10th October 2012 - 20th January 2013
One of the main things that struck me walking round the opening of the William Klein and Daido Moriyama was the fact that this show had been largely promoted as the latest in the Tate's series of blockbuster 'photography' exhibitions. Klein is not simply a photographer, and it was this that remained with me whilst I viewed the works, discussed the content and range of output with other viewers. This approach and view of being an artist is one that resonates with me. Klein has the confidence to try things out and to not be pigeon-holed into being thought of as one kind of artist.
An artist, painter, film maker, designer and photographer are some of the things that Klein could be described as for in his works there is evidence of his investigation into all these approaches to making work. Not content to be a painter (though this was his original training with the late great Fernand Leger), Klein has spent his career pushing the boundaries of every medium he has chosen to embrace producing a body of work that is varied, rich and expressive - whilst being both a document of the city he has lived in (New York) and a means of expressive artistic outpouring.
In some of his early paintings on wooden panels 1951 - 1954 (below), Klein has explored the 'use of typography as an abstract motif...' which '...is echoed in his fascination with advertising and other street signage' (from Tate catalogue) and it is obvious from his experimental film 'Broadway by light' from 1958 just how much the environment and vivid colours inspire and inform his work.
In these later works Klein has begun to apply paint directly to the surfaces of his contact sheets, again inspired by an experiment where he enlarged the contact sheets and accentuated the 'grease' pencil marks normally used in the editing and selecting process. Klein describes the inspiration behind his ‘painted’ contact sheets saying
‘I saw the possibility of inventing a new kind of art object by marrying organically, not arbitrarily, painting and photography. When I started painting the contacts, it was all jubilation. The jubilation of painting recalled the celebration of taking the photo. For me, taking a photo was a celebration, was physical and gave me a super charge’. (Tate catalogue)
The last two images here show some examples of covers that Klein designed for the Italian architectural magazine DOMUS in the 1950's. These experimental covers were developed from a series of photograms that Klein made and using simple stencils and colour was able to create these bold, innovative and memorable designs.
This exhibition is a must see for any Visual Communicator (Artist Graphic Designer, Photographer or Illustrator) interested in imagery, text, the book-format and film.
This post originally appeared on my own blog:
