Gallery FIFTY ONE will surprise its visitors with an unusual pairing of two master photographers: Vivian Maier (USA, 1926-2009) and Stephan Vanfleteren (Belgium, 1969). For this exhibition, Vanfleteren will select some images from his diverse oeuvre as a reflection on the work of Vivian Maier. The result: a surprising confrontation between two photographers of a very different place and time, that have one thing in common: a love for the street and all its unpredictability.
The extraordinary story of Vivian Maier is well known to many: working most of her adult life as a nanny, she secretly roamed the streets of New York and Chicago with her camera around her neck in her time off. From the early 1950s until the mid-1990s she made approximately 100.000 photographs, and countless homemade documentary films and audio recordings. Hardly anyone knew of her photographic activities, up until 2007, when Chicagoan historian John Maloof discovered her work by accident upon purchasing a box of her negatives at an auction. Impressed by what he saw, Maloof started to successfully reconstruct and promote Maier’s oeuvre. However even today, the details of her life remain largely unknown and an extensive part of her work remains undeveloped.
