Photography

Modernism was a movement in art, architecture and literature that responded to the rapid changes in technology, culture and society at the beginning of the 20th century. Developments including new modes of transport, such as the car and aeroplane, and the industrialisation of manufacturing had a dramatic impact on the life of the city and the individual.

The ready availability of the 35mm camera from 1925 accelerated the development of photo-journalism and street photography. In the 1930s photographers such as Max Dupain and Olive Cotton used the medium to engage with the experience of modernity. They created new kinds of representational techniques for depicting the fast-paced, cosmopolitan and capitalist character of urban life.

Playing with space and abstraction, artists such as Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Edward Weston and Grit Kallin-Fisher emphasised the underlying geometry and dynamism of the material world. They used extreme viewing angles, tilted horizons and close-ups to defamiliarise their subject matter and draw attention to the processes of representation and perception.

While many modernist photographers created self-consciously artistic images, Albert Renger-Patzsch and August Sander stressed the objectivity of photography, its fidelity to the thing depicted. They reacted against the use of pictorial codes borrowed from painting, instead making analytical, emotionally detached pictures of people, places and objects.

Consider all the urban and natural characteristics of your surroundings. Create a photographic series of works that responds to your immediate environment inspired by modernist ideals.

Consider the works listed here by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Edward Weston and Grit Kallin-Fischer. How have they ‘defamiliarised’ their subject matter? Research the practice of these artists and discuss why it was important to use this approach.

Create a photo essay and write an accompanying critique of the modern city. What approach have you taken to this subject? Is it generally positive or negative? How does your photo essay compare to the work of modernist photographers?

Compare these works by Albert Renger-Patzsch and Olive Cotton. Both photographers examine form closely and explore their environments in new ways. Why do you think this was important? How does this approach relate to the ideals of modernist photography?