Upcoming Fred Herzog exhibition at C / O Berlin

Checking C/O Berlin´s website I just read that they have plans to move not far away from their actual location, the old Postfuhramt, down Oranienburgerstreet to Monbijou Park. Happy to hear that there is progress in finding a new location, and it sound really good until now.

In the preview I read that there will be a retrospective of german-canadian photographer Fred Herzog at the C/O Berlin in November (vernissage Friday, Nov 5th, 7pm). Had never heard of him before, but I immediatelly liked the pictures I saw so I did some research. I´m really into “early” color photography and think Fred Herzog is a great example. One can see a whole bunch of photographs at his gallery´s website, and though not all pictures are that interesting there are some true jewels among the photographs. I´m very much looking forward to see the exhibition in Berlin, and what makes me even happier is that C/O Berlin doesn´t do again a Annie Leibovitz or Peter Lindbergh show (or what “star” photographer there are elsewhere), but that they present some hardly shown and known work to a broader aucience. Congrats for that!

From the C/O´s press text:

“Life may be colorful, but black-and-white photography is more realistic—or so it was said. For many years, color photography was considered an inferior and not particularly valuable medium. Classic black-and-white photography was undisputed in the art world, but artistic color photography was supposedly banal and amateurish, a commercial medium for dilettantes.

In the early 1950s, Fred Herzog began to revolutionize established viewing habits and existing orthodoxies. As a pioneer of color photography, he developed a profound visual sensibility for the ostensibly inconsequential. His subject matter included Vancouver streets, supermarkets, gas stations, bars, urban and natural landscapes—and again and again, people in their environments, visualizing the highs and lows of the (North) American dream.
C/O Berlin presents the first German exhibition of 80 photographs by Fred Herzog. A catalog accompanying the exhibition is published by Hatje Canz.”

All the following photographs copyright Fred Herzog / Equinox Gallery Vancouver / Laurene Miller Gallery, New York.

Man with bandage, 1968

Mexiko City with Chevy, 1963

Boys wrestling, 1969

Magazine man, 1959

Main barber, 1968

Used car lot, 1970