Best Photos of the Day

WOLFSBURG.- Is a photograph a true-to-life reproduction of reality, or is it merely a staged image? This year - the 175th anniversary of the invention of photography - the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg responds to this question with a comprehensive survey of avant- garde photography between 1920 and 1950. In this image: Frantisek Drtikol, Circular Segment (Arc), 1928. Carbon print; 21.3 x 28.7 cm. Photo: Christian P. Schmieder, Munich © František Drtikol - heirs, 2014.

WOLFSBURG.- The exhibition RealSurreal presents around 200 masterpieces from the eminent Siegert Collection in Munich. This collection, which has never been shown in its entirety, contains photographs from the Neues Sehen (New Vision) movement, covering everything from New Objectivity to Surrealism in Germany, France, and Czechoslovakia. In this image: Josef Sudek, Plaster Head, around 1947. Gelatin silver paper, 23.5 x 17.5 cm. Photo: Christian P. Schmieder, Munich © Estate of Josef Sudek.

WOLFSBURG.- Notions about photography’s visual veracity are as old as the art itself. As early as the nineteenth century there were arguments as to whether or not photography - with its mechanical ability to record ‘reality’ - was better suited to portray life more comprehensively and truthfully than other visual arts of the period. In this image: Albert Renger-Patzsch, Self-Portrait, 1926/27. Gelatin silver paper, 16.9 x 22.8 cm. Photo: Christian P. Schmider, Munich © Albert Renger-Patzsch Archiv / Ann and Jürgen Wilde / VG Bild- Kunst, Bonn 2014.

WOLFSBURG.- An inevitable reaction to what were considered photography’s shortcomings was Pictorialism, which approached photography according to the conventions of painting, in an attempt to lend it more artistic credibility. But around 1920 a new generation of international photographers began reconsidering the specific characteristics of photography as tools for developing it into a more modern method of appropriating reality. In this image: Grete Stern, The Eternal Eye, around 1950. Photomontage on gelatin silver paper, 39.5 x 39.5 cm. Photo: Christian P. Schmieder, Munich © Estate of Grete Stern courtesy Galería Jorge Mara - La Ruche, Buenos Aires, 2014.

WOLFSBURG.- Rapid progress in technologising modern society affected the adoption of and attitudes toward photography: convenient cameras that used rolls of film came onto the market in greater numbers, making it easy for even the greenest of amateurs to take photographs. In this image: Man Ray, Electricity, 1931. Photogravure, 26 x 20.6 cm. Photo: Christian P. Schmieder, Munich © Man Ray Trust, Paris/ VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2014.

WOLFSBURG.- Photographs were increasingly used as illustrations in mass media, and in advertising, leading to a rising demand for accomplished images and professional image makers. These developments also changed the public’s visual habits, so that the New Vision arose as an expression of the perception of this new media-fabricated reality. In this image: Brassaï, Occasional Magic (Sprouting Potato), 1931. Gelatin silver paper, 28.8 x 23 cm. Photo: Christian P. Schmider, Munich © ESTATE BRASSAÏ – RMN.

WOLFSBURG.- Positions ranged from the precise recordings of what was seen in portrait and industrial photography, via the use of new framings and perspectives at the Bauhaus, all the way to the photomontage and technical experiments such as the photogram and solarisation, as well as Surrealism’s staged images. In this image: Herbert Bayer, Lonely Metropolitan, 1932/1969. Photomontage on gelatin silver paper, 35.3 x 28 cm. Photo: Christian P. Schmieder, Munich © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2014.

WOLFSBURG.- Photographers of the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) movement wanted to show the world as it was. For Albert Renger-Patzsch, photography was the “most dependable tool” for objectively reproducing the visible things of this world, especially the results of modern technology, and in this respect, it was superior to the subjective perception of the human eye. In this image: Herbert Bayer, Self-Portrait, 1932. Photomontage on gelatin silver paper, 35.3 x 27.9 cm. Photo: Christian P. Schmieder, Munich © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2014.

WOLFSBURG.- László Moholy-Nagy went a step further, with his famous verdict that “the illiterate of the future will be the person ignorant of the use of the camera as well as the pen.” To the camera he attributed the crucial function of technically expanding human perception. Whilst adequately depicting machines, mass society, and modern metropolitan life: “the photographic apparatus can perfect or supplement our optical instrument, the eye.” In this image: Genia Rubin, Lisa Fonssagives. Gown: Alix (Madame Grès), 1937. Gelatin silver paper, 30.3 x 21.5 cm. Photo: Christian P. Schmieder / Siegert Collection, Munich © Sheherazade Ter-Abramoff, Paris.

WOLFSBURG.- Unusual aspects and viewpoints led to striking images. From a bird’s-eye perspective, buildings and streets became compositions made up of lines and planes, while a low-angle shot could create an unforeseen dynamic and greatly enlarging an object resulted in magi- cal dissociations. In this image: Atelier Manassé, My Little Bird, around 1928. Gelatin silver paper, 21 x 16 cm. Photo: Christian P. Schmieder, Munich © IMAGNO/Austrian Archives.