EDINBURGH.- Launching the 2008 Summer Season at the National Galleries of Scotland, Foto: Modernity in Central Europe 1918-1945 is a thought-provoking and beautiful exhibition that explores the breathtaking success of modernist photography in Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Austria, during a time of tremendous social and political upheaval. Organised by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, this will be the only European showing of Foto, and it will include many stunning works on display in Britain for the first time.
The first survey to explore this fascinating period in the history of photography, Foto will be unprecedented in scope, comprising around 150 photographs, books, and illustrated magazines, and will feature the work of more than 100 photographers. Images by internationally recognised masters such as László Moholy-Nagy, Hannah Höch, André Kertész, and El Lissitzky will be shown alongside those of historically important contemporaries such as Karel Teige, Edith Tudor Hart, František Drtikol, Martin Munkacsi and Trude Fleischmann.
Foto will demonstrate how photography caught the imagination of hundreds of progressive artists in central Europe, provided a creative outlet for thousands of dedicated amateurs, and became a symbol of modernity for millions through its use in magazines, newspapers, advertising, and books. The show will be divided into thematic sections, each bringing together work from across central Europe, to explore in depth eight key strands such as photomontage and war, gender identity, life and leisure in the modern metropolis, and the spread of Surrealism.
Commenting on the Dean Gallery exhibition, Matthew Witkovsky, Curator of Foto and Associate Curator of Photographs at NGA, Washington, said: “Presenting Foto in Scotland, home to many great talents of early photography and especially the team of David O. Hill and Robert Adamson, has a special meaning. The first art historical studies of photography were written in central Europe during the time period of this exhibition, and the very first such study was on Hill and Adamson. Past and present, regional and international came together in central Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, as they do in Edinburgh today.”
Simon Groom, Director of Modern & Contemporary Art at the National Galleries of Scotland, said: “Foto is one of the most important and intelligent photography exhibitions of recent years. The works are radical politically as well as aesthetically, and the exhibition contains many of the ideas and iconic images that were to establish photography's status as the avant-garde medium of the 20th century.”
The first of four major summer exhibitions at the NGS, Foto will present a collection of stimulating and varied works of international significance, which will allow viewers to appreciate some of the most challenging, yet beautiful, experimental photography of the twentieth century.
