The New Objectivity – Neue Sachlichkeit- movement started in Germany in the 1920s. One of its prominent figures was Albert Renger-Patzsch. His images featured strong design components and stressed the materiality of substances rather than the maker’s emotional attitude toward the subject. He believed that the final image should exist in all its completeness before the exposure was made and that it should be a straight  record of the referent without manipulation. His ideas and images were published in 1928 in “The World Is Beautiful”. His work had a considerable influence on European photography of the time as well as creating counterparts in America.

It also had its critiques such as Walter Benjamin who wrote in his essay ‘The author as a producer’:

(looking at photography…) ‘What do you see? It becomes more and more subtle, more and more modern, and the result is that it can no longer photograph a rundown apartment house or a pile of manure without transfiguring. Not to speak of the fact that it would be impossible to say anything about a dam or a cable factory except this: the world is beautiful. The World is Beautiful that is the title of a famous book of photographs by Renger-Patsch, in which we see the photography of the ‘new objectivity’ at its height. It has even succeeded in making misery itself an object of pleasure, by treating it stylishly and with technical perfection. For the ‘new objectivity’ it is the economic function of photography to bring to the masses elements which they could not previously enjoy spring, movie stars, foreign countries by reworking them according to the current fashion; it is the political function of photography to renew the world as it actually is from within, in other words, according to the current fashion.’

Amongst other photographers that responded to the same aesthetic issues were Karl Blossfeldt and Emmanuel Sougez, their work also favors highly detailed subject and extremely sharp definition.


Renger Patzsch, Zugfeder, 1927


Karl Blossfeldt, 1928

Emmanuel Sougez, Grapes, 1935

During a similar time frame another influential approach to art was taking place. It was brought about by the Bauhaus school of art which operated from 1919 to 1933, a school that combined crafts and the fine arts, and the idea that mass-production was reconcilable with the individual artistic spirit. It was founded at Weimar in 1919. Bauhaus  concepts of art were influenced by Modernism, it was characterized by economy of method, rationality and functionality, a severe geometry of form, and design that took into account the nature of the materials employed. Bauhaus style was constantly updated but based on the same concepts The school’s concepts aroused vigorous opposition from right-wing politicians and academicians.

In 1929 a photography class was founded at the Bauhaus in Dessau under the leadership of Walter Peterhans. Peterhans’ own photographs were unattainable ideal examples: delicately arranged close-up still lives composed of inconspicuous found objects. Meticulous lighting catches forms and textures in their finest nuances and imbues them with a near magical effect.  At Bauhaus the main focus of photography was on the visual stimulus and on the possibilities inherent in the medium. On the Bauhaus school we find artist such as László Moholy-Nagy who experimented with photographic processes and T. Lux Feininger, who participated in the groundbreaking ‘Film und Foto’ Stuttgart 1929 exhibition.

Walter Peterhans, Stilleben negativ (still live negative)

László Moholy-Nagy, Untitled [Photogram],1943


T. Lux Feininger, Figures by Bauhaus building, 1920s

The way these two art schools observe photography informs my own work as they establish a set of rules and concepts that transmits an artistic intention through photography. They capture the visual reality and transform it into composed imagery, which is something that I intend to do with my project. In both cases the photographer is making a strong stylistic statement and in the case of the New Objectivity photography, because of their high definition they are recording their referent with a documentary approach. Also their subject matter is about the mundane, about every day objects and functional architecture, these objects can trigger our memory and allow us time to reflect into what they are representing and even if there isn’t a figure, the human presence/trace is highly notable . In my practice I would like to transform my referent from something totally ordinary into a work of art that activates memory and transmits emotion.

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