Galerie Esther Woerdehoff (Paris) decided to show the body of vintage prints, from the 60’s of Swiss photographer Karlheinz Weinberger. From the 80’s
Gérard Musy’s photos plunge us back in the nights of the Sexy Eighties, tempting and fascinating. In his sophisticated black and white or color pictures, people, gender and classes merge into a cocktail of night energy.
The gallery will also feature one panoramic picture of another Swiss photographer : Michael von Graffenried, who explored his family roots by depicting New Bern small city in North Carolina.
Gérard Musy – Lustres & Lamées
Luster and Lamé, the two series of Swiss photographer Gérard Musy, plunge us back in the nights of the Sexy Eighties, tempting and fascinating. In his sophisticated black and white pictures, people, gender and classes merge into a cocktail of night energy.
In Paris, the Fashion scene imposed its rules from the Palace to the Bains Douches, in New York bankers and taggers would finally meet in night clubs, and in London, Skin Two magazine introduced the world to Fetishism. Parties were all over town, from bars to clubs, from cocktail parties to concerts in a euphoria of sex, drug and music.
Gérard Musy was there, photographing the creatures wearing leather, latex or glitter that owned the night. Women are the true stars of his pictures, seducers, friends, kinky or dominatrix. Top models or complete strangers, the photographer stand close to them and these queens of the night breathe a sensuality and a freedom that seems now long gone from clubs and bars.
Michael von Graffenried – Our Town
«When Swiss Roots, an organization that offers Americans a chance to trace their Swiss history, approached me with the idea of going to New Bern, I first said no. New Bern, where Pepsi Cola was born, is a small town in North Carolina. It was founded by a family ancestor, Christoph von Graffenried, who had sailed for America in 1710, and I felt I’d worked enough on Switzerland for the time being. But on second thoughts, I decided I could use this family tie to open up the doors of this uneventful town. I went there several times over the year 2006. I wanted to hand America a looking-glass.»
Karlheinz Weinberger – The Rebels
Gangs in black jackets, poseurs dressed in blue jeans and big belt, girls with beehive hairdos, the young rebels photographed by Karklheinz Weinberger had for heroes James Dean, Marlon Brando, Elvis and Marylin. However, we are in the deep end of German speaking Switzerland in front of a traditional and conservative society who rejected and nicknamed these youth the « Verlaustan » (covered of scum) while they like to call themselves the “Halbstarker“ or the semi-tough ones.
Karlheinz Weinberger (1921-2006) met these youth in the late 1950s and did their portrait in his photography studio in his apartment or during their escapades in the Swiss countryside.
These young people who took over the codes of “Rebel without a cause” and created their own provocative outfits, found an admirer in Karlheinz Weinberger. The photographer followed them during several years. This allowed him to escape from the monotony and gloominess of his life as a factory worker and to accept his own peculiarity.
Long-ignored, this work reveals with a lot of tenderness and a dash of humor, a generation of young individuals searching for their own identity, who have created an original underground culture based on pastiche and recycling.
