foam magazine #18 / displaced
Foam_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam
13 February – 13 May 2009
Richard Avedon ~ Photographs 1946 – 2004 Foam is on the tour schedule of the major retrospective Richard Avedon – Photographs 1946 – 2004. Compiled by Denmark’s Louisiana Museum in close cooperation with the Avedon Foundation, this exhibition appears at just six venues worldwide and can be seen at Foam from 13 February to 13 May 2009. It features over 200 works by Richard Avedon presented in chronological order, from his first photos made in Italy in 1946 to his final portraits, made shortly before his death in 2004. This is the first retrospective of his work to appear in the Netherlands and the final chance to see it in Europe. Richard Avedon (1923 – 2004) is recognised as one of the greatest American photographers of the twentieth century. For over fifty years he was a leading figure in photography, with a star status that never left him. He was the first to cross the boundaries of different photographic genres. Avedon made his name in the early 1950s as a fashion photographer, working for American magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. Besides fashion photography, Avedon also took dark, emotionally charged portraits. Avedon was one of the great innovators of modern fashion portrait photography. His portraits were radical and intense, often contrasting sharply with the subject’s public image. Avedon created an endless series of portraits of statesmen, artists and actors, including Katherine Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, Brigitte Bardot, Marilyn Monroe, Buster Keaton, Charles Chaplin, Truman Capote, Henry Kissinger, Edward Kennedy, The Beatles, Andy Warhol and Francis Bacon. He photographed each of them in his own inimitable way: against a neutral white background, detached from time and place. All that remains is the penetrating, psychologically charged image of the individual looking back at the viewer.
14 May – 23 August 2009
NY Perspectives ~ Amsterdam discovered by NY photographers To mark the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s discovery of Manhattan, Foam is teaming up with the Amsterdam City Archives and the John Adams Institute to organise an exhibition about Amsterdam, as seen through the eyes of four New York photographers. More information on this project on pages 160 – 169 of this issue.
#3211. Cafalù, Sicily, Italy, July 2008 © Massimo Vitali
29 May – 9 September 2009
Massimo Vitali
Richard Avedon, self-portrait, Provo, Utah, August 20, 1980 © 2009 The Richard Avedon Foundation
170
The Italian photographer Massimo Vitali (1944, Como) is famous for his monumental photographs of large groups of people. These focus especially on contemporary leisure time activities: the beach, the disco, mass tourism. Typical of his work is the congregation of a large, impersonal group, in which details and individual stories can nevertheless be identified. Vitali’s photos are the result of a complex work process. He usually uses a classic wooden Deardorff 11x14-inch camera to record everything with the greatest of precision and from an elevated vantage point. The images are then digitally enlarged to form impressive panoramas. The results are photographs with an extremely wide visual field and at the same time a high degree of detail. The exhibition in Foam comprises Vitali’s new work, complemented by an overview of existing work.