Intermezzo. Revisiting Helmut Newton

In the organizer's words:

After more than 20 years of successful mediation in the permanent exhibition Helmut Newton's Private Property on the first floor of the Museum of Photography, we have decided to expand the exhibition concept and radically change the previous presentation. The basic idea of providing information about the life of Helmut Newton and his wife June in this room remains the same.

The intermediate step in the transformation of the previous permanent exhibition is a cinematic intermezzo with Helmut Newton in an overwhelming film room. The film is based in part on the film portrait that was made three years ago for a major Newton exhibition in A Coruña, produced by Profirst International in collaboration with the Martin Salvador Studio for the MOP Foundation there. It is supplemented by previously unseen film material. Various sources were used for this, including material by June Newton, which was recently processed and digitized in the in-house archive. For the first time in Berlin, visitors can now see interviews with a dozen contemporary witnesses and experience Newton's work in a completely new way. The film has been edited into an endless loop and offers interested visitors a surprising and condensed experience.

Almost 100 exhibition posters by Newton continue to hang at the back of the exhibition space, albeit in a different setting and supplemented by several posters from various individual Alice Springs exhibitions. In the 16-meter-long display case below the posters, the vintage magazines featuring Newton's published work have been replaced by other fashion and lifestyle magazines and combined with magazine editorials from Alice Springs, including magazines such as Jardin des Modes, Elle, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Egoïste, Stern, The New Yorker, Photo and Paris Match. At this point, the exhibition display remains the same, only the content changes. The wall showcase reveals an intensive insight into the development of fashion photography and the changing image of women in the western world from the late 1950s to the beginning of the 21st century, including the revolutionary social upheavals of the 60s and 70s and their visual impact - right through to fashion, which is known to reflect the zeitgeist.

Next to it, in the corridors of Intermezzo, large text panels with illustrated biographies on the life and work of Helmut and June Newton are presented, as well as framed portrait photographs of the two founders of the foundation. Opposite the huge poster wall, a new curatorial idea begins, "Spotlight: Behind the Frame": an iconic photograph from the work of Helmut Newton or Alice Springs is brought into focus by illuminating its creation and distribution history on the basis of contact prints from the shoot, the publications of the specific image, notes, preparatory Polaroids and comparable photographs. It begins with Rue Aubriot, Newton's legendary fashion photograph from Paris, taken in the eponymous street for French Vogue in 1975, as well as the first photograph in Alice Springs' oeuvre: an advertising image for Gitanes cigarettes, also taken in Paris in 1970.

Price information:

12 € regular 6 € reduced* * Applies to: Pupils aged 18 and over, trainees, students, volunteers, jobseekers on ALG I benefits and severely disabled persons (degree of disability at least 50). Please present a corresponding certificate at the museum without being asked.