December 23, 2009
ISBN: B001EMDUW8
william klein biography
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new york
william klein was born in new york in 1928 into a family of poor jewish immigrants. his father’s clothing business had folded in the 1928 crash,
although his extended family – mainly lawyers -was wealthy. growing up in the ’30s klein also experienced anti-semitism first-hand, both from students at school and on the street, he was a jewish boy in an irish neighborhood. he always felt alienated from mass culture. his friends remember him as a bright, sarcastic kid who liked art and the humanities. he adored the moma, museum of modern art, which was like a second home to him from age 12 on. and at the age of 14, three years ahead of his classmates, he enrolled at city college of new york
to study sociology. at 18, he spent two years in the US army, stationed in germany and france as a radio operator, before completing his course.
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paris
in 1948 he enrolled at the ’sorbonne’ in paris. in 1949, klein studied briefly with lhote and fernand leger. leger encouraged his students to revolt and to reject conformity and bourgeois values, telling them that ateliers and galleries were obsolete and that they should go out and work on the streets. after marrying jeanne florin, he decided to remain in france and still lives and works in paris. during the early 50s klein style was spare, abstract and architectural. the paintings from this period were deeply influenced by graphics, bauhaus, mondrian and max bill, which led klein to try painting murals.
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milan
in 1952 klein had two shows in milan at the ‘piccolo teatro’ and at the ‘galleria il milione’ and began to collaborate with the architect angelo mangiarotti, who commissioned murals on moveable panels that could be used as room dividers. in the same year, he started to collaboratewith the italian architecture magazine ‘domus’.
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photography
as an artist using photography, he set out to re-invent the photographic document. his photos, often blurred or out of focus, his high-contrast prints (his negatives were often severely over-exposed), his use of high-grain film and wide angles shocked the established order of the photography world and he earned a reputation as an anti-photographer’s photographer. inspired by moholy-nagy and kepes, he began to
experiment with juxtaposing abstract painting and photography. alexander liberman, painter and director of ‘vogue’ america met klein at one of klein’s parisian sculpture shows and was fascinated, both by his sculpture (kinetic light panels on photosensitive glass)and by the photographs klein had recently begun to take. he invited klein to come to new york to discuss a job.
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return to new york
by 1954 he felt ready to return to new york for a visit and when klein arrived, liberman asked him what he would really like to do. his answer was to photograph new york in a new way, a kind of photographic diary. as an american who had lived in europe for six years, he had become a hybrid – and new york to him was oddly foreign. liberman agreed, vogue would finance this as a possible feature, and klein – who had never photographed fashion before – was also, to his surprise, given a contract as a fashion photographer for the magazine. klein said: ‘I was a make believe ethnographer: treating new yorkers like an explorer would treat zulus – searching for the rawest snapshot, the zero degree of photography.’ this book ‘new york’ – (‘life is good and good for you in new york…) was a scandal.. ‘vogue’ was shocked by his view of the city – crude, aggressive and vulgar – and others saw it as photographically incompetent and he could not find a publisher in america.
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photobooks
he took the work back to paris and although the photographic establishment took a similar view, he managed to find a french publisher, editions seuil, who believed in it and brought it out in 1956 (re-issued 1995). it was also published in Italy the same year. klein’s book won the nadar prize.
from 1960 to 1964, he produced three other books of photography:
‘rome’ (1960), ‘moscow’ (1964) and ‘tokyo’ (1964);
all are filled with raw, grainy, swirling yet stark images.
December 22, 2009
New Takashi Murakami Prints
KaiKai Kiki presents a new series of prints by Takashi Murakami. All in all there are 3 prints in this new series, and they will be released soon in the honeyee online store.
