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Henri Cartier-Bresson |
On Wednesday, the 17th of June 2009 from 6 to 9 p.m., the Baukunst Galerie opens the large group-exhibition “REPORT“ with photos of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Sibylle Bergemann and Loredana Nemes. The Cologne based photo specialist Simone Klein will give an introduction in the œuvre of the three photographers from different generations and social environments. They all focus on the detection and capture of the perfect moment with the human being as the central point. Thereby the socio-political context is always visible. Though in the first instance the incidental occurrences at the side scene of major national events arouse their special interest. The strength of their elaborately composed photos is unfolded with documentary ethos and emotional approach to the subject. The current show at the Baukunst Galerie combines an extensive selection of black and white gelatin silver prints on baryta paper, which represent a cross section of the diverse groups of works in the œuvre of each photographer.
Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) is one of the most important photographers of the 20st century and exerted main influence on its images, faces and stories. He became an idol for generations of reportage and artistic photographers because of his ability to catch the “l’instant décisif” (the decisive moment) with his famous Leica. Hardly anyone has created as much icons of the photographic history. Thus he often directed his view against the main flow of world history and documented major national and international events in his own way. For instance the girl with the flowers in the line of uniformed men at the commemoration of the USSR (1973) remains unforgettable. Anyhow he also found his subjects in his daily environment – as the prominent motif of the lovers hidden below the umbrella in “Dieppe” (1926) – and on his travels through Europe, Asia and the United States, as the men with their dark peaked caps in “Taxi Drivers” (1931). The perfect composition of faces, lines, light and shadow does not only unveil his rapid eye and expert instinct for the perfect moment, but also his exceptional power of imagination. In the current exhibition a selection of motifs from 1926 to 1975 will be shown.
Sybille Bergemann (*1941 in Berlin) belongs to the outstanding German photographers, whose opus made photographic history. As a protagonist of the subjective author photography she was able to intrude deep into the surface of the pseudo-egalitarian society of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). She started her career at the end of the 60s in East Berlin. After her apprenticeship by Arno Fischer she had her first publications in the journals “Sonntag”, “Das Magazin” and “Sibylle”. She became famous as a fashion photographer, but parallel intensively worked on portraits, reportages and pictorial documentations of cities and landscapes. In 1990 she was a founder member of the photo agency “Ostkreuz”. Her fashion and portraiture photography derives its intensity from the contrast of the model and the surrounding. New levels of interpretation are opened up by staging the stylish models in front of public places and ruinous industrial buildings. In her reportages she is also searching for the certain moment, when the person and the environment establish a focused correlation. In anticipation of filmic strategies she stages the incidental and conserves the reality in a moment, which internalises the past and the future. Up to now her melancholic, graphically composed black and white prints without any nostalgia for the supposed delights of the GDR did not loose any atmospheric density. This was impressively demonstrated by the remarkable solo-exhibitions at the Arts Academy in Berlin and the Museum of Photography in Braunschweig in 2006 and 2007.
Loredana Nemes was born in 1972 in Sibiu, Rumania, fled to Germany in 1986 and today lives and works in Berlin. The autodidact sees the motivation of her anonymous approach to other people with her Rolleiflex camera in this social dislocation and subsequent endeavour to affiliate. Thus she tries to find an access to the homeland of her childhood by taking pictures of her fellow countrymen in the series “Rumanian Faces” (2001-2007). In “Behind the Curtain” (2001-2003) she is likewise interested in the human beings behind the stage of the romantic magic world of the circus Roncalli and vividly portraits their individuality and emotions during their daily business. In another series entitled “Under Ground” (2005-2006) she is taking pictures of passengers in subway vehicles in international metropolises. The portrayed people seem to be strangely unobserved. In these minutes of transit humans of all nationalities are affiliated with each other by a moment of absent-mindedness and intimacy. Although their facial expressions and gestures seem to be familiar with us, the physiques are extraordinary expressive. Every picture is telling a personal story. Nemes succeeds to grasp the private realm, which encloses every individual even in a crowd. In Berlin the photographer does not get the permission to enter the Turkish men cafés for her current series ”Berlin’s Men’s Worlds” (2008-2009). Nevertheless she finds an approach to this foreign society by photographically retaining the outer surface with the dimly silhouettes behind the frosted glass and the curtains in her own inimitable way.
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