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Grit ‘n’ gloss
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Curator Ulf Erdmann Ziegler talks about the particular concerns of magazine photography
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’ Photo: Sampath Kumar g.p.
Freeze frame Ulf Erdmann Ziegler: ‘A magazine photo in colour imitates a painting
Ulf Erdmann Ziegler knew that the photo exhibition “World as one – Photography from Germany after 1989” would travel. The German art curator and critic and writer says, “We did a test show in Cologne in 2001 and from there it
has travelled to New Zealand, parts of Asia, Australia, Latin America, Eastern Europe and this is our first stop in India.”
“As an independent writer on photography and art, I approached these photographs which had a complicated history at a time when photography was taking on new forms.” Ziegler said if it had to work as a national exhibition, then “we will have to remove the fashion and lifestyle of magazine photography.”
Ziegler then had to choose the photographs. “I went from studio to studio, compared groups of work. I would look at them as pictures on a line, never as single products.” Then, he wondered how to present it in a museum. “There are 17 groups of works by 19 photographers and as a curator, I would pick up an idea and point out what was happening post 1989.” “One of the photographers, Jitka Hanzlova who came to Germany from the Czech village of Rokytnik, tried her hands at several jobs before being introduced to photography and trained in it.” Then, something strange happened. “Eastern Europe opened, and she took a plane to her hometown.”
Flipping through a magazine, Ziegler points out that photographers get a corner, tiny byline.“The writer of the story is the leader, and the photographer follows.”
He says that the arrangement in the gallery is a conscious attempt to move away from the standard magazine photo sequencing.
“People will know without reading a detailed description, without knowing anything, what the photos are trying to say.” He admits that this is not meant to be a report, but an artistic view of history.
“This is not a professional or commercial show. It is quite the opposite, these photographers are not money-makers.”
He feels it is not about just one good photograph, but about groups of work which have a very different idea of time and space. “A magazine photo in colour imitates a painting.”
AYESHA MATTHAN
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