Albert Renger–Patzsch – Photographs of Objectivity (OBEX) - Hardcover

Wilde, Albert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0262181894 ISBN 13: 9780262181891

Publisher: MIT Press, 1998

Synopsis

with text by Thomas Janzon Albert Renger-Patzsch, together with August Sander and Karl Blossfeldt, was one of the undisputed pioneers of twentieth-century German photography. Indeed, what Sander achieved in portrait photography and Blossfeldt in plant photography, Renger-Patzsch achieved in his renderings of objects and the material world. As a protagonist of the movement that came to be known as Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity), he wanted to record, phenomenologically as it were, the exact appearance of objects -- their form, material, and surface. Thus he rejected any kind of artistic claim for himself. Believing that the photographer should strive to capture the "essence of the object," he called for documentation rather than art.Renger-Patzsch's most famous work was the 1928 photo album Die Welt ist SchÃn (The World Is Beautiful), a catalog of objects that became one of the most influential photography books ever published. His cool and clinical photographs, with their details of technical apparatus, industrial products, and natural organisms, were models of a new kind of artistic vision.This book contains not only the canonical "Icons of New Objectivity" series -- the famous still lifes of Jena glassware, rows of flatirons at a shoe factory, industrial objects, and more -- but also Renger-Patzsch's lesser-known but no less engaging photographs of landscapes, architecture, urban scenes, and studies of trees and stones. The book also contains a biography, a bibliography, critical commentary by Thomas Janzon, and selected writings of Renger-Patzsch appearing in English for the first time.

About this title

Synopsis

Albert Renger-Patzsch has often been described as one of the pioneers of 20th-century German photography, focusing on objects and the material world. As a protagonist of the movement that came to be known as Neue Sachlichkeit (new objectivity), he wanted to record the exact appearance of objects - their form, material and surface. Believing that the photographer should strive to capture "the essence of the object", he called for documentation rather than art. This book contains the "Icons of New Objectivity" series - the still lifes of Jena glassware, rows of flatirons at a shoe factory, industrial objects - and also Renger-Patzsch's lesser known photographs of landscapes, architecture, urban scenes and studies of trees and stones. The book also contains a biography, critical commentary and selected writings of Renger-Patzsch in English.

Edition details

• Publisher: MIT Press
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0262181894
• ISBN 13: 9780262181891
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 176