Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Sunday, December 26, 2010
NYTimes article on C/O Berlin Art Gallery
In an Old Berlin Post Office, a Gallery Flourishes
By SARAH MOROZ
Peter Lindbergh “Michaela Berko, Linda Evangelista, Kristen Owen. Comme des Garcons. Pont a Mousson Factory, Nancy, France. 1988” by Peter Lindbergh.
C/O Berlin winkingly acknowledges its location in the Postfuhramt — or (roughly) post office — in its name (“c/o” being postal lingo for “care of”). The space (Oranienburger Strasse 35/36; 49-30-28-09-19-25; www.co-berlin.info) has not been renovated since the days when it was filled with letter carriers. But today, it is filled with communiqués of a different sort: photographs, including, in a current exhibition titled “On Street,” up through Jan. 9, the work of the fashion photographer Peter Lindbergh.
“We try to make the tracks and traces visible, so there’s a historic dimension in the space, to mix it up with contemporary photography. It’s not a White Cube situation,” said the curator Felix Hoffmann, referring to the famed contemporary art galleries. “It’s very Berlin-ish.”
The more symbolic aspect of the “care of” reference — in the sense of commitment to supporting the arts — is very much intentional. Mr. Hoffmann noted that 10 years ago “there was a very big Magnum retrospective and not one space in Berlin was interested in the show.” C/O was thus founded to rectify Berlin’s undervaluing of art photography. A decade later, the scene has since caught up — though C/O remains at the epicenter, having shown the likes of Robert Frank and Nan Goldin.
The pieces by Mr. Lindbergh include black-and-white portraits of supermodels in industrial spaces and grand shots of film sets. The globetrotting photographer’s own artistic roots began in Berlin in the ’60s. He apprenticed to learn how to decorate department store windows, before going on to be a photographer’s assistant and build his reputation.
It’s the pseudo-street photography of some of Mr. Lindbergh’s work that inspired the name of the exhibition, for its sense of movement and improvisation. “You cannot figure out if this is a real photo shoot or not,” Mr. Hoffmann said. “It looks like he grabbed five cameras and took the model downtown in New York, with no team, to use the street as a stage.”
http://intransit.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/in-an-old-post-office-a-gallery-flourishes/