PRESS RELEASE
Historische Huizen Gent presents:
EYES WIDE OPEN!
100 years of Leica photography.
This summer St. Peter’s Abbey will be the first venue in a European tour of the Eyes Wide Open!exhibition. By way of more than 350 vintage photos visitors will be able to discover the rich history of 100 years of Leica photography.
In 1925 the compact Leica camera freed photography from the limitations of the studio. From now on photography became accessible to everyone and started to become a part of everyday life. Eyes Wide Open! outlines the rapidly evolving view of the world this produced.
Apart from the work of internationally renowned photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Araki Nobuyoshi, William Eggleston and Bruce Gilden, the exhibition includes original sketches, magazines, books and Leica cameras as well as a special selection of photographs by Belgian Leica photographers .
Evolution of100 years of Leicaphotography
Great changes are often attributed to technical innovation. One of these revolutionary changes is the invention of the Leica camera a hundred years ago. The 35mm camera ensured that the world was suddenly viewed and portrayed in a totally different way.
How could a small, black lacquered device have such an impact? The compact, high-resolution lens, silent mechanism and short shutter speed suddenly gave photographers new and unprecedented possibilities. Taking photographs became less complex, less time consuming and cheaper. Many more people, including amateurs, now had access to photography. Through the use of rolls of film, photography was a cheap series product that lay within everyone's reach.
The speed, ease of use and the associated freedom Leica brought, significantly changed the working methods of photographers. Indeed, the Leica camera met an immense desire for experimentation. It became an instrument of spontaneity and inspiration.
Before the Leica the heavy, bulky, static cameras were able to take only one photo per plate and photography was more a staging of reality. The invention of the 35mm camera allowed photographers to portray the world as it really was. With a Leica photographers were able to leave their studios and discover what was happening on the streets. The camera captured ‘the human condition’ and so quickly became a part of everyday life.
Leitz + camera = Leica
The first model of the Leica - the brand name is a contraction of the name of the company, Leitz, and the word ‘camera’ - was developed in March 1914 by engineer and amateur photographer Oskar Barnack. He managed to capture visual motifs on 35mm film by way of a simple trick: the roll of film in the Leica camera moved horizontally rather than vertically as in a conventional device. This allowed him to enlarge the size of the negative to 24 x 36 mm.
However, due to the outbreak of WWI he was only able to launch the revolutionary camera in 1925.
Collective memory
The fallen soldier by Robert Capa, the man jumping over a puddle by Cartier-Bresson, the couple kissing in Times Square by Alfred Eisenstaedt, the Vietnamese fleeing napalm by Nick Út ... These are all iconic images which have in the meantime become an important part of our collective memory and which could only have been shot using the compact and technologically innovative Leica camera.
First in a European tour
Eyes Wide Open!shows us, artistically, culturally and historically, how the Leica and the 35mm format changed the photographer’sview in the twentieth century
The exhibition has already toured several German cities such as Munich and Berlin. St. Peter's Abbey is the first and only Belgian venue for the exhibition on its European tour. Several rooms are filled with work by both famous and lesser known photographers (1914 to 2016). All styles and genres are on display: modernism, postmodernism, street photography, art photography, documentary photography, journalistic work, portraits, ... in black / white and in colour.
Internationally renowned photographers
The exhibition displays work by internationally renowned Leica photographers such as Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Araki Nobuyoshi, Julia Baier, Edouard Boubat, René Burri, Bruce Davidson, William Eggleston, Alfred Eisenstaedt, François Fontaine, Leonard Freed, Bruce Gilden, Fred Herzog Thomas Hoepker, Alberto Korda, Herbert List, Saul Leiter, Ramon Masats, Susan Meiselas, Joel Meyerowitz, Paolo Roversi, Dennis Stock, Christer Strömholm, Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt and Nick Ut.
Historische Huizen Gent supplements this rich collection of work with a selection of Belgian Leica photographers.
Also on display are Oscar Barnac’s original design sketches of the Leica camera, magazines, books, Leica cameras and film rolls.
German Curator
The curator of the exhibition is Hans-Michael Koetzle, a Munich-based freelance writer and journalist. He has published numerous books on photography, including Die Zeitschrift twen (1995) Photo Icons (2001), Das Lexikon der Fotografen (2002) and René Burri (2004).
EYES WIDE OPEN, the book
Eyes wide open, 100 years of Leica photography
KEHRER Verlag, 2014
By Hans-Michael Koetzle, with written contributions by Alejandro Castellote, Michael Ebert, Peter Hamilton, Anton Holzer, Thomas Honickel, Hans-Michael Koetz- le, Franziska Mecklenburg, Rebekka Reuter, Ulf Richter, Christoph Schaden, Emília Tavares, Enrica Viganò, Bernd Weise and Thomas Wiegand.
Hardcover, 27x32cm, 564 pages, ca. 1200 colour illustrations, 98€
English: ISBN 978-3-86828-530-7