Albert Renger-Patzsch: The Perspective of Things

Fundación MAPFRE presents Albert Renger-Patzsch. The Perspective of Things, an anthological exhibition which aims to recover and praise the valuable legacy of this extraordinary photographer, considered to be one of the most influential figures of 20th century photography.

Albert Renger-Patzsch (1897-1966) is the most renowned photographer of the New Objectivity, an artistic movement that emerged in Germany in the mid-1920s and signaled the possibilities of a new perceptive alphabetization spearheaded by photography. At a distance from the legacy of Pictorialism, his work was major factor in the process of affirmation and independence of photographic culture within the modern artistic context.

Technical precision and exact representation of the subject; psychological contention and rejection of pictorial stylization and expressionism; a keen sense of composition with attention to details, structures and forms; a sharp and clear construction of the image: these were some of the fundamental premises of a tendency that understands photography as a privileged medium to promote an artistic and simultaneously perceptive shift.

Renger-Patzsch’s work amalgamates a great number of photographic subjects, typologies and genres. In a historical period marked by deep political tension and significant social and economic change, his work allows the viewer to envision a unique worldview, a platform of intersections and re-appreciations between the domains of nature and technology.

This exhibition, with 185 photographs and nearly twenty books, covers his career right from the early 1920s up to the 1960s. Following its closure in Madrid, it may be visited at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris. 

It has drawn on works on loan from the following institutional collections: Stiftung Ann und Jürgen Wilde / Pinakothek der Moderne (Munich), Galerie Berinson (Berlin), Museum Folkwang (Essen), Museum Ludwig (Cologne), and Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris). 

Albert Renger-Patzsch. The Perspective of Things is produced by Fundación MAPFRE and curated by Sérgio Mah.

This exhibition is organized with special collaboration and scientific support of the Ann and Jürgen Wilde Foundation, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich.