Venice - Casa dei Tre Oci
Sabine Weiss - The Poetry of the Instant
At the Casa dei Tre Oci - until October 23 - the photographic exhibition - Sabine Weiss - The Poetry of the Instant - is largest photographic retrospective ever held – and the first in
Italy - dedicated to the Franco-Swiss photographer, curated by Virginie Chardin. Sabine Weiss, who passed
away at the age of 97 at her home in Paris on 28 December 2021, was one of the
greatest representatives of French humanist photography along with Robert
Doisneau, Willy Ronis, Edouard Boubat, Brassai, and Izis. With over 200
photographs, the exhibition is a great,
and important international tribute to her career.
photograph and copyright - Sabine Weiss - courtesy la Casa dei Tre Oci
“When - Sabine Weiss - photographs children, she becomes a child herself.
There is absolutely no barrier between her, them, and the camera.”Hugh Weiss
artist and husband of Sabine Weiss
Sabine Weiss was the only woman photographer of the postwar era to have
practiced this profession for such a long time and in every photographic genre
- from reportage, artists' portraits, and fashion to ‘street’ photography, with
particular attention to children's faces and her extensive travels around the
world, she was able to actively participate in the construction of this exhibition, and
had opened her personal archives in Paris to tell her extraordinary story and present her work in a
comprehensive and structured way.
Sabine Weiss - Porte de Saint-Cloud - Paris France - 1950
photograph and copyright - Sabine Weiss - courtesy La Casa dei Tre Oci
Born in Switzerland, Sabine Weber later took on the surname of her husband, the American painter
Hugh Weiss. She approached photography at an
early age and completed her apprenticeship with the Boissonnas, a dynasty of
photographers who had been working in Geneva since the end of the 19th century.
In 1946, she left Geneva for Paris and became the assistant of Willy Maywald, a
German photographer specializing in fashion and portraits. When she married
Hugh in 1950, she embarked on a career as an independent photographer.
Together, they moved into a small Parisian studio and frequented the postwar
art milieu.
Sabine Weiss - Venezia - Italy - 1950
Sabine Weiss - New York - USA - 1955
“From her
first personal studies, Sabine Weiss was drawn to nightlife, children,
the
elderly, tramps, loneliness, poverty and the spectacle of the street. From the
outset,
her attention was turned to the bodies, gestures, emotions and feelings of
others,
especially when they were fragile. This is why she quickly related to what
is called
the humanist school, in which she readily recognizes herself.”
Virginie
Chardin
curator
"I like to photograph children and old people. Their masks drop more easily, I understand their reality more quickly."
Sabine Weiss
Beggar - Toledo - Spain - 1950
Porte de Saint-Cloud - Paris - France - 1950
Sabine Weiss
Family colony for mental patients - Dun-sur-Auron - France - 1951-1952
Sabine Weiss- New Year's Eve - Paris - France - 1980
Sabine Weiss - Portes de Vanves Paris - France - 1952
"To be powerful, a photograph must speak to us about an aspect of the human condition, make us feel the emotion that the photographer felt in the presence of her subject".
Sabine Weiss
The 200 shots
exhibited at the Tre Oci retrace, along with various publications and
magazines of the time, Weiss's entire career, from her beginnings
in
1935 to the 2000s. From the outset, as the photographs of children and
passersby in the exhibition testify, Weiss directed her lens on bodies
and
gestures, immortalizing emotions and feelings, in the spirit of French
humanist photography, an approach from which she would never deviate, as
can be seen from her words above.
photograph and copyright - Sabine Weiss - courtesy La Casa dei Tre Oci
Sabine Weiss - Gitani - Sainte-Maries-de-la-Mer - France - 1960
"Sabine
Weiss’s photographs are always modeled on this specific system. They start from
the center and then widen towards the sides to finally return to the starting
point. In this way they make it easier to find that narrative balance which,
destined to turn into strength and coherence, like an ideal punctuation marks
the time that our gaze dwells on the scene of the image. It is her
interpretation of the world; it is her desire to find, even in the most
dramatic situations, a feeling of “democratic” representation of everyday life.
Her objective, like that of all “humanist” photographers, is not
so much the events that make history, as those that happen in everyday life which,
thanks to her gentle way of seeing, are transformed into true poetry."
Denis Curti
Artistic Director Casa dei Tre Oci
Secretary General of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini Renata Codello and Denis Curti
A section of the exhibition is
dedicated to her portraits of painters, sculptors, actors, and musicians. For
five years, Hugh Weiss mentored the artist Niki de Saint Phalle, whereas Sabine
was close to Annette Giacometti, wife of the great sculptor Alberto. The
exhibition features their portraits alongside those of other personalities such
as Robert Rauschenberg, Andre Breton, Anna Karina, Françoise Sagan, Romy
Schneider, Ella Fitzgerald, Simone Signoret, and Brigitte Bardot.
Sabine Weiss - The artist - Niki de Saint Phalle - Paris - France - 1958
Sabine Weiss - Brigitte Bardot - Elle Magazine - June 22 -1959
“Averse to making speeches or taking part in debates about photography, Sabine
uses
the camera above as a means to convey her emotion, an instrument for exploring
the world and a medium of self-expression, in addition to a way of
earning a living. The Weisses lived surrounded by painters, sculptors and musicians Sabine was close to Annette Giacometti, wife of the great sculptor Alberto,
and for five years Hugh was the mentor of Niki de Saint Phalle. In Sabine’s eyes
they were the artists, and undoubtedly certain photographers like Edward Weston,
whom she admires, but she sees herself – not without pride however – as a
witness and a craftswoman in photography.”
Virginie Chardin
"A
testament in which photography is truly "poetry of the instant", a
story of everyday life through moments in which every gesture, every
expression, every action is abstracted from the contingent and transformed, in
fact, into poetry."
Michele Bugliesi,
Chairman - Fondazione di Venezia
President Civita Tre Venezie, Emanuela Bassetti, Artistic Director, Casa dei Tre Oci, Denis Curti and Michele Bugliesi
“she
is not especially interested
in seeing the enlargements of her own work. The thing that
counts most, for her the most important, is the sense of excitement she experiences
while taking a series of pictures. […] Whether she is photographing a dress
by Dior or a gang of kids, what is important for her is the struggle with and the
control of all the elements in her picture.”
Hugh Weiss
Sabine Weiss - Yves Saint Laurent - first collection - Dior - Life - 1958
Sabine Weiss - Black and White Contact sheet
"To be powerful, a photograph must speak to
us about an aspect of the human condition, make us feel the emotion that the
photographer felt in the presence of her subject".
Sabine Weiss
Sabine Weiss - Sunday Dance - Nazare - Portugal - 1954
Sabine Weiss
Bread Sellers Athens - Greece - 1958
Bar - Copenhagen - Denmark - 1955
Cafe - Athens - Greece - 1958
Workers drinking tea - United Kingdom - 1954
Luca De Michelis
CEO Marsiglio Editori
Sabine Weiss - Crussol Wedding - Uzes - France - 1955
Sabine's daughter, Marion Weiss and Laure Delloye-Augustins
Atelier Sabine Weiss - Paris
A
trip to America in 1955 aboard the ocean liner Liberte in the company of her husband Hugh made a strong
impression on her, and the shots taken in the streets of New York, teeming with
details, from the Bronx and Harlem to Chinatown and Ninth Avenue, were published
in The New York Times in a
major spread entitled A Parisienne’s New Yorkers. The images tell the
story of America from a French point of view, with a marked sense of
humor, many of which are exhibited
for the first time in Italy, in this the retrospective.
Sabine Weiss - New York - 1955
Sabine Weiss - New York - 1955
Elianah Weiss
Sabine's granddaughter
Hugh and Sabine Weiss - Zurich - print - 1951
Maya Seite-McNally and Sabine's grandson Christophe Weiss
Sabine Weiss
Gypsies in front of Palais des Papes - Avignon - France - 1946
Porte de Saint-Cloud - Paris - France - 1950
Sabine Weiss - Guadaloupe - 1990
Cinematographer, Henry Marquis
Director, Camille Menager
Henry and Camille are shooting a documentary on the life and works of
Sabine Weiss for France 5
Sabine Weiss - Madurai - India - 1986
The Catalogue
The catalogue - Sabine Weiss La Poesia dell'Istante - The Poetry of the Instant - is published in English and Italian by Marsilio Arte, and includes many previously unpublished images, along
with texts by Virginie Chardin, curator of the exhibition, and Denis Curti,
artistic director of the Casa dei Tre Oci.
Solidarity Ukraine
Ukraine Red Cross
Medecins Sans Frontieres - Doctors Without Borders