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SELECTED EXHIBITION

from the archives

2016

HEINZ HAJEK-HALKE

Michael Ruetz talks about Heinz Hajek-Halke, video by Ilvio Gallo © Fondazione Sozzani

Now that we are temporarily closed we will continue to share online content, exhibitions, interviews, videos from Fondazione Sozzani archives over the coming weeks.

The Galleria Carla Sozzani presented the work of German photograoher Heinz Hajek-Halke for the first time in Italy in 2016, in collaboration with the Archiv der Akademie der Künste in Berlin and Eric Franck Fine Art in London. The exhibition featured a selection of his most extraordinary vintage photographs, manipulations of form, light and movement printed between the Thirties and the Seventies.
 

Heinz Hajek-Halke, born in Berlin in 1898 is one of the pioneers of German photography in the Twentieth century whose strong personality blazed the trail for experimental photographers. During the Second World War he moved to Switzerland and Lake Constance, where he began to explore the scientific field of insect-biology through photography. With a large view camera he explored many techniques of chemical manipulation, distortion of light and magnification of microscopic elements. His need to experiment and to explore new forms had him recreating macrocosms through enlargements of microcosms. In the mid-50s he focused his work in the darkroom using the techniques of the camera obscura, following in the footsteps of Man Ray and Laszlo Moholy Nagy. 

Ten years before his death in Berlin in 1983, Heinz Hajek-Halke, without heirs, donated his complete body of work to his friend, the photographer Michael Ruetz who, after archiving the estate, donated it to the Archiv der Akademie der Künste in Berlin, to which it still belongs.

Sounds blown away, 1947-1950 © The Estate of Heinz Hejek-Halke/Michael Ruetz

Two difficult aspects have always overshadowed my character: defiance and curiosity. To put it more elegantly: a thirst for knowledge. And so it came to pass that I became a photographer in spite of a background in academic painting, and I remained a photographer. 

Heinz Hajek-Halke

Black Cat © The Estate of Heinz Hejek-Halke/Michael Ruetz

Composition 1512 b/bi, 1961 © The Estate of Heinz Hejek-Halke/Michael Ruetz

The Fondazione Sozzani was established in 2016 by Carla Sozzani and is dedicated to the promotion of culture through photography, fashion, fine and applied arts. The Foundation has assumed the patronage of Galleria Carla Sozzani and continues all relevant public functions that the Galleria has supported for the past 30 years. 

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