“Eyes Wide Open! 100 Years of Leica Photography”: The Anniversary Exhibition in The Fotografie Forum Frankfurt 13 March – 31 May, 2015

This video presents LFI insight: Eyes Wide Open! 100 Years of Leica Photography.

The video is in German with English subtitles.

Fotografie Forum Frankfurt

Presents

Exhibition

Eyes Wide Open! 100 Years of Leica Photography

March 13 – May 31, 2015

Fotografie Forum Frankfurt
Braubachstrasse 30–32, 60311 Frankfurt am Main, 2nd and 3rd floor
Google Maps

Admission
6 Euro: general.
3 Euro: reduced for students, apprentices, unemployed persons, severely handicapped persons.
FREE admission for children aged under 12, FFF members, members of Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne and members of foam – Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam.

Oskar Barnack invents the Ur-Leica. "The construction of the first, fully functional prototype of a revolutionary new still picture camera for 35 mm perforated film was completed by Oskar Barnack in March 1914. The camera had a full metal body, a collapsible lens and a focal plane shutter, which, at the time, had no overlapping curtains. A cap, fixed to the lens by a screw, was swung across the lens when winding on the film to prevent light getting in. The Ur-Leica was the first camera to feature coupled film winding and shutter cocking – thus preventing double exposures." — Oskar Barnack invents the Ur-Leica. “The construction of the first, fully functional prototype of a revolutionary new still picture camera for 35 mm perforated film was completed by Oskar Barnack in March 1914. The camera had a full metal body, a collapsible lens and a focal plane shutter, which, at the time, had no overlapping curtains. A cap, fixed to the lens by a screw, was swung across the lens when winding on the film to prevent light getting in. The Ur-Leica was the first camera to feature coupled film winding and shutter cocking – thus preventing double exposures.”

In March 1914, Oskar Barnack, who worked as an industrial designer at Ernst Leitz in Wetzlar, completed the first functional model of a small-format camera for 35mm cinema film. The introduction of the camera, which was delayed until 1925 due to the war, marked a paradigm shift in photography. The exhibition curated by Hans-Michael Koetzle illuminates various aspects of recent small-format photography, from journalistic strategies to documentary approaches and free artistic positions.

Fotografie Forum Frankfurt
http://www.fffrankfurt.org/e_programm.html

The refined and improved version of Barnack’s camera went into serial production under the name of Leica (Leitz Camera) and was presented to the public in March 1925, at the Leipzig Spring Fair. It was fitted with a non-interchangeable, Leitz Anastigmat 50 mm f/3.5 lens designed by Max Berek in a collapsible mount. Soon afterwards, the lens was given the name Elmax (Ernst Leitz, Max Berek). In the same year, Berek employed a new glass type in his design for the Elmar 50 mm f/3.5 – a lens that was to become as world famous as the Leica itself.' — Leica (Leitz Camera): “The Leica I is presented to the public. The refined and improved version of Barnack’s camera went into serial production under the name of Leica (Leitz Camera) and was presented to the public in March 1925, at the Leipzig Spring Fair. It was fitted with a non-interchangeable, Leitz Anastigmat 50 mm f/3.5 lens designed by Max Berek in a collapsible mount. Soon afterwards, the lens was given the name Elmax (Ernst Leitz, Max Berek). In the same year, Berek employed a new glass type in his design for the Elmar 50 mm f/3.5 – a lens that was to become as world famous as the Leica itself.’

PRESS RELEASE

18/02/2015

EYES WIDE OPEN! 100 YEARS OF LEICA PHOTOGRAPHY

The anniversary exhibition is the guest of the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt from March 2015

Photo: Christer Strömholm. Nana, Place Blanche, Paris 1961, © Christer Strömholm/Strömholm Estate, 2014

Eyes wide open! 100 years of Leica photography – that is the name of the anniversary exhibition celebrating 100 years of Leica photography that will be on view in the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt from 13 March to 31 May 2015. The anniversary exhibition is dedicated to the radical changes and visual revolution in the world of photography that were triggered by the appearance of the technically innovative, compact, light and extremely mobile ‘Leica’ (‘Leitz Camera’). The exhibition spotlights various aspects of 35 mm photography from its beginnings to the present day – from journalistic strategies and documentary approaches to examples of freestyle artistic imagery. The exhibition will be showing more than 200 photographs together with documentary material, camera models and publications from the company archives at Leica Camera AG.

The Fotografie Forum Frankfurt will be presenting works by prominent Leica photographers like Nobuyoshi Araki, Jane Evelyn Atwood, Bruno Barbey, René Burri, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Bruce Davidson, Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt, William Eggleston, Ralph Gibson, F. C. Gundlach, Elisabeth Hase, Fred Herzog, Barbara Klemm, Herbert List, Paula Luttringer, Susan Meiselas, Ulrich Mack, Joel Meyerowitz, Paolo Roversi, Jeanloup Sieff, Christer Strömholm, Kai Wiedenhöfer, Paul Wolff and Tom Wood. These are joined by less familiar photographs captured by amateurs and artists whose names have never been associated with 35 mm photography until today – for instance, the socially critical painter George Grosz and the legendary art director Mehemed Fehmy Agha. Other focal points of the exhibition are the avant-garde school of the 1920s and 1930s, the subjectivism of the 1950s, the ‘Photographie Humaniste’ movement in post-war France, Spanish and Japanese photography, American ‘New Color Photography’ and examples of fashion and contemporary street photography.

The book to the exhibition, entitled Eyes wide open! 100 years of Leica photography, has been published by the Kehrer Verlag. This work, compiled and edited by Hans-Michael Koetzle, contains 1,200 photographs on 576 pages and will be available during the exhibition in the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt.

Eyes wide open! 100 years of Leica photography is a collaboration between the Deichtorhallen/Haus der Photographie Hamburg and the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt with the support of Leica Camera AG. Curated by Michael Koetzle (freelance writer, publicist and former editor-in-chief of Leica World), the exhibition celebrated its premiere in Hamburg in 2014, the anniversary year, and was very well attended. Conceived as a touring exhibition, the next stop on the calendar of Eyes wide open! 100 years of Leica photography will be the C/O Berlin from 22 August 2015. The exhibition will also be appearing at the Westlicht/Ostlicht gallery in Vienna from December 2015 to February 2016 and, from March to June 2016, in the Kunstfoyer of the Versicherungskammer Kulturstiftung in Munich.

About Leica Camera

Leica Camera AG is an internationally operating, premium-segment manufacturer of cameras and sport optics products. The legendary status of the Leica brand is founded on a long tradition of excellence in the construction of lenses. And today, in combination with innovative technologies, Leica products continue to guarantee better pictures in all situations in the worlds of visualisation and perception. Leica Camera AG has its headquarters in Wetzlar, in the state of Hesse in Germany, and a second production site in Vila Nova de Famalicão, Portugal. The company operates branch offices in England, France, Japan, Singapore, Switzerland, South Korea, Italy, Australia and the USA. New and innovative products have been the driving force behind the company’s positive development in recent years.