BERLIN.- On June 1, 2018, the new exhibition Between Art & Fashion. Photographs from the Collection of Carla Sozzani will open at the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin.

Carla Sozzani, former editor-in-chief of the Italian Elle and Vogue magazines, has collected photographs for many years. Since 1990, she has also exhibited these works at her gallery in Milan, in close cooperation with numerous internationally renowned photographers – including Helmut Newton four times: “Ritratti di donna” (1993), “Impressions, Polaroids” (1996), “Us and Them” (1999) together with his wife June, a.k.a. Alice Springs, and “Yellow Press” (2003). The close friendship between Carla Sozzani and Helmut Newton now leads to the show of Sozzani’s multifaceted collection at the Helmut Newton Foundation, titled Between Art & Fashion.

Since Galleria Carla Sozzani first opened 28 years ago, it has hosted hundreds of photography exhibitions, featuring the likes of Annie Leibovitz, Sarah Moon, Paolo Roversi, David Bailey, Hiro, and David LaChapelle. Architecture and design exhibitions are held twice a year, and have included the works of Carlo Mollino, Verner Panton, and Yayoi Kusama. The gallery has also showcased fashion by Pierre Cardin, André Courrèges, and Paco Rabanne. Some of those works subsequently became part of Sozzani’s own collection, which today comprises nearly 1,000 photographs. In addition to fashion there are experimental photographs by Berenice Abbott and Duane Michals, nudes by Francesca Woodman and Daido Moriyama, and still lifes by Man Ray and William Klein. The diverse collection was created over the course of many years, and with its focus on classic black-and-white photography offers a look back into a bygone era. The gallery continues to be a central part of the first concept store founded by Carla Sozzani in 1991 in the heart of Milan – 10 Corso Como – which now has branches in China, Korea, and the USA, and has been under the patronage of a foundation since 2016.

Between Art & Fashion not only presents numerous icons, it also contains plenty of surprises. Following presentations in Paris at Gallery Azzedine Alaïa and in Switzerland at the Museum of Fine Arts Le Locle, both curated by Fabrice Hergott, it is now being shown in an entirely new arrangement for the first time in Germany. More than 200 photographs from the extensive collection were chosen in thematic resonance with the exhibition venue. Some photographers are represented with a single work, while for others there is a small group of photographs. This selection is not about completeness, but authenticity and visualization, and the quality of autonomous and representative images. Four highlights of the show in Berlin are collaborations between Carla Sozzani and Paolo Roversi, Sarah Moon, Bruce Weber, and Helmut Newton. Each has been allocated ample space and includes original prints, contact sheets and photos documenting the joint fashion shoots.

In June’s Room, on the occasion of the 95th birthday of June Newton, who worked under the name Alice Springs, are around 30 portraits, some previously unseen, from the foundation’s collection. In the context of the Sozzani collection, they are mainly of artists, photographers, and fashion designers. Alice Springs started working in the 1970s on her own photographic oeuvre, which has also often been featured at the Helmut Newton Foundation. The artists, actors, and musicians she portrayed reads like a who’s who of the international cultural scene from the past 40 years on both sides of the Atlantic – from Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld to Billy Wilder and Diana Vreeland, and even the Hells Angels. Although many of her subjects are from the jet set, their social status was not a priority for her. Her photographs range from commissions for magazines between Paris and Los Angeles to independent projects. Her keen ability to both reveal and penetrate a person’s façade might be traced back to her solid foundation in acting. She often closed in on people’s faces, framing them in a tight bust or waist shot. There are only a few studio portraits; most of them use natural light, taken in public spaces or at the protagonist’s home.

Accompanying this exhibition is the catalogue “Between Art & Fashiion. Photographs from the Collection of Carla Sozzani”, published in 2016 by Association Azzedine Alaïa and Carla Sozzani Editore, 383 pages, 29x24x4,2cm, French/English, 215 illustrations, € 95,00, ISBN: 978 88 7942 862-0, available in the bookshop of the Helmut Newton Foundation.