In a new light

by nate byerley Catalyst

Send comments to: catalyst@wildcat.arizona.edu

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat Albert Renger-Patzsch's "Nordstern Mine, Gelsenkirchen, 1927/28" is on display as part of "Comparative Concepts" at the Center for Creative Photography. The exhibit focuses on five German photographers of the New Objectivity movement, which was the forerunner of Modernism.

Three of the artists, Auguste Sander, Karl Blossfeldt and Albert Renger-Patzsch, produced their work during the difficult decades following Germany's defeat in World War I. The remaining two, Bernd and Hilla Becher, are contemporary photographers continuing in the tradition of New Objectivity.

Although movements in art are difficult to summarize in such a short space, placing them in a historical context can be informative. The political reaction to the excess of pre-World War I Germany publicly manifested itself in the form of anti-imperialism, anti-militarism and, in the art world, anti-Expressionism. Expressionism, a movement that emphasized a very personal and often esoteric relationship to art, was high-tailing its way across the Atlantic.

While here in the United States, artists were gearing up to plumb the depths of their inner emotional turmoil, in the form of Abstract Expressionism, many German artists were moving away from such individualistic approaches to art. Their work tended toward a more objective, communal and accessible art theory that would later be defined as New Objectivity.

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat "Steel Mill, Youngstown, Ohio, USA" by Bernd and Hilla Becher. The Bechers are two contemporary photographers whose work is on display in "Comparative Concepts."

Where Expressionism was dynamic, emphatic and obsessed with the process of the creation of art, New Objectivity was static, subdued and a movement away from an awareness of process, hence the medium utilized by the New Objectivists: a camera. The camera, even better than our own eyes, registers objects in an ostensibly pure and unexpressive state.

"These artists were extremely important practitioners in the photographic realm," says Wilner Stack. In fact, many influential German photographers practicing today were once students of Bernd and Hilla Becher, the two contemporary artists to be exhibited in "Comparative Concepts."

This exhibit is notable not only from a conceptual standpoint, as it represents a turning point in modern art theory, but also from the curatorial perspective. "Comparative Concepts" will display vintage prints from the collections of Blossfeldt, Sander and Renger-Patzsch which "are not in collections in this country," explains Wilner Stack.

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat "Painted Daisy, Chrysanthemum carinatum, before 1926" by Karl Blossfeldt.

Karl Blossfeldt's photographic endeavors involved cataloging macroscopic photographs of plant forms set against a blank white background. Instead of writing the title of the work on the front of the photograph, as is conventional for photographers, he merely wrote the name of the flower on the back of the photo, as a botanist might do. The difference between the scientist and the artist is this: where the scientist is interested in species, Blossfeldt and the New Objectivists obsessed over form.

Auguste Sander, another photographer working in post WWI Germany to be exhibited, turned his objective eye toward the people that he found in his urban surroundings. Sander believed that art should strive to "see things as they are and not as they could or should be." Similarly to Blossfeldt's "scientific" approach to art, Sander catalogued his photographs into thematic portfolios.

Albert Renger-Patzsch believed that the process of making art, in taking photographs, is a mechanical, rather than impulsive, intuitive or emotional process. Renger-Patzsch worked to document an industrial landscape that was inextricably linked to the military-industrial complex that had fueled Germany during the recent war. Where his commentary is lacking, Renger-Patzsch's honesty in his objectification of the modern landscape fills the space.

The two contemporary artists, Bernd and Hilla Becher, draw on Renger-Patzsch's philosophy, capturing modern, American manifestations of industrial grandeur collected into thematic arrangements. Immense structures are set, against the anemic background of a pallid sky, recalling Blossfeldt's treatment of plant forms.

The Bechers present their photographs "in a form called typology," explains Wilner Stack, "showing anywhere from six to 40 representations of, say, water towers." These photos are then arranged in a grid in the gallery, as Wilner Stack describes "identifying a type and playing off subtle differences."

Bernd and Hilla Becher's continuation of traditional standards is no secret. However, their interpretation of industrial objects in an international setting and in a contemporary time-frame, promotes contemplation on the subjects of imperialism, industrialism and militarism within a modern global context.

"Comparative Concepts" is only showing at New York's Center for Photography Tucson's CCP. Wilner Stack credited the CCP's status as major photographic exhibition space with securing prestigious shows like "Comparative Concepts."

"The Center for Creative Photography is one of the foremost photo museums in the country and our exhibition program is one of the most significant," she explains.

This fact, as well as professional connections with curators and board members in Germany were responsible for bringing to Tucson this world-renowned exhibition.

While a more extensive tour was postulated, as Wilner Stack explains, "the work is too rare."

"Comparative Concepts" runs from Oct. 10 through Dec. 6. As always, admission is free and the Center opens its doors to the public every day but Saturday. There will be a series of lectures related to "Comparative Concepts" in the following weeks. For more information, contact the Center for Creative Photography at 621-7968, or on the Web at http://www.ccp.arizona.edu/ccp.html.