At CAMERA a major anthological exhibition dedicated to André Kertész, among the masters of 20th century photography

From Oct. 19, 2023, to Feb. 4, 2024, CAMERA - Centro Italiano per la Fotografia in Turin will host a major anthological exhibition dedicated to one of the masters of twentieth-century photography, André Kertész, curated by Matthieu Rivallin and Walter Guadagnini and realized in collaboration with the Médiathèque du patrimoine et de la photographie (MPP) in Paris.

The entire career of André Kertész, a Hungarian-born photographer who was born in Budapest in 1894, came to France in 1925 and finally moved to the United States in 1936, where he died in 1985, will be traced on this occasion by more than one hundred and fifty images.

The exhibition will follow the biographical stages of the author, starting with the first amateur photographs taken in his country of origin and during the years of World War I: in these years, Kertész sharpened his gaze and showed the ability to transform everyday life into images suspended between dream and metaphysical apparition, as happens in The Swimmer and the first of a long series of self-portraits. We then move on to the iconic images made in the Paris capital of the cultural world of the 1920s and 1930s: the still lifes made in the studio of painter Piet Mondrian; the portraits of figures who made the history of 20th-century culture and costume, from film director Sergei Eisenstein to muse Kiki de Montparnasse to sculptor Ossip Zadkine; the street scenes, day and night, the places where Kertész seeks, in his own words, “the true nature of things, interiority, life,” making images that contributed to the creation of the myth of the French capital in the first half of the century. Finally, the “distortions,” or games born from the deforming mirrors of funfair rides, which also made him a leading figure in the Surrealist milieu.

The exhibition also intends to shed new light on the long second part of his existence, spent across the ocean in a profoundly different cultural climate: indeed, the images of these years show how on the one hand Kertész continues his research by returning to the same themes, and on the other hand he highlights the effect that new architecture, new lifestyles, and new cityscapes have on his photography. These shots, in some cases unpublished, include those of the New York harbor or the Big Apple skyline, or even the images of architect Philip Johnson’s house, almost a counterbalance to those taken in Mondrian’s house half a century earlier.

The exhibition also aims to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the photographer’s presence at the Venice Biennale: indeed, the trace of the works in the exhibition is based on the handwritten list of the works exhibited on that occasion, found among the documents in the archives of the Médiathèque du patrimoine et de la photographie.

Image: André Kestész, Danseuse satirique, Paris, 1926, detail © Donation André Kertész, Ministère de la Culture (France), Médiathèque du patrimoine et de la photographie, diffusion RMN-GP

At CAMERA a major anthological exhibition dedicated to André Kertész, among the masters of 20th century photography

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