Elegance and Pose. F.C. Gundlach's Fashion Photography 1950-1970

Shenzhen Art Museum
October 27 to November 6, 2016

F.C. Gundlach, one of the most important German fashion photographers of the post-war period, set the stage for ever-changing fashion trends, defined the models' poses and gestures, selected props and locations, and thus reflected the ideals of beauty and fashion against a changing backdrop. Gundlach's oeuvre encompasses fashion and style from the Parisian haute couture of the 1950s to prêt-à-porter, from Berlin chic to the colorful designs of the 1980s.

F.C. Gundlach always worked as a commissioned photographer. His work addresses aesthetic, social, and cultural issues and reflects on how fashion can be conveyed through photography. Through his work for widely circulated magazines such as Film und Frau (1952–1966) and Brigitte (1963–1986), he shaped the perception of fashion not only in Germany. Conversely, his photographs reflect the spirit of the times—from the optimistic post-war years to the beginning of postmodernism.

The 55 works and 100 cover images in the exhibition "Elegance and Pose: F.C. Gundlach's Fashion Photography 1950–1970" can be seen as the essence of his life's work, situated between documentation and invention, applied photography and artistic ambition. The exhibition thus presents a great photographer who understood how to escape the "encrusted discrepancy between the sterile and the useful" (Th. W. Adorno) inherent in photographic art.

F.C. Gundlach developed his distinctive visual language through close contact and exchange with the aesthetic standards of professional photographers in Germany, France, and the USA, citing Martin Munkacsi, Erwin Blumenfeld, and Irving Penn as his role models. Furthermore, he consistently incorporated the evolving trends in contemporary art into his photographs: Surrealism and Film Noir in the 1950s, and later Op Art and Pop Art. His aesthetic is characterized by a rigorous reduction of photographic means and stylistic precision. Paris and Berlin, New York and Beirut, the Egyptian desert, the Canary Islands, and the ancient cultures of South America and Asia became the backdrop for F.C. Gundlach's on-location fashion photography—and thus accessible to the captivated readership of magazines. He found inspiration for extraordinary compositions on location. F.C. Gundlach's photographs encompass nearly 50 years of (West) German history in the realm of fashion, film, and art, inextricably blending realities, projections, dreams, and longings. His first publications were reportages. When he began fashion photography in 1951, he transferred his experience from reportage photography to this field.

His photographs have been published in numerous magazines, including Deutsche Illustrierte , Stern , Revue , Quick , Elegante Welt , Film und Frau , Annabelle , Brigitte , and Twen . For Film und Frau and Brigitte alone, F.C. Gundlach photographed more than 9,000 pages and 300 covers. F.C. Gundlach's photographic work has been exhibited extensively since 1951 (Librairie Jean Robert in Saint-Germain-des-Prés). The exhibition "Fashion Worlds" (1986), for example, was shown in Bonn, Kassel, Hamburg, Graz, Paris, Rotterdam, and many other locations. His retrospective, "F.C. Gundlach – The Photographic Work," was highly successful at the Haus der Photographie Hamburg (2008), the Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin (2009), and the Neues Museum Nürnberg (2011). To mark his 90th birthday in 2016, he presented his most recent exhibitions at Contemporary Fine Arts in Berlin.

In addition to his own photographic work, F.C. Gundlach was an active promoter and initiator in all areas of photography: He founded the photo service companies CCD and PPS, as well as one of the first photography galleries in Germany; he became a lecturer at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK); he is a significant collector and curator of exhibitions such as "The Medium of Photography Is Entitled to Provoke Thought" at the Kunstverein Hamburg and "Emotions & Relations" at the Kunsthalle Hamburg. In 2003, he was appointed founding director of the House of Photography Hamburg and presented his collection to the museum as a permanent loan under the title " The Human Image in Photography ." There, he presented numerous exhibitions, such as "A Clear Vision" and "The Heartbeat of Fashion," featuring works from his outstanding collection, as well as monographic and thematic exhibitions such as "Corpus Christi", "Martin Parr" and, last but not least, "Martin Munkacsi – Think While You Shoot ." In 2000, F.C. Gundlach bequeathed his extensive photography collection and his own photographic work to the F.C. Gundlach Foundation. The foundation will preserve and present the archives.

Curator: Sebastian Lux, born in Göttingen in 1971, art historian and curator. Since 2003, curator and managing director of the F.C. Gundlach Foundation. Numerous exhibitions and catalogues, most recently Peter Keetman – Gestaltete Welt , Vanity (2012), F.C. Gundlach (2011) and Martin Munkacsi (2011).

An exhibition by the F.C. Gundlach Foundation, curated by Sebastian Lux, in cooperation with the Shenzhen International Photography Week .