From now until September, Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam (FOAM) is dedicating its entire building to the late photography legend Helmut Newton. 'Helmut Newton: A Retrospective' comprises more than 200 works, ranging from early prints to monumental photos from the rich, authentic and complex oeuvre that illustrates the life of one of the 20th century's most celebrated masters of the art.
TIME named him ‘The King of Kink’, feminists called him ‘an exploiter of women’. The German-Jewish photographer himself joked that he was a pornographer. Women are the core of Newton’s creations; often provocatively feminine and invariably scantily clothed – which makes his works easy on the eye, but viewers are often distracted from appreciating their complexity and implications.
Newton's images are overwhelmingly about fashion photography, portraiture and nudity, and though he always worked on a commission basis, in a sense he was a social commentator on his era. ‘He had an intuition about the fundamental changes in society and the relationship between men and women, the power structure, feminism and sexual liberation; and he worked with it – not literally, but he transformed these givens into his own visual vocabulary,’ says Marcel Feil, deputy director of artistic affairs at FOAM.
Works are shown by genre in the colour-coded rooms of the Amsterdam canal house. Entering the show, one finds a selection of Newton’s 1960s studio works for Vogue, which marked the take-off of his fame; next is a mysterious world of exhibitionism and fetishism, where one experiences the tension between the two sexes. Iconic works made in the 1970s, like Yves Saint Laurent for French Vogue (1975), Bergström over Paris (1976) and Saddle I, Paris (at the Hotel Lancaster) (1976), plus some of the best celebrity portraitures from the 1980s, are seen on the upper floor, ending with the prodigious life-size Big Nudes and Naked and Dressed (1981).
‘Everything is a little slice of life, every picture is based on reality, I have no feverish imagination. It’s all real and it happens every day,’ Newton said in Helmut by June, a film on show made by his wife June Newton (AKA Alice Springs) in 1995.
In contemplating the relevance of such a body of works today, the museum was also influenced by the current state of society. Feil says, 'We are experiencing a new wave of emancipation – there are a lot of online activists and advocates for women – so it is an important time to start this conversation with the show. If Newton was a child of his time, what does our time tell us about this power game, equal rights and sexual morals? Is it a time of new prudishness? Is it a very hypocritical time? Because on one hand people can find everything online, pornography or perversity, and yet a nipple on Instagram will get your account blocked.’
Newton once said, ‘I love the word “powerful”; I always like strong woman because I feel secure.’ What is the representation of women in the digital era? Where are women standing now, in both the commercial and artistic sense? What can we learn from Newton about the gender issue by looking at his images today? The answer is up to us, of course – the voyeurs.
The exhibition comprises more than 200 works, ranging from early prints to monumental photos from a rich, authentic and complex oeuvre that illustrates the life of one of the 20th century's most celebrated masters of the art
Catherine Deneuve, Esquire, Paris, 1976. Copyright Helmut Newton Estate
Women were at the core of Newton’s creations; often provocatively feminine and invariably scantily clothed – which makes his works easy on the eye, but viewers are often distracted from appreciating their complexity and implications
Wolford, Monaco, 1995.
Marcel Feil, deputy director of artistic affairs at FOAM, states, ‘He had an intuition about the fundamental changes in society and the relationship between men and women, the power structure, feminism and sexual liberation; and he worked with it – not literally, but he transformed these givens into his own visual vocabulary
Works are shown by genre in the colour-coded rooms of the Amsterdam canal house
INFORMATION
’Helmut Newton: A Retrospective’ is on view until 4 September. For more information, visit the FOAM website
Photography courtesy FOAM
ADDRESS
Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam
Keizersgracht 609
1017 DS Amsterdam
-
What is the role of fragrance in contemporary culture, asks a new exhibition at 10 Corso ComoMilan concept store 10 Corso Como has partnered with London creative agency System Preferences to launch Olfactory Projections 01
-
Jack White's Third Man Records opens a Paris pop-upJack White's immaculately-branded record store will set up shop in the 9th arrondissement this weekend
-
Designer Marta de la Rica’s elegant Madrid studio is full of perfectly-pitched contradictionsThe studio, or ‘the laboratory’ as de la Rica and her team call it, plays with colour, texture and scale in eminently rewarding ways
-
Meet the duo using hair and photography as a medium to consider Africa and the African diaspora‘Strands & Structures’ makes its European debut at the Open Space Contemporary Art Museum in Amsterdam, exploring social and environmental issues in Accra, Ghana
-
‘The danger of AI’, photography and the future at FoamNew project ‘Photography Through the Lens of AI’ asks the big questions at Foam, Amsterdam
-
Artist Peggy Kuiper’s impactful figurative works explore her memories and emotional landscape with striking visual intensityPeggy Kuiper presents ‘The Conversation That Never Took Place’ at Reflex in Amsterdam, featuring over 25 new works (until 13 July)
-
Meredith Monk’s interdisciplinary art sets all the senses singing in Amsterdam show‘Meredith Monk: Calling’ at Oude Kerk, Amsterdam, is both a series of concerts and a deep-dive into Monk’s eclectic oeuvre
-
Heads up: art exhibitions to see in January 2024Start the year right with the Wallpaper* pick of art exhibitions to see in January 2024
-
Carlijn Jacobs and Sabine Marcelis create a surreal fantasy at Foam, AmsterdamPhotographer Carlijn Jacobs has united with Sabine Marcelis on the design of her first solo exhibition, at Foam, Amsterdam
-
Caroline Walker curates as Grimm Amsterdam explores domesticity in artCurating ‘The Painted Room’ at Grimm Amsterdam, Caroline Walker explores the intimacy of interiors
-
Drift Museum, a blockbusting experiential space, is set to open in Amsterdam in 2025Drift Museum is a collaboration between art duo Drift – aka Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta – and entrepreneur Eduard Zanen
