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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