thechrisproject photography

I recently got back from a two week trip to Europe. We landed in Berlin, took a train to Prague, and then another train to Grindelwald, Switzerland, with a brief stay in Zurich before flying home.

In Berlin we visited the Museum of Photography, home to the Helmut Newton foundation. Along with an exhibit of Newton’s personal belongings, including clothing, cameras, posters, and a replica of a room in his house, it currently contains exhibits by Larry Clark and Ralph Gibson.

The museum was quite fascinating. I haven’t studied any of the photographers whose works I saw, although I have seen Clark’s film Kids, which I’ll comment on a little more later.

Newton’s photography was very interesting. After seeing a number of his prints and the dates on which they were produced, I began to realize what a huge influence he’s had on fashion photography. The first images I saw of his in the museum, a number of larger than life nudes hung above a grand staircase, reminded me of images from Playboy I saw in the 80s. His style seems to have been the blueprint for a large number of Playboy spreads. In mainstream fashion photography, his influence has been even larger. Indeed, it will be harder for me to see much modern fashion photography without examining it for Newton’s influence.

While searching online for images of his, I found this great shot of a musical hero of mine: David Bowie.

Next we saw pieces from Larry Clark’s Teenage Lust. I didn’t at the time realize that Clark was the man who directed the aforementioned Kids, although I don’t think it would’ve changed my opinion of his work, just added another piece of context. A lot of his work made me feel horrible. Images of rape and people being beaten just don’t sit that well with me. The worst part was a statement purportedly by Clark about how hanging out with the subjects of his photographs reminded him of his good ole’ days of serious drug use, gang-bangs, and violence. At the same time the were hard not to be fascinated by the images. Rarely do images from that lifestyle make it out to people like me. I like Boogie’s work a lot, and I suppose this isn’t that much different. Though Boogie really seems to have a distance from his subjects that Clark doesn’t. For instance Boogie has commented that he doesn’t do drugs, though Clark had photos of himself, naked, shooting up with teenagers.

In the back corner of the 2nd floor was a video room showcasing films about/by the three photographers. The Gibson and Clark videos were documentary pieces about their life and work. Clark’s film was clips from Phil Donahue’s show. The two clips I saw were interviews with high-school boys who had been raped. Donahue proceeded to ask them all sorts of details about the events. In one case, he had the boy reenact his sodomization with a broom handle by fellow wrestlers at his high school. It was WAY more disturbing the Clark’s photos, to me. How could a talk show host think that this was acceptable behavior?

Ralph Gibson’s work was quite a departure from the other two. He’s done fashion work and street photography and… well, just go check out his website. The breadth of his work is amazing, and there’s quite a lot of it.

In Prague we stopped at the Jan Saudek Gallery off the Old Town Square. If you’re like me and wasn’t wholly familiar with the name “Jan Saudek” but listened to popular music in early to mid-nineties, you’d recognize this photo right away:

It was used as the cover for Soul Asylum’s album “Grave Dancer’s Union”, the album with 1993’s Grammy-winning song, “Runaway Train”.

Saudek’s work was great. A lot of it was handcolored dreamscape stuff like the above photo. Much of it is erotic. It was a coherent body of work, yet it dealt with a lot of subjects in various styles. There were a few evolutions, where he took photos of people over a long period of time. There were political and religious references… you know, my banal description of his work is doing you no good. Go to the gallery on his site and check his work out.

We didn’t see much photography in little ole’ Grindelwald, but it was a gorgeous place to be and I had a great time.

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