Photography, life and experimentation, the oeuvre of the collector Thomas Walther
The collection and the exhibition:
story and structure
The story begin with Thomas Walther, when he was still in the commission of acquisition of the Museum of Modern Art (New York) for the photographic department. His collectionsof photographs, will be acquired by the museum in two, successive acquisition, in 2001 and in 2017.
The collection is a combination of 341 photographs by 148 artists, coming from 19 countries, mostly from Europe and the US. Of course, this collection is at the heart of the life of the German-born collector Thomas Walther, which assemble, since the early 1970s an exceptional ensemble of avant-garde photographs. A selection of those masterpieces are on view in the exhibition of the Jeu de Paume.
« La photographie a tous les droits – et tous les mérites – nécessaires pour que nous nous tournions vers elle comme vers l’art de notre temps »
The aim of the show is to show the photographs made between 1900 until 1940. Encompassing the avant-garde of the early 1900s, the First and Second World War and the period between them. Therefore, the art of photography is more or less an expressive and a documentary based medium.
Organized chronologically and thematically, the exhibition aimed to address the major photographic trends of the interwar period, and to look back on the photographic medium as a medium for freedom and imagination.
6 sections - 6 environments
On the road "new" photographer
During the 1920s, the democratization of photography and the use of this medium as an expression of modern life gave a wave of fresh air to the photographer, after the First World War. Next to this new kind of expression, multiple advancement in the process of photography and the impression films, and the important advancement in the light sensibility and the photographic sensor.
The subject also changed. With this technological advancement and the freedom between two world war, the photographer will capture the moment of the body and the objects, like the futurist movement in the early 20th century. Therefore, the viewpoints of the photographs, the color of the compositions, both up and down views, the original angles and classical perspectives, etc.
At the same moment, the mainstream press magazine took over the use of photography, and the offer a new deal and visual experimenter with the use of model. Therefore, the photograph is at the center of the action, between the model, his inspiration and the marketing. The subject will differ from standalone artist, into a more marketable one such as fitness: sport, dance athlete, the gymnast and the aviator.
Discovery of photography
As the 20th century begin, the use of photography and a renewal of the vocabulary and idea of what a photograph should capture. Therefore, the avant-garde is questioning our point of view and our definition of what a photography should look like.
They will use and develop new techniques and systems such as the photogram. This technique do not need a camera, it's just an imprint of the object sited on the sensitized sheet of photographic paper. It's then exposed to light to create the illusion of the shape.
This technique was generally used after the First World War as a "new type" of photograph. It was then rediscovered after the First World Warn and widely adopted in by the avant-garde. In this technique, they sense the ease of the technique, the simplicity, the poetic power of the object and his depiction by a new material. This and the use of experimentation in printing and photographic technique such as the stretching of exposure times, the use of negative, the use of mirrors or strange play of light as strongly impacted their oeuvre.
The artist's life
The sense of unity. During the 1920s, Marcel Duchamp evoke the fact of a group of avant-garde and the importance of unity in a group of minorities. During the war, the sense of unity was present, but afterward ?
While the Bauhaus will prove the use of unity as one of the main axes of his teaching. Therefore, the photographic collection of Thomas Walther focus on artist who have been to the Bauhaus between 1919 and 1933, either as a student or a teacher.
This ensemble of photographs of the collection is a mix between the documentation of architecture, the school activities and the works they made in class. All in all, the definition of the Bauhaus avant-garde, experiencing with nocturnal photography, the angle of view, the dynamism of the picture, the superposition and the reflection of the subject. This group is also showcased in the exhibition in the form of multiple portrait.
Magical realism
In the mid-1920s, the influence of European artist movements such as the Surrealist and the New Objectivity gave a bowl of fresh air in the research of the strangeness of everyday scenes such as dreams, and consciousness.
Big - City - Symphony
In 1928, Alexander Rodchenko will publish a manifesto titled "The ways of contemporary photography", where he will define the use of a new language for photography, by linking it to the rhythm of urban life. At that time, urbanization was fast, the first skyscraper will grow in New-York, the metro, the car, electricity, a sense of inspiration after the First World War.
This new set will be an important one for the exploration of a new view point and a reservoir of new sensory experiences. Therefore, the film Metropolis from 1927 will showcase the modernity of this new temple of human history and life. The photographer will be equipped with the latest cameras, take shots from unusual vantage points and replicate the stream of images confronting the pedestrian, the dynamism of the wave of people, the windows, the chaos and the NEW WAY OF LIFE.
High fidelity
The final section of the exhibition is dedicated to a new expression in photography, titled "High fidelity". Therefore, this new genre definite itself as a taste for "clear image", pure, faithful to reality and having a lot of details, while being stylized.
This new genre is directly linked to a new term, straight photography, which appeared in the United States in 1904. Thus, this look for perfections and details will be obtained through the use of large format view camera, which makes it possible to obtain large negatives providing the maximum of details.
« It is direct. No retouching – no humbug. No sentimentality. It's neither old nor new. It's so detailed that you can make out all the skin pores in a face. And yet it is abstract »
Informations about the exhibition
Place: Jeu de Paume
Date: 14.09.2021 – 13.2.2022
Curators: Sarah Meister and Quentin Bajac
Ticket: Available on the website of the Jeu de Paume OR at the front desk of the museum
Informations about the Jeu de Paume
Jeu de Paume
1 place de la Concorde
Jardin des Tuileries
75008 Paris
Phone: +33 (0)1 47 03 12 50