Beginning 20 April 2017, Hauser
& Wirth will present ‘August Sander’, the gallery’s first exhibition
devoted to the late German photographer, a forefather of conceptual art and
pioneering documentarian of human diversity. The exhibition features 40 rare
large-scale Sander photographs, which have come directly from The August Sander
Family Collection. Made between 1910 and 1931, the portraits on view paint a
picture of Germany’s complex socioeconomic landscape in the years leading up to
and through the Weimar Republic. These early examples of Sander’s oeuvre — in
particular, the ‘Portfolio of Archetypes’, 12 images at the heart of Hauser
& Wirth’s presentation — laid the framework for ‘People of the 20th
Century’, the artist’s larger, lifelong effort to catalogue contemporary German
society through his photographs and to reveal the truth of its ethnic and class
diversity. Sander’s son Gunther (1907 — 1987) selected and printed these 40
photographs, along with 90 others, in a unique oversize format in 1972 for
inclusion in the exhibition ‘Men without Masks: Faces of Germany 1910 — 1938’
at the Mannheimer Kunstverein in 1973. With stunning detail drawn forth by
their scale, these ‘Men without Masks’ photographs capture a critical moment in
Sander’s artistic evolution and in our collective history.
When Sander photographed his
portraits for his later ‘Portfolio of Archetypes’ in 1910, he had already
established himself as a successful photographer in a profession that had only
recently become a viable line of work. Urged on by the prevailing pictorialist
photographic aesthetic, photographers strove to make images that stylistically
mimicked painting. Sander broke with this aesthetic approach after a successful
experiment in the darkroom. Enlarging a photograph using smooth, glossy paper
typically reserved for technical images, he created a portrait that was
extraordinarily detailed — a far cry from his earlier, softer portraiture that
clouded over imperfections. This matter-of-fact, technically exact approach,
enhanced by his adoption of a straightforward perspective and use of natural
light, became Sander’s modus operandi as he put his apparatus to work atomizing
and cataloging society — to ‘tell the truth’ about his times and his fellow
citizens.
Sander’s conceptual approach grew
from the idea of the Stamm-Mappe, a portfolio dedicated to his home region. In
his early images, the artist photographed the peasants of his native village
Westerwald — people with whom he had a rapport and proceeded to sort them
‘according to their essential archetype, with all the characteristics of
mankind in general’. From these photographs Sander produced the iconic 12-photo
‘Portfolio of Archetypes’, a grouping that would set the tone for his larger
project in both organization and concept. On view in ‘August Sander’, the ‘Portfolio
of Archetypes’ features stoic farming men and women in single, double, and
group portraits. The sitters told their own stories through their expressions,
gestures, poses, clothing and accessories. Sander presented each of his
subjects as wholly individual — rendering their riveting idiosyncrasies, their
unrepeatable details — and representative of a broader ‘type’ of person; the
photographs’ titles include ‘The Man of the Soil’, ‘The Sage’, ‘The
Philosopher’ and ‘The Farming Couple’. Sander’s project was undeniably
influenced by a growing interest in physiognomy at the time, a trend that is
particularly disturbing in retrospect. Yet, the artist considered empathy
toward his sitters to be critical to his work, and strove not to foist a
portrayal upon an unwilling subject, but to enable self-portraits.
About the Artist
August Sander was born in Herdorf, a
mining town east of Cologne, in 1876. While working at a local slagheap as a
youth he serendipitously encountered a visiting landscape photographer and was
fascinated by the ‘magic box’ through which he saw the world. Sander purchased
a camera with financial assistance from his uncle, went on to serve as an
itinerant photographer’s assistant and eventually opened his own studio. In a
lifelong project entitled ‘People of the 20th Century’, Sander strove to
systematically document contemporary German society; this encyclopedic magnum
opus constitutes one of the most monumental endeavors in photographic history.
Sander’s considered oeuvre has served as a wellspring of inspiration for modern
and contemporary photographers, from Walker Evans and Diane Arbus, to Tina
Barney, Rineke Dijkstra, and Bernd and Hilla Becher, and has exerted a profound
influence upon new generations of visual artists across mediums.
Info
Until Saturday July 28 2018
Venue name: Hauser & Wirth
VENUE Address: 23 Savile Row London W1S
2ET
Opening hours: Tue-Sat 10am-6pm
Transport: Tube: Oxford
Circus/Piccadilly Circus
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