With the retrospective Helmut Newton Legacy (19. 10. 2022 – 15. 01. 2023), the Kunstforum will be celebrating the Berlin photographer’s hundredth birthday (1920–2004) – delayed because of corona, but all the more comprehensive, with 300 or more works that document Newton’s complete oeuvre.
Newton, a controversial figure who has never ceased to fascinate and provoke, is primarily renowned for his photos of women: powerful, aggressive, self-assertive – naked and dressed – they challenge the viewer. His photos have been published countless times, circulated through magazines – their iconic character has impressed itself on our collective visual memory.
In actual fact, Newton’s career developed first and foremost through his fashion photography – which is the focus of this exhibition. In 1938, being Jewish, he fled from the Nazis to Australia, where he began to photograph fashion. Newton blazed the trail to his inimitable style in 1960s Paris by staging his models in shrill theatrical settings, out of the luxury- and eccentricity-governed haute couture scene conjuring up a situation of uncanniness and ambivalence.
Newton first started photographing nudes in the 1980s. With his sharply delineated, over-lifesize models in their almost belligerent nakedness, its sexuality self-confident and energy-charged in impact, Newton probed social and moral limits, and today still – or, most of all, once more – challenges us to formulate anew the issues that preoccupy us.
The exhibition presents Newton with iconic photos, also with works that have never been on show before. Therefore, they spotlight lesser-known aspects from Newton’s world and direct our view onto a complete oeuvre that hovers between the charged polarities of art and commerce, reflecting the volatile zeitgeist of the 1960s and continuing to around the turn of the millennium.
When the cult group Depeche Mode announced the world tour, many fans were partially relieved. Especially after Andy Fletcher, one of the founding members, unexpectedly died in May 2022. In addition to the grief of the “depechee,” there were concerns about the group’s disbanding. The famous trio Dave Gahan, Martin Gore, and Andy Fletcher have been the heart of the legendary band for almost three decades, i.e., since 1995, when the longtime member Alan Wilder left Depeche Mode. However, the title of the latest album Memento Mori, which the band members invented while Andy Fletcher was alive, has a more symbolic dimension after his death. Despite the tragic event that hit not only the two members but also the music world, Dave Gahan and Martin Gore made clear they would continue, not only because the album was already largely unfinished but mainly because the last thing Andy Fletcher would have wished was the disbanding.
Everyone wants to honor Depeche Mode, especially the most loyal fans around the world. In Bratislava, the fans can see a live show of Memento Mori on 28 May 2023 at the National Football Stadium, and in the neighboring countries in the Austrian Klagenfurt am Wörthersee on 21 July, in Budapest on 28 July, or in the Czech Republic in Prague’s Letňany on 30 July.
The Sundance Film Festival, a program of the non-profit, Sundance Institute, is the preeminent gathering of original storytellers and audiences seeking new voices and fresh perspectives. Since 1985, hundreds of films launched at the Festival have gone on to gain critical acclaim and reach new audiences worldwide. The Festival has introduced some of the most groundbreaking films and episodic works of the past three decades, including Fire of Love,Cha Cha Real Smooth, Flee, CODA, Passing, Summer Of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Clemency, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Zola, O.J.: Made in America, On The Record, Boys State, The Farewell, Honeyland, One Child Nation, The Souvenir, The Infiltrators, Sorry to Bother You, Top of the Lake, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, Hereditary, Call Me By Your Name, Get Out, The Big Sick, Mudbound, Fruitvale Station, Whiplash, Brooklyn, Precious, The Cove, Little Miss Sunshine, An Inconvenient Truth, Napoleon Dynamite, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Reservoir Dogsand sex, lies, and videotape. Its vibrant program platforms fiction and non-fiction features and short films; series and episodic content; emerging media, and performances, as well as conversations, and other events. The Festival takes place both in person in the state of Utah and online, connecting audiences across the U.S. to bold new artists and films. The 2023 Festival takes place January 19 – 29.
Text: MS, www.kunstforumwien.at, www.sundance.org
