English
Until the 12th of February 2012, the Kunsthalle Wien displays an exhibition by Franz Christian Gundlach Foundation. Gundlach was a photographer, who gave a revolutionary turn to the photography world by including in the fashion magazines, photographs with the sense of photojournalism. The exhibition entitled Expo Vanity exhibits works by 200 different artists in a compilation in which it is clearly highlighted the aesthetic concept that identified this image artist.
Franz Christian Gundlach was born in 1926 in Heinebach, Germany. He was known for the magnificent composition of his photos, which were more than just fashion designs, they described the pulse and feeling of an era. Through outfits and the ways of presenting them, Gundlach was concerned about adding his own content of photojournalism, which through a snapshot could make a complex explanation of a certain event.
In his first stage, he had a more experimental style of photography. This stage took place in Paris where he had the opportunity to practice the photojournalism, which captures images that build a story themselves, for that, he photographed children, film directors, and famous European film stars.
The journal Film und Frau led him to be qualified as a fashion photographer. Beyond this simple classification of his work, his photographs have been published in many magazines such as Stern, Revue, Deutsche Illustrierte, Welt Elegante, Film und Frau, Brigitte, Annabelle, among others. His archive of works is so large, that only for Brigitte Magazine, he produced about 5,500 pages with photographs, and nearly 180 covers of several magazines.
Gundlach lived the postwar, when Europe began to rise from the ashes of bombs and the world was beginning to realign into two power centers that influenced fashion, beauty and art, hence his work is marked by this historical and political process. It was also the time when fashion began to overcrowd and emerge with strength and style in magazines that sold the new concept of distinction.
If you look at his works, you will see women not as a mere concept of beauty, but as an active member of this new society that the war has left, breaking with the traditional view of women as a object of admiration and use in society. His photographs show women looking for movement, with expressions of daring, free of ties and making unconventional activities, consequently he is considered an avant-garde artist for taking the pulse of his time.
This exhibition is now on display at the Kunsthalle Wien, opens the world of one of the most important collections in Germany, with works from artists such as Edwin Blumenfeld, Guy Bourdin, Lillian Bassman, Cecil Beaton, Deborah Turbeville, among others.
For more information: http://www.kunsthallewien.at/cgi-bin/event/event.pl?id=4198&lang=en
If you want to live a unique experience this end of the year, I recommend you to rent apartments in Vienna and enjoy the lovely Christmas air in every street of the city, drink the best coffee with delicious sweet preparations and visit Expo Vanity.
Translated by: Hans
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