Venice is ready to immerse yourself in the enchantment of photography with a double exhibition. The Rooms of Photography, on the island of San Giorgio, in collaboration with Marsilio Arte and the Giorgio Cini Foundation, open the doors today to a spring full of surprises, with interactive workshops, guided tours, photographic aperitifs, meetings. Routes are also planned for blind and visually impaired visitors (thanks to the help of accessible videos and tactile drawings).”Helmut Newton. Legacy“, is an epic retrospective that ranges between the salient stages of his extraordinary career, conceived as a tribute to one hundred years since his birth (1920 – 2004). Masterfully curated by Matthias Harder, director of the Helmut Newton Foundation, and Denis Curti, artistic director of Le Stanze della Fotografia, the exhibition guides the visitor through the author’s unique universe, told by 250 photographs, supported by archive material, letters dedicated to his muse and wife, photos also taken with Polaroid and kept in a special chest of drawers.Alongside the most iconic images, a corpus of unpublished photographs, presented for the first time in Italy, reveal many lesser-known aspects of Newton’s work, with a specific focus on the most unconventional fashion shots.
REALISM AND DREAM
We thus immerse ourselves in the life of this extraordinary protagonist of the twentieth century who left his mark on fashion (as demonstrated by the collaborations with the magazine “Vogue” and the stylists Yves Saint Laurent, Karl Lagerfeld, Anna Molinari, Thierry Mugler and Chanel) but also in the new way of approaching the female nude, witnessed in his famous “Big Nudes”, a cult book from 1981 which collects 39 black and white shots, many of which are present in the Stanze della Fotografia. «In the Venetian exhibition the Newton method is even more evident – explains Denis Curti -. Newton brings a realistic dimension to fashion photography, which deals with everyday life, while contemplating a strong dreamlike component. In 1976, to advertise a transparent Burberry raincoat, he decided to photograph a naked woman wearing only the raincoat.” On display, among others, the famous self-portrait with his wife and models, at the Vogue studio in Paris; the famous photograph of Charlotte Rampling, taken in a hotel room in 1973 and the “Naked and Dressed” series which appeared in the Italian and French editions of Vogue. Suspended between water and sky, Newton’s shots in Venice further emphasize his elegant and bold style. «His passage in the Lagoon is documented several times in the shoot for “Queen” in 1966 or in the portrait of Anselm Kiefer, immortalized in a fascinating palace on the Grand Canal or, again in the shoot he did for Yves Saint Laurent which has as its background the ‘island of San Giorgio Maggiore – says Matthias Harder -. After living in Australia, Newton settled in Europe, first in Paris and then in Monte Carlo, intensifying his visits to Venice.” From now until November 24, this emotional journey into photography of “The King of Kings” promises to leave an indelible mark. But that’s not all: starting tomorrow a multidisciplinary artist will make his entrance on the scene. Patrick Mimran shocks the senses with “Out of Focus” until August 11, 33 large black and white photographs, including previously unpublished works. The works created by three young photographers under 30, selected through an open call promoted by the Le Stanze della Fotografia Foundation, with the support of the Venice Foundation, are surprising. Among the 191 participants and over 200 projects on display are photos by Diana Sosnowska with “Piccole Perversioni”, Wojciech Wójcik with “Nude e Vestite” and the Italian Jo Fetto with “Les Odalisques”.
