Venues list
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    Fondazione Rolla
    05 Apr – 28 Sept 2025

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    Centre de la photographie Genève
    16 May – 12 Oct 2025

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    Fotomuseum Winterthur
    17 May – 12 Oct 2025

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    Fondazione Archivio Donetta
    14 Jun – 12 Oct 2025

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    Photo Elysée
    28 Jun – 28 Sept 2025

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    Centre de la photographie Genève
    08 Jul – 21 Sept 2025

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  • Werner Erne: Die Schönheit im Gewöhnlichen sehen
    Stadtmuseum Aarau
    15 Aug – 12 Oct 2025

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  • Format
    Association Impulsion
    23 Aug – 05 Oct 2025

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  • Entgletscherung – Die Vermessung des Eises
    Bildarchiv der ETH-Bibliothek
    29 Aug – 12 Jul 2025

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    Pyxis
    29 Aug – 07 Sept 2025

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    Galerie 94
    29 Aug – 11 Oct 2025

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  • F+F Summer School: Heisse Bilder, eisgekühlt
    F + F Schule für Kunst und Design
    30 Aug 2025–11 Jan 2026

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  • Führung: Entgletscherung – Die Vermessung des Eises
    Bildarchiv der ETH-Bibliothek
    01 Sept 2025

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  • Round Table: Eco-Sustainability Through Vernacular Architecture in the Cycladic Islands and Switzerland
    Webster Geneva
    01 Sept 2025

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  • Eco-Sustainability Through Vernacular Architecture in the Cycladic Islands and Switzerland
    Webster Geneva
    01 Sept – 30 Sept 2025

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  • Iuzza. Goliarda Sapienza
    Artphilein
    05 Sept – 05 Oct 2025

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  • Pier Paolo Pasolini e Maria Callas. Cronaca di un amore
    Artphilein
    05 Sept 2025

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  • Closer
    Artphilein
    05 Sept – 05 Oct 2025

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  • Führung: Nicola Erni Collection
    Nicola Erni Collection
    11 Sept 2025

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  • Einblicke ins Pressebildarchiv des Schweizerischen Nationalmuseums
    Schweizerisches Nationalmuseum
    12 Sept 2025

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  • Flash! Petite histoire de la photographie allumée
    Musée suisse de l’appareil photographique
    18 Sept 2025–22 Feb 2026

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    Photo Elysée
    19 Sept 2025–01 Feb 2026

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    Photo Elysée
    19 Sept 2025–01 Feb 2026

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  • Cédric Raccio: Metanoïa
    Théâtre du Crochetan
    19 Sept – 19 Dec 2025

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    Fotomuseum Winterthur
    19 Sept – 21 Sept 2025

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    Photo Elysée
    20 Sept – 21 Sept 2025

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  • N-1387 / F-1386
    CONSARC / GALLERIA
    21 Sept – 16 Nov 2025

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  • Scampia - This is How We Live
    Webster Geneva
    24 Sept 2025

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  • CA POSITION@Extended: Lecture by Gregory Halpern
    Hochschule Luzern / Design Film Kunst
    24 Sept 2025

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  • MAZ-Fototag: Besser blitzen – drinnen und draussen
    MAZ. Institut für Journalismus und Kommunikation
    25 Sept 2025

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  • Roundtable: Ethical Visual Storytelling in the Age of Technology, Conflict, and Child Rights

    UNICEF – Giga
    26 Sept 2025

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  •  
Exhibition

New York – der entfesselte William Klein

Photobastei

Date

12 September – 03 November 2024

Opening

12 September 2024

18:00

Venue

Photobastei

Curated by

Romano Zerbini

William Klein, Gun 1, New York, 1954 © William Klein

After eight years in Europe, William Klein returned to the city of his birth in 1954 at the age of 26. New York is familiar and yet strange to him. The city in which he had once felt excluded had changed dramatically. He decided to radically re-capture New York – subjectively, intuitively and with unexpected perspectives. He portrays the booming metropolis, the city of Coca-Cola, Wall Street, big cars and flashing billboards as a dark, harsh and oppressive place – and creates his most famous and at the same time most influential work: the photo book ‘New York 1954-1955’. He was perhaps the first photographer to design the book integrally himself: in photography, typography, layout, cover design and text. It is considered a milestone in the history of photography, which freed photography from its narrow conventional corset.

Klein’s photos show New York unvarnished, as a place of racism, poverty, aggression and as a place where the rich have a very good time in public. Klein himself did not pass judgement, but the photography itself certainly did. His style is direct, with strong contrasts, blurred contours and motion blur – uncompromising, risk-taking and away from common conventions. This puts him in complete contrast to the technically perfect, aesthetically orientated photography of the 1950s. His reckless and brash image design was a very deliberate shattering of all conventions of ‘good photography’.
No publisher in the USA wanted to print this unvarnished view of America. The book was finally and only printed in Europe, first in France, then in Italy and England. It won the French photo book prize Prix Nadar and it feels like every American photographer had (and still has) a copy at home. Today it is considered one of the most influential photo books.
The exhibition at the Photobastei in Zurich shows a selection of 130 images from the book New York 1954.55. Life is Good and Good for You is New York: Trance Witness Revels from 12 September to 3 November.

Price

12.- / 8.- CHF

William Klein, from the series «1954.55. Life is Good & Good for You in New York: Trance Witness Revels» © William Klein