Fifty-one years ago, the photographer Erich Hartmann held the exhibition Our Daily Bread at the Coliseum in New York. In this gigantic space in the heart of Manhattan, the photographer displayed more than 100 photographs on monumental panels. The exhibition was commissioned by the company Pillsbury Mills, as part of an international conference on food. Our Daily Bread was an enormous success and traveled to several American cities.
The project was originally commissioned to be a “classic” work of photojournalism. But Hartmann, over the years, reworked the project into an “image-poem,” a lyrical ode to those who produce and supply us with our daily bread. Nothing remains of the original exhibition. The prints burned in a Minnesota warehouse fire. The Coliseum was torn down in 2000. Hartmann’s negatives and the keen memory of his wife, who wrote the texts for Our Daily Bread, are the only remaining traces of this colossal work.
When it was first decided to publish a book of Our Daily Bread, the idea of an accompanying exhibition was a seemingly impossible task. Besides the issue of funding, I didn’t know where a new edition of the exhibition could be held, or what form it should take.
Hartmann was a member of Magnum for 47 years, and the high standards of his work there demand respect. Exhibiting Our Daily Bread in a place unrelated to the spirit of the work would be a mistake.
Was it merely a coincidence that I met Beatrice Schmidt last summer, or is the guardian angel of photography to thank? Schmidt organizes events for the French Church (Französischer Dom) in Berlin. In the ray of light that descends from the dome to the ground, we developed an ingenious system of rails on which to hang the works. They seem to be floating in the air.
Visitors will have to climb the steps to see the photographs made using original, vintage prints. The photographs reprinted for the occasion bear the marks of time. But they display the excellence of the image, the precision of Hartmann’s work. Our eyes are drawn to a pool of light where loaves of bread lie tossed into a New York street, to hands working dough, to two women at a poorly furnished table with bread at its center.
The exhibition is not a “remake” of the 1962 edition. It is an invitation to enter into the work of a great photographer with close ties to his fellow man.
Our Daily Bread
Erich Hartmann
From November 28th, 2013 to February 28th, 2014
Französischer Dom am Gendarmenmarkt
Berlin-Mitte
Germany
