080310: Herbert List Retrospective

Westlicht. Schauplatz für Fotografie Herbert List Retrospective 09.02.10 – 05.04.10 Bucolic melancholic Herbert List, born 1903 as the son of a Hamburg-based family renowned as coffee importers, was introduced to photography by the Bauhaus-member Andreas Feininger. During the 1930’s, List devoted his work to the photographic style of “new vision” by utilizing shadows, mirror-effects, masks, and disguise. The first part of the exhibition deals with the surrealism of his “fotografica metafisica”. List lived in Paris during the 30’s where he met Jean Cocteau, and was strongly influenced by de Chirico and Eugène Atget. He created double exposed works, occasionally also photomontages showing surreal arrangements dealing with violence and destruction, composed under the impact of the Nazi-horrors, and carried forward in elegiac photos of the bombed city of Munich. In general, List’s Leitmotiv centred on melancholy, on the bucolic Greek black-and-white still life, young men casting their eyes up into the morning light, melancholic beach-beauties in bathing shorts, which, despite their innocent aesthetics, List hid in a “poison suitcase” under his bed. And the people living in the slums of Naples, which he photographed and later published in a book together with Vittorio de Sica (1962) - without any hint of social voyeurism, neither glorifying nor lachrymosely. In the 1950’s he created numerous portraits of intellectuals, composers, artists and actors, which, in the case of quirky personalities such as Marino Marini and Giorgio Morandi, turned out to be rather bizarre. Without any doubt Herbert List has earned his place on the Olymp of classic photography. And his Olymp definitely has a sandy beach. By Iris Meder Westlicht. Schauplatz für Fotografie 1070 Vienna, Westbahnstrasse 40 Tel: +43 (0) 1 522 66 36 – 0 Fax: +43 (0) 1 523 13 08 Email: info@westlicht.com http://www.westlicht.com

Mehr Texte von translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville

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080310

Westlicht
1070 Wien, Westbahnstrasse 40
Tel: +43 1 522 66 36 - 0, Fax: +43 1 523 13 08
Email: info@westlicht.com
http://www.westlicht.com
Öffnungszeiten: Di, Mi, Fr 14-19, Do 14-21, Sa, So, Fei 11-19 h

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