Category Archives: Photography

KYOTOGRAPHIE 2021: On strength, resilience and humanity

The LOEWE FOUNDATION is pleased to announce the opening of Tanabe Chiku’unsai IV’s site-specific bamboo installation in the historic Nijō Castle for the Kyotographie festival.

As passionate advocates for art and craft all over the world, the LOEWE FOUNDATION is proud to support the internationally acclaimed artist Tanabe Chiku’unsai IV’s exhibition Connection-STAND during the Kyotographie festival of art and photography. Centred around a series of large, intertwined sculptures made from intricately woven bamboo installed within the 17th century Nijō Castle, a UNESCO-protected World Heritage Site, the exhibition also presents a series of specially commissioned photographs and a video documenting the making over the installation, created on-site over four days leading to the opening.

Tanabe Chiku’unsai IV was born in 1973, in Osaka, Japan, into a prestigious lineage of bamboo artists which can be traced back over 100 years. His works assimilate modern techniques with four generations of bamboo traditions to weave large, amorphous installations with the purpose of attracting global audiences to the wonders—and inherent sustainability—of working with the world’s fastest-growing plant.

Exploring themes of circularity, innovation and individuality, Chiku’unsai IV’s artworks embody a simple yet intricate sense of beauty. With each piece of bamboo being unique in their own way, the undulating forms of Chiku’unsai IV’s woven objects and installations are guided by the “different personalities” of each strand of tiger and black bamboo he uses. As bamboo has a stronger tensile strength than steel, his structures, created solely by human hands, support themselves. Often, the artist reuses material from previous sculptures when creating new works, and as such, his practice is as much a meditation on evolution and the cycle of life as it is a demonstration of bamboo’s aesthetic and architectural potentials.

Titled ECHO, the ninth edition of the Kyotographie exhibition explores humanity’s relationship to nature in the decade since the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami struck Japan in 2011. Running from 18 September – 27 October 2021, Tanabe Chiku’unsai IV’s Connection-STAND takes place in the Daidokoro Kitchen, Okiyodokoro Kitchen of Ninomaru Palace, in the southwest of the Nijō Castle complex. A selection of his work will then be installed at the LOEWE Paseo de Gracia store in Barcelona in early 2022.

Hervé Guibert at PHotoESPAÑA

The LOEWE FOUNDATION participates in PHotoESPAÑA 2019 with a monographic exhibition of Hervé Guibert’s work, and in doing so, maintains the same line as in previous editions with Minor White and Hujar-Wojnarowicz. Guibert’s works can be seen through 1st September in LOEWE’s emblematic Madrid Gran Vía store.

María Millán, the sample’s curator, presents the vulnerability of an artist who faced his illness head on, giving his personal struggle a social voice that resonates to this day. A writer and photographer who expressed his artistic vision while speaking out against his reality, Herve Guibert (1955-1991) represents the artists of a generation who, despite their relevance in intellectual circles, were stigmatised because of their AIDS diagnosis. A master of capturing everyday life, Guibert’s photographs show immense delicacy both in the composition and in the perfect balance between light and shadow. The sample is made up of images showcasing everyday life as well as friends and lovers and his own literary activity. We see, among others, Balthus and his wife, Michel Foucault, Isabelle Adjani, his friend Thierry, and his aunts. These were all key people in Guibert’s life at the outset of his illness and as it developed, which is portrayed in an elegantly crude way.

Guibert –who, at the time, had made a name for himself in intellectual circles because he wrote a photography column for Le Monde– had to face the hostile social rejection that his illness provoked, as evidenced in his work. Towards the end of his life, the artist questioned the renowned French liberal school of thought, and brought his personal fight against death to the forefront, giving it a social conscience that, in turn, has given a voice and a presence to a minority that, in many parts of the world, is forced to fight, even to this day, for fundamental rights and freedoms. Through the portrayal of scenes from everyday life, which reflect his desires, aspirations, and worries, Guibert’s work invites reflection and social commitment. All the exhibited images are photographs authorised by the artist’s estate and on loan from the Maison Européenne de la Photographie.

With this sample, LOEWE provides a stage for the social causes Guibert fought for and, as such, hopes to contribute to the fight against intolerance and marginalisation that still exist in many places around the world, in addition to shining a light on the threat of losing rights and freedoms that had been previously won. Within the framework of this vindication and coinciding with the exhibition, Agathe Gaillard, Christine Guibert, and Kiddy Smile met at 7 p.m. on 3rd July at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid to commemorate the Parisian artistic scene of the 1980’s. The talk was moderated by journalist Jorge Barriuso.

Hervé Guibert. PHotoESPAÑA 2019. LOEWE Gallery, 8 Gran Vía Street, Madrid. From 5th June to 1st September [Monday to Saturday: 10 a.m. to 8.30 p.m. Sundays and holidays: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.]

Photo Captions: Autoportrait, 1989. Balthus et sa femme, 1988. Collection Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris © Hervé Guibert.

Hujar and Wojnarowicz featured in PHotoEspaña

Peter Hujar and David Wojnarowicz are the featured artists in an exhibition presented by the LOEWE FOUNDATION at the brand’s Gran Vía store in Madrid. It is with the photographs that Hujar and Wojnarowicz took of the New York counterculture of the 1970s and 1980s, that LOEWE has participated for the eighth year running in the PHotoEspaña festival.

Hujar and Wojnarowicz appear in this sample as two independent creators whose work is, nonetheless, linked through a tragic friendship that started as a purely artistic creative exchange and evolved into an intense, albeit brief, romantic affair whose deep bond lived on even after Hujar’s death in 1987; from then onwards, Wojnarowicz threw himself into a life of public activism to help raise AIDS awareness by showing the challenges faced by the victims of this disease.
LOEWE pays tribute to this cause with t-shirts –featuring images by the artist– that have been created with the support of VISUAL AIDS and the P.P.O.W Gallery, which represents Wojnarowicz’s legacy. Proceeds will be donated to VISUAL AIDS, an art-focused foundation established in 1988 with the purpose of preserving and promoting the work of HIV-positive artists, fostering social awareness about this disease, creating dialogue through visual art exhibitions and publications, and supporting living artists affected by HIV and AIDS. The t-shirts, which have been produced in a limited run, are available on loewe.com, at Visual AIDS online and at Dover Street Market in London and Tokyo, as well as at Printed Matter, the P.P.O.W Gallery in New York, and select LOEWE stores.

The images that make up the PHotoEspaña exhibition are a chronicle of what the East Village of those decades was like, which allows us to appreciate the extent to which these two artists became involved in the radical cultural revolution taking place at that time. In addition to the proximity and relevance that shine a light to social injustices that still affect us today, the images reveal how Hujar and Wojnarowicz were at the helm of the fight for the freedom of sexual identity. The exhibition also includes portraits of contemporary artists and creators taken by Hujar that, together with the subjects of the portraits themselves, symbolised a clear willingness on his part to challenge established norms. This sample shows the southern tip of Manhattan as it was back then: a place where significant social and political transformations were taking place thanks to the leadership of a group of artists who inspire us to this day.

Peter Hujar and David Wojnarowicz, PHotoEspaña 2018. LOEWE Gallery, Gran Vía 8, Madrid. From 4th June to 26th August [Monday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Sundays and holidays from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.]

Photo Captions: Abandoned Car With Globe, 1988-89 © David Wojnarowicz. Courtesy of the Marion Scemama Collection. Merce Cunningham and John Cage Seated, 1986 © Peter Hujar Archive. Courtesy of the Peter Hujar Archive.

‘Minor White: Metaphors’

The LOEWE FOUNDATION presents, within the framework of PHotoEspaña, the first solo exhibition devoted to Minor White, one of the most important American photographers of the 20th century.

The exhibition, titled ‘Minor White: Metaphors’ will be on display at the LOEWE Gallery until 25th August. Jonathan Anderson, LOEWE’s Creative Director, explains that “Minor White’s modernity is a perfect fit for the House because his photographs work on multiple levels. At LOEWE, we believe in multifunctionality.” This will be the 7th PHotoEspaña edition LOEWE participates in and, with this exhibit, the Spanish firm aims to raise the international profile of an artist whose work was instrumental in shaping the aesthetics of post-war photography.

Carefully curated by María Millán, the exhibition presents 40 of White’s photographs, which are in Madrid on loan from Howard Greenberg, Michael Shapiro and other private collections. Minor White’s photographs reveal both his vision as well as his use of composition and light to evoke a contemplative state of mind.  White reproduced his work in a rich spectrum of blacks and whites, while employing close-ups and cropping to express what couldn’t be shown. He led an introspective life and hid his homosexuality for fear of the repercussions it could have on his teaching career. Photography allowed him to show and develop his real self.

In 1952, White co-founded photography magazine Aperture and went on to serve as its editor for two decades. He encouraged critical discussions and elevated the value of creative photography as an art form while using the magazine as a platform to espouse ideas on how to take and read photographs

‘Minor White: Metaphors’. Until 25th August 2017 at the LOEWE Gallery (Gran Vía, 8, Madrid)

Photographs: Minor White. Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, 1959. Gelatin silver print, 8.89 x 11.4 cm. (4 ½ x 5 ¾  in), courtesy of Michael Shapiro Photographs. 72 N. Union Street, Rochester, 1958. Courtesy of the Howard Greenberg Gallery, NY. Nude Foot, San Francisco, 23rd March 1947. Gelatin Silver Print. 9,36 x 11,74 cm. (8 ½ x 10 ½ in).

Lucia Moholy at the Bauhaus

On the occasion of the first exhibition featuring the work of photographer Lucia Moholy in Madrid as part of PHotoEspaña, the LOEWE FOUNDATION organised this month of June the highly attended LOEWE Talk “Lucia Moholy at the Bauhaus”. Architect Belén Moneo and exhibition curator María Millán exposed the public to the aesthetics and philosophy of the legendary school and to the artists Moholy photographed and lived with.

Anni Albers, 1927

The Bauhaus, founded by architect Walter Gropius in 1919, was set up as a centre for craftsmanship, architecture and design to come together. One of the school’s objectives was to design and produce unique utilitarian objects for use in daily modern life. When Lucia Moholy arrived at the Bauhaus in 1923, photography was not part of the school’s curriculum. Using a very personal and innovative style, she devoted herself to documenting the daily activities taking place in the workshops and the designs and objects that were being created.

All students had to take mandatory courses on colour theory, materials, drawing and other subjects meant to prepare them for the more specialised workshops. The Bauhaus was the first art school to accept women. However, equality was not applied across the board and women were not allowed to take certain classes.

Such was the case of artist Anni Albers, who was barred from the architecture and glass workshops and was advised to defer to weaving. She had the good fortune of working with Gunta Stölz in 1923 becoming one of the workshop’s top students and eventually the school’s weaving director, a post she held until 1932, when the Dessau Bauhaus was closed. Anni Albers and her husband Josef Albers moved to the US in 1933 where they pursued teaching and worked on personal projects. In 1951, the MOMA organised an exhibition of Anni’s work, which then toured the US for two years, establishing Anni Albers as one of the most important textile artists of the 20th century.

Florence Henri, 1927

Florence Henri, who began her artistic career as a painter, had a similar experience. During the time she spent at the Bauhaus in 1927, she lived with László Moholy-Nagy and Lucia Moholy, who shared with her their passion for photography and taught her some basic techniques. Although photography was not yet taught at the school, the couple encouraged her to experiment with the camera and to continue her work in this field. A year after leaving the Bauhaus, Florence Henri opened a studio in Paris establishing herself as a professional photographer.

The LOEWE exhibition, “Lucia Moholy, A Hundred Years Later”, invites the public to learn about the people in the portraits. Lucia Moholy was a pioneer of modern photography, and so were the photographed artists in their individual fields of expertise. An absolute must.

Lucia Moholy, A Hundred Years Later. Until 28th August at LOEWE’s Gran Vía 8 store in Madrid [Monday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Sundays and Holidays from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.]

Photographs: Anni Albers, 1927. Florence Henri, 1927.The Bauhaus Archive. Courtesy Fotostiftung Schweiz. Curator, María Millán.

 

Lucia Moholy, A Hundred Years Later

MoholyBauhausThe exhibition presented by the LOEWE FOUNDATION as part of PhotoEspaña 2016 shows a selection of 48 photographs taken during the fifteen years Lucia Moholy worked as a photographer. Her contribution to culture as a photographer, art critic, historian and educator is enduring and of increasingly recognised significance, and her work has proved particularly valuable in promoting the aesthetics and philosophy of the Bauhaus.

MoholyAutorretratoMoholy was born in Praga in 1894, where she studied Philosofy and Art History, and began her profesional career in Germany, working for different publishing houses as a writer and editor. She had expressed an interest in photography in 1915 and soon after marrying the artist László Moholy-Nagy, they joined the Bauhaus in 1923. Moholy photographed its famous architecture and the school’s interiors and furnishings, breaking with established practices.

She left Germany, moving first to London and later to Zurich, where she continued to write photography art and criticism. She spent many years trying to recover her negatives, which had been dispersed since she left Berlin. This exhibition hopes to play a role in restoring the undeniable relevance of the artist’s work for present and future generations.

Lucia Moholy, A Hundred Years Later. Until the 28th of August. LOEWE Store in Gran Vía, 8, Madrid [Monday to Saturday: 10:00 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Sundays and holidays: 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.].

Photographs by Lucia Moholy. Bauhaus Dessau, 1926. Self-portrait, 1930. Bauhaus furniture design by Marcel Breuer, 1923. Courtesy of Fotostiftung Schweitz. Curator: María Millán.

Tina Modotti, in PHotoEspaña 2015

Committed and wise, artist Tina Modotti (Udine, Italy, 1896 – Mexico City, 1942) had a strong personality that built her life as an exciting story to tell. The character behind her life and her political commitment have, too often, come to hide her exceptional talent as a photographer.

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Now -in its fifth collaboration with PHotoEspaña- the LOEWE FOUNDATION has made possible what will be the first solo exhibition of Modotti’s work in Spain. Curated by María Millan, this showing synthesises a special moment in the history of the twentieth century: the inter-war period that she lived intensely.

NaturalezaMuertaModottiAs a disciple and partner of the American photographer Edward Weston, Modotti was devoted to photograph the many details of diverse laborious atmospheres. Her work borders on anthropology and shows people as being part of a fascinating social reality that she could never ignore. Moreover, the photographs of the first period of her life display some wonderful still-lifes and shadowing studies that she used to transform any daily scene into abstraction.

Among the 50 selected images gathered in this exhibition, those devoted to crafts, its dedication and creative rigor, will gain special prominence. Those values ​​have shaped the identity of LOEWE through the years, and Modotti herself showed special respect to them through her camera.

Tina Modotti, PHotoEspaña 2015. Photographs courtesy Throckmorton Fine Art. LOEWE at 26, Serrano St., Madrid. Throughout August 30th, 2015.  [Monday – Saturday: 10:00 to 20:30h. Sunday and holidays: 11:00 to 20:00h].

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Photographs by Tina Modotti: Roses (1924), Still life (1928-29), Hands resting on a shovel (1926).