The Emancipation of Photography
The Emancipation of Photography
November 29, 2023
![AlbertRenger-Patzsch-2010-03-14.005_neu](https://lfi-online.de/webfile/img/8503797/AlbertRenger-Patzsch-2010-03-14.005_neu.jpg?x=800&y=800)
Albert Renger-Patzsch (1897–1966), Crab Fisherwoman, from the series ‘The Halligen Islands’, 1927 © Albert Renger-Patzsch/Archive of Ann and Jürgen Wilde, Zülpich/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023
While fine-art photography from the 1960s onwards forms the primary focus of the museum’s holdings, the collection also includes numerous works from the first half of the twentieth century, which exemplify the core traits of modernism. In particular, they illustrate a new vision of photography that transcends its previous, mostly documentary purpose. The new movement revolutionised the medium, and paved the way for its inclusion in the world of fine art. You could say that photography (which was first patented in 1839) emancipated itself some 100 years after its invention – by no longer following the rules of painting, and claiming its unique possibilities as an artistic form of expression in its own right.
Just like the Sprengel Museum’s recent exhibitions, ‘What Modernism?’ and ‘Laboratory of Modernism’, the current presentation of around 180 works centres around the 1920s and 1930s. The featured photographers are: Walter Ballhause, Karl Blossfeldt, Paul Citroen, Hugo Erfurth, Alfred Ehrhardt, Gisèle Freund, Adolf Fuhrmann, Hein Gorny, Florence Henri, El Lissitzky, Lucia Moholy, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Alexander Rodtschenko, Jaroslav Rössler, Ernst Schwitters, Friedrich Seidenstücker, Michel Seuphor, Anton Stankowski, Anton Josef Trčka, Umbo, and Piet Zwart.
![AlbertRenger-Patzsch-2010-03-14.005_neu](https://lfi-online.de/webfile/img/8503797/AlbertRenger-Patzsch-2010-03-14.005_neu.jpg?x=800&y=800)
Albert Renger-Patzsch (1897–1966), Crab Fisherwoman, from the series ‘The Halligen Islands’, 1927 © Albert Renger-Patzsch/Archive of Ann and Jürgen Wilde, Zülpich/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023
![HeinGorny-img289-2](https://lfi-online.de/webfile/img/8491718/HeinGorny-img289-2.jpg?x=800&y=800)
Hein Gorny (1904–1967), Untitled (open paint sets), ca. 1938 © Marc Barbey
![Freund Duchamp](https://lfi-online.de/webfile/img/8491717/Freund-Duchamp.jpg?x=800&y=800)
Gisèle Freund (1908–2000), James Joyce, Paris 1939 © IMEC Fonds MCC
![KarlBlossfeldt-2010-03-14.012_neu](https://lfi-online.de/webfile/img/8503798/KarlBlossfeldt-2010-03-14.012_neu.jpg?x=800&y=800)
Karl Blossfeldt (1865–1932), Untitled l (silene conica / striate campion), ca. 1915–1925