Before Film und Foto: Pictorialism to the New Vision in German photography exhibitions from 1909--1929.

摘要

Exhibitions are the primary vehicle through which the public is exposed to art and its history. This dissertation offers a historiographic case study from early twentieth-century German modernism to illustrate the dynamics of exhibition and curatorial practice during a time of dramatic artistic and social shifts. Between 1909--29, Germany developed into an important center of photographic advances, and German photography exhibitions became vehicles for establishing a dominant mode within modernist photography. By the end of the 1920s, a movement known as the "New Vision" had emerged, and was on its way to becoming an international style. The New Vision rejected the prewar mode of Pictorialist photography with its reliance on static subjects and methods borrowed from nineteenth-century painting. It encompassed the innovative angles and contemporary subject matter which artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and others considered necessary to express realities of modern social existence.; Rather than a sudden development of the late 1920s, the new ways of exhibiting photography which fed into the New Vision's expansive and non-hierarchical approach can be traced through large photographic exhibitions taking place from 1909 on: the International Photographic Exhibition in Dresden, 1909, the German Photographic Exhibition in Frankfurt, 1926, and the Contemporary Photography exhibition in Essen, 1929. The organization and content of these exhibitions laid the groundwork for the watershed exhibition of New Vision photography, Film and Foto (Fifo), in Stuttgart in 1929.; The shift from Pictorialism to the New Vision involved a long process of cohabitation, debate, and jockeying for influence, as demonstrated through reconstructions of these exhibitions using original brochures, catalogues, installation shots, and published critical reception. In doing so, I confront the developmental roots of many elements of the New Vision and its display before it gained international prominence at Fifo, including the gradual acceptance of its practitioners, the mixing of scientific and artistic photography in exhibitions, and the first discussions of documentary photography. The purpose is to show how complex and socially engaged art historical shifts are, and how exhibitions, including those previously under the radar, can often hold a key to understanding these changes.