Albert Renger-Patzsch – Retrospective on His 100th Birthday

Together with August Sander and Karl Blossfeldt, Albert Renger-Patzsch, born in 1897 in Würzburg, is one of the most important representatives of new objectivity photography. As a strict opponent of so-called “art photography” of the turn of the century, Albert Renger-Patzsch developed a direct, sober photographic style in the 20‘s, making his name as a founder of “New Objectivity” in photography, as the European Edward Weston.

As a photographer, Albert Renger-Patzsch was committed to a realistic reproduction of reality, referring in his theoretical writings to the autonomous laws of the medium. His declared aim was “to create photography with photographic means which can exist on its own photographic qualities.” During his life, the “task of photography” appeared to him “to lie in an exact reproduction of form, in taking an inventory and in the creation of documents.” His visual language, which caught on in the 1920‘s, in the context of the “New Vision”, as an aesthetic principle, led to a transformation of photographic expression and opened new perspectives both for art and for applied photography. The retrospective leads through all areas of his work and shows above all his urban and industrial photography, his object photography and landscapes as well as nature photography: animals, flowers, trees and rocks.

The exhibition was curated by Ann & Jürgen Wilde and Thomas Weski. Realisation in Winterthur: Urs Stahel. A cooperation with the Württembergischen Kunstverein, Stuttgart, and Haus der Kunst, Munich.