The Colonial Eye
dal 18/7/2012 al 20/10/2012
Segnalato da
Albert Thomas Watson Penn
Bourne & Shepherd
John Burke
Francis Frith
Westfield & Co
Edward Taurines
A.W.A. Plate' & Co
Shepherd & Robertson
Samuel Bourne
W.L.H. Skeen
18/7/2012
The Colonial Eye
Museum fur Fotografie, Berlin
Early Portrait Photography in India, around 300 photographs for a comprehensive overview. In the second half of the 19th century the land and its inhabitants were to be apprehended through observation and cataloguing, analysation and measurement.
Albert Thomas Watson Penn, Bourne & Shepherd, John Burke, Francis Frith, Westfield & Co, Edward Taurines, A.W.A. Platé & Co, Shepherd & Robertson, Samuel Bourne, W.L.H. Skeen & Co
An exhibition by the Kunstbibliothek, the Ethnologisches Museum and the Museum für Asiatische Kunst
One of the most comprehensive and significant collections of portrait photography from India is on exhibit for the first time. The collection of the Ethnological Museum was originally thought to be lost during World War II, only returning to Berlin beginning in the 1990s.
Now, around 300 photographs from the second half of the nineteenth century offer a comprehensive overview of portrait photography from the Indian subcontinent. In addition to pictures by renowned photographers and studios such as Samuel Bourne, Shepherd & Robertson, A.T.W. Penn, and John Burke, works by lesser known artists are also on display. Popular and unexpectedly diverse ethnographic photography of the time stands in contrast to stylised street shots of artisans, as well as portraits of nobility, including Islamic princes and princesses, Maharajas, and clan leaders, taken in their own palaces or in artfully set studio scenes.
One unifying aspect of many early portraits is a particularly European view - "The Colonial Eye". In the second half of the nineteenth century, in the name of science and colonialism, the land and its inhabitants were to be apprehended through observation and cataloguing, analysation and measurement. The fascination with India was especially evoked by the strange-looking indigenous peoples and the caste-system, as well as the splendour of the Indian nobility and the austere life of ascetics.
Image: A.W.A. Platé & Co: Shakuntala actor, ca. 1900, Albumen Print © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Ethnologisches Museum
Press Contact
Anne Schäfer-Junker Fax: +49-(0)30-266 42 3409 E-Mail: a.schaefer-junker@smb.spk-berlin.de
Opening: Thursday, 19 July 2012, 8 pm
Kunstbibliothek im Museum für Fotografie
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Jebensstr. 2, 10623 Berlin
Hours:
Tues-Sun 10 am - 6 pm, Thu 10 am - 10 pm
Admission tickets
8,- EUR discounted admission 4,- EUR Charlottenburg