Exhibition at the Städel Museum sheds light on modern photography's wide-ranging trends
Exhibition view New Ways of Seeing. The Photography of the 1920s and 30s. Photo: Städel Museum Norbert Miguletz.
FRANKFURT
.- The Weimar Republic (19181933) was an era of great innovation in modern photography. There was a growing demand for press and advertising imagesand numerous photographers to cater to it. Their works also appeared in elaborate photo books they published on their own initiative. One catalyst for these developments was the advent of the 35mm camera in the 1920s, an invention permitting unprecedented freedom of movement. Unusual perspectives, steep-angled views from above and below, and close-ups of details testify to a new enthusiasm for photographic experimentation. This modern aesthetic came to be known as Neues Sehen (New Ways of Seeing), a catchword that can be understood as a call for a new visual approach on the part of the photographer and the viewer alike. Pictorial language now became clearer, more direct, and in many cases more linear. In its matter-of-fact rigour it corresponded to the needs of a society that, after the disaster of World War I, had come to favour realistic depiction.