helmar Lerski – Museum Folkwang, Essen)
Marta Astfalck-Vietz: Ohne Titel (Marta Vietz, Akt mit Spitze), ca 1927
16.4 x 11.3 cm, Gelatin silver print
(Dietmar Katz/Berlinische Galerie © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn)
Dietmar Katz/Berlinische Galerie
August Sander: Handlanger, 1928
19,9 x 13,4 cm, Gelatin silver print
(© Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur - August Sander Archiv, Köln; BILDRECHT, Wien, 2020)
August Sander: Jungbauern, 1914
23,1 x 16,9 cm, Gelatin silver print
(© Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur - August Sander Archiv, Köln; BILDRECHT, Wien, 2020)
Irene Bayer: Andor Weininger as Clown, 1926
37,8 × 27,5 cm, Gelatin silver paper
(Museum Folkwang, Essen © Museum Folkwang, Essen)
Gertrud Arndt: Maskenselbstbildnis Nr. 22, 1930
22,9 × 17 cm, Silbergelatinepapier
(Museum Folkwang, Essen © Bildrecht, Wien 2020)
Max Burchartz: Lotte (Auge), 1928
32,5 x 44,1 cm, Silbergelatinepapier
(Museum Folkwang, Essen © Bildrecht, Wien 2020)
Oskar Nerlinger: Kopf mit Taschenlampe, ca. 1928
20 × 16,2 cm, Silbergelatinepapier
(Galerie Berinson, Berlin © Sigrid Nerlinger)
Willy Zielke: Unemployed. The Fate of Millions / The Truth. A Film on the Ordeal of the German Worker, 1933
12 x 17 cm, Gelatin silver print
(Galerie Berinson, Berlin)
Helmar Lerski: Verwandlungen durch Licht, 537, 1935-1936
Silver gelatin paper
(© Nachlass Helmar Lerski – Museum Folkwang, Essen)
Helmar Lerski: Verwandlungen durch Licht, 536, 1935-1936
Silver gelatin paper
(© Nachlass Helmar Lerski – Museum Folkwang, Essen)
Erich Retzlaff: Bride’s Traditional Dress from Kleines Walsertal, from German Folk Costumes, before 1936
17,6 × 12,3 cm, Gelatin silver print on supporting cardboard
(The Albertina Museum, Vienna – Permanent loan from the Österreichische Ludwig-Stiftung für Kunst und Wissenschaft)
© Dr. Anna-Claudia Guimbous
Franz Roh: Masquerade, 1928-1933
Gelatin silver print
(Münchner Stadtmuseum - Nachlass Franz Roh, München)
29 x 23 cm, Gelatin silver print (The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna © Estate Helmar Lerski – Museum Folkwang, Essen)
29 x 23 cm, Gelatin silver print (The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna © Estate Helmar Lerski – Museum Folkwang, Essen)
16.4 x 11.3 cm, Gelatin silver print (Dietmar Katz/Berlinische Galerie © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn)
Dietmar Katz/Berlinische Galerie
19,9 x 13,4 cm, Gelatin silver print (© Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur - August Sander Archiv, Köln; BILDRECHT, Wien, 2020)
23,1 x 16,9 cm, Gelatin silver print (© Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur - August Sander Archiv, Köln; BILDRECHT, Wien, 2020)
37,8 × 27,5 cm, Gelatin silver paper (Museum Folkwang, Essen © Museum Folkwang, Essen)
22,9 × 17 cm, Silbergelatinepapier (Museum Folkwang, Essen © Bildrecht, Wien 2020)
32,5 x 44,1 cm, Silbergelatinepapier (Museum Folkwang, Essen © Bildrecht, Wien 2020)
20 × 16,2 cm, Silbergelatinepapier (Galerie Berinson, Berlin © Sigrid Nerlinger)
12 x 17 cm, Gelatin silver print (Galerie Berinson, Berlin)
Silver gelatin paper (© Nachlass Helmar Lerski – Museum Folkwang, Essen)
Silver gelatin paper (© Nachlass Helmar Lerski – Museum Folkwang, Essen)
17,6 × 12,3 cm, Gelatin silver print on supporting cardboard (The Albertina Museum, Vienna – Permanent loan from the Österreichische Ludwig-Stiftung für Kunst und Wissenschaft)
© Dr. Anna-Claudia Guimbous
Gelatin silver print (Münchner Stadtmuseum - Nachlass Franz Roh, München)