An exhibition at the Berlin Museum of Photography brings to light the relationship between the brilliant photographer Helmut Newton and the German capital, the city where he was born, fled from the Nazis and returned again and again despite the separation of the two Germanys. a frenetic career in which he established himself as a reference in the world of photographic art.
Under the title "Berlin, Berlin", the exhibition, organized to mark the 20th anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Museum of Photography, collects iconic images of Newton that demonstrate Newton's intimate connection with the German capital, where he was born. in 1920 within a wealthy Jewish family that lost everything under the totalitarian and anti-Semitic regime that was the Third Reich.
«Because he was Jewish, he was expelled from the city in 1938, days after Kristallnacht, but 20 years later, in 1959, he returned to take photos for the fashion magazine 'Constanze', taking photos of models with the Brandenburg Gate in the background, at a time when the Berlin Wall had not yet been built," said Matthias Harder, curator of the exhibition.
"Later, the wall would appear as something very important in his images, such as those he took between 1962 and 1964, and, after a long period without coming to Berlin, he would return from 1977," Harder explained, before explaining the aspect intimate of a sample.
The exhibition is titled "Berlin, Berlin" in a clear nod to the report that Newton illustrated about the German capital for the German edition of 'Vogue' magazine in 1979.
A reproduction of that report is on display in the exhibition, composed of two large sections, one dedicated to Newton and Berlin and another in which works by a group of relevant artists are shown to understand the Berlin genius of photography, such as, above all , Else Ernestine Neuländer-Simon, better known as Yva.
A young Newton under Yva's orders
With portraits and self-portraits of a very young Newton, still in Berlin, taken in the days when he was learning in Yva's studio and exhibited together with the photos of 'Constanze', begins the journey of an exhibition that gives an account of the relationship that Newton he had with Berlin, in particular with some places such as the lakes that surround the city or the Paris Bar, where he produced surreal images.
In one of them, dated 1991, a customer at the Paris Bar admires from his seat a young woman standing on the table, in a corner of the establishment with her arms outstretched, as if she were imitating the crucifixion reproduced in a sculpture that is next to her. side and in which, instead of Jesus Christ, there is an anthropomorphic frog suffering the symbolic torture of Christianity.
At the beginning of the nineties, Newton, who worked for major fashion magazines around the world, signed a series of photographs for the supplement of 'Die Zeit', one of the most relevant weekly newspapers in Germany, in which the protagonist It was largely what remained of the Berlin Wall.
"The wall was still there, but with holes, people could be there, there was no longer a security problem," says Harder when referring to a relevant series of photographs from the exhibition.
Wim Wenders and the Berlin Wall
Years before, in 1981, Newton photographed, next to what the extinct Democratic Republic of Germany called the "Anti-Fascist Protection Wall", the film director and also photographer Wim Wenders, another of the artists whose works also stand out in the "Berlin, Berlin" section. Berlin” dedicated to other creators.
In total, more than 200 photographs make up the exhibition, which also serves as testimony to the constant and dramatic changes experienced by the German capital during the life of one of the most relevant photographers of the XNUMXth century.
"Berlin, Berlin" is the first exhibition to show Newton's relationship with his hometown. For him, "it all started in Berlin, a city that is a myth, that was a myth and that changed so much, something that was seen in all the photos of it," Harder said.
The exhibition will be exhibited until February 16, 2025.EFE