Double Exhibition at Berlin-Based Helmut Newton Foundation

 
On 31 October 2013 the double exhibition Helmut Newton: Paris-Berlin. Exhibition Grand Palais
2012 // Greg Gorman: Men will be opened at the Berlin-based Helmut Newton Foundation.
This retrospective exhibition had been shown at the Grand Palais in Paris in 2012; it was the first
comprehensive presentation of Newton’s work since his death in the French capital city where he lived
and worked since 1961 for two decades. The show includes more than 200 photographs in black &
white and color from all major work series and returns now to its source for a show in Berlin, and the
path it has taken is reflected in its title.
While some of the images have been shown in earlier exhibition contexts at the Helmut Newton
Foundation, others are presented here for the first time. With every new combination, new dimensions
of the work of this renowned photographer allow themselves to be discovered. Customary
expectations are challenged by the side-by-side presentation of an iconic image such as “Rue Aubriot,
Paris 1975” with a second shot of the same motif, to which a nude model has been added. Here,
Helmut Newton photographed a tuxedo by Yves Saint Laurent for French Vogue; this is hardly
unusual – notwithstanding the fashion designer’s revolutionary creation – but the manner of
photographic staging is unrivalled. A female model with short hair stands self-assured, smoking at
night in a narrow, dimly lit alleyway; she appears to wait for no one. In his second photograph of the
model, at the same location but now with a nude model at her side, Newton intensifies the already
confounding androgyny of the dressed woman. The combination of a clothed with a nude woman in
the context of fashion was radical for its time and unfitting for publication in a fashion magazine like
French Vogue. Furthermore Newton expanded upon this combination of clothed and nude models
starting in the 1980s with his famous series “Naked and Dressed.” Two diptychs from this series are
also included in the current show.
The exhibition also presents numerous portraits of notable figures ranging from Pierre Cardin to
Margaret Thatcher, fashion photographs for magazines from the 1960s through the 1990s, nudes, as
well as product shots. Another highlight are the “Fired” images: the legendary Courrèges photographs
that were first published in 1964 in the fashion magazine Queen, and which resulted in Newton’s
immediate dismissal from Vogue. These images brilliantly translate the ultra-modern designs of the
French designer into the photographic image, challenging convention with the women’s pants, the
above-the-knee dresses, and above all the spectacular space-age look. At the time, the image and
social status of women at the time were undergoing radical change.
With this exhibition, the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin celebrates an anniversary: ten years
ago, in the fall of 2003, Helmut Newton established his foundation in a partnership with the Prussian
Cultural Heritage Foundation. In the summer of 2004, his Foundation within the Museum for
Photography opened its doors in a former military casino, with a double exhibition. The photographer
himself was never able to experience the show, as he passed away in Los Angeles shortly before its
opening. Yet Helmut Newton lives on through his work. Regular exhibitions are organized and
presented not only in Berlin, but made available on loan to various institutions throughout Europe. The
2012 exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris is one such example.
It was an explicit wish of Helmut Newton to provide a forum also for other photographers and artists at
his Foundation. Upon invitation by June Newton, the American portrait photographer Greg Gorman
will present a series of male nudes in a show parallel to the Helmut Newton exhibition. Here in “June’s
Room,” we encounter young, trained bodies in black & white prints in various formats, some of them
nearly life-sized. For this accompanying exhibition “Men”, Greg Gorman and June Newton selected 25
motifs that were created between 1988 and 2012, for the most part in Gorman’s studio in Los Angeles.
Pictured alone or in groups, the young men move before the camera like dancers on an empty stage.
Gorman was born in 1949 in Kansas City and currently lives in Los Angeles. He launched his career in
photography while still a student in Kansas City, with pictures he took of Jimi Hendrix at a concert in
1968. Later in California, Gorman remained true to show business, and in addition to numerous
commercial jobs, photographed primarily actors and musicians. Some of these iconic black & white
photographs were used as film posters; others appeared on the covers of CDs or magazines such as
LIFE, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, and Vogue.
The current exhibitions „Helmut Newton: World without Men / Archives de Nuit // François-Marie
Banier: Portraits“ will be on view through 13 October 2013.