Stanley Kubrick - Eyes Wide Open
The photographic early works of cult film director Stanley Kubrick are on show from May 8th to July 13th, 2014 in the Bank Austria Kunstforum.
The picture of an old newspaper salesman sadly looking on the newspapers announcing president Roosevelt’s death („F.D.R. dead“), taken on the way to school, was the first picture with which Kubrick was employed as a photographer by Look magazine in 1945, at the age of 16.
The picture was not a snapshot though, but rather meticulously rehearsed, staged and composed – as a film director would do. The conception of his photographs already point towards the later cinematographic work of one of the most important film directors of the 20th century, as demonstrated by curator Lisa Ortner-Kreil on the basis of numerous works by Kubrick as photographer.
In cooperation with the Museum of the City of New York and GAmm Giunti Florence, the Kunstforum wants to focus on the photographic work of Kubrick which had not been duly investigated until now.
Between 1945 and 1950, Kubrick took more than 27.000 pictures as a staff photographer for Look, about 1000 of which where eventually published as photographic essays.
Currently the Kunstforum displays 20 of these essays, showing first parallels to Kubrick’s later approach on film and composition conceptions. Geometric form, symmetries, theatrically staged characters, and mirroring are techniques found in the cinematographic work by Kubrick later on.
In the exhibition, the visitor can just enjoy the quality of the photographs, gain insights into the historic circumstances, but also follow how Kubrick starts to develop his pictorial narrative. Besides the pictures replicated in large formats, original issues of Look are on display with layout, titles and the text visible, the textual narrative being an important constituent of the photographic essays.
The main focus of the young photographer were humans and their fate, he portrayed couples, circus acrobats, actors, he accompanies a shoeshine boy on the street, a wealthy couple on a journey to Portugal, as well as the boxer Walter Cartier during his preparation for a fight (“Prize Fighter” 1949) – it was this boxer about who he would make his debut film, “Day of the Fight” in 1951. This documentary of 12 minutes length is on show at the end of the exhibition as a link to the film career of the director.
Even though the reports made for Look constitute a narrative universe of their own, the early photographic work of Kubrick allows for conclusions on his later film oeuvre and its precise aesthetic composition. The visitor can retrace how a young talented artist develops his talent with these contract works, gradually forming his genuine imagery, benefiting from the possibilities to concern himself with picture composition, atmosphere and timing. The characters and the staging ion the photographs can be interpreted as precursors of his later film characters. (written by Cem Angeli)
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