Harmony can arise from a fashion photograph. Where the object of desire, be it a cloak, a dress, a hat, or a piece of jewelry, becomes the protagonist of a whole that balances lines, shapes, volumes, and spaces. The lexicon of these images thus reveals something, indeed a great deal, about twentieth-century architecture. From the essential forms of Walter Gropius and the Bauhaus to the purity of Le Corbusier's design, in a quest for modernity that lies between memory and the future.
It's a world premiere show Horst P. Horst. The Geometry of Grace, set up until next July 5th in Venice at the Stanze della Fotografia in theIsland of San Giorgio. Extraordinary spaces, refined set-up for this retrospective – curated by Anne Morin in collaboration with Denis Curti – dedicated to Horst P. Horst (1906-1999), a giant of classical twentieth-century photography, one of its absolute masters.
Over 400 works on display, more than half never before exhibited
Over 400 works on display, three quarters of which have never been seen before, tell the story of complexity of Horst's work and its transversality. Not only fashion photographer (enshrined in the pages of the famous Vogue magazine) but also explorer of nature elementsFlowers, leaves, shells... Fashion, like nature, confirms this artist's concept of elegance. This is explicitly expressed in his Vogue photographs, and reiterated in his interpretation of the natural world that Horst later transfers to his portraits and throughout his subsequent work.
Helping to make fashion photography a true art form. Fundamental in this process were the architectural study (which Horst applied himself to before dedicating himself to photography) and the collaborations with Gropius and Le Corbusier. This also gives rise to his idea of the image as an architecture of forms and light, his search for precise proportions, his striving for pure form. In a word, harmony as the ultimate synthesis.
Photography is an architecture of shapes and light
The exhibition route is the story of almost seventy years of photographic works, from 1923 to 1989, enriched by sketches, drafts, collages. And from his cameras. Extraordinary. iconic fashion images created for Vogue, where the protagonists are the clothes, the hats, the jewels, the cloaks: drapes made of lines and volumes, lights and chiaroscuro, with the common denominator of great formal elegance. On display are the his self-portraits, And portraits of great personalities from fashion and entertainmentIngrid Bergman and Coco Chanel, Salvador Dalí and Yves Saint Laurent, Luchino Visconti, Gianni Versace…
There is also Venice where Horst stayed in 1947 on the occasion of the Biennale and the Film FestivalThe lagoon city, which today hosts the largest retrospective ever dedicated to the artist, was at the time the ideal stage for a sort of photojournalistic reportage dedicated to nobles and high society figures of the time, from Maria Callas to Jean Cocteau.
Horst P. Horst. The Geometry of Grace was born from a joint project by Marsilio Arte and the Giorgio Cini Foundation.
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