Press Release

Temporary Exhibition

06.06.2016 | 10.09.2016

Press release

Foto Colectania presents for the first time in Barcelona an exhibition on Vivian Maier, the American governess whose secret passion was photographing the streets

SInce June 6, 2016 the Foto Colectania Foundation houses the exhibition Vivian Maier. In Her Own Hands, which is presented for the first time in Spain and includes eighty photographs, most of them unpublished and unknown to Vivian Maier herself, as they come from her archive that remained undeveloped.

Curated by Anne Morin, the show includes black and white photographs, colour photographs and super8 films by this governess who, since the accidental discovery of her work, shortly before her death, has fascinated the whole world.

The story behind Vivian Maiers photographic legacy forms already part of her own legend. In 2007, a young researcher on Chicagos history, John Maloof, bought at a small neighbourhood auction the belongings of an unknown elderly woman named Vivian Maier. What no one could imagine was that her storage contained an extraordinary photographic work compiled of more than 120,000 negatives, super 8mm and 16mm films, various recordings, miscellaneous photographs, and a multitude of undeveloped films, that were about to change the history of photography.

The exhibition Vivian Maier. In Her Own Hands presents eighty photographs by this famous American governess, most of them unpublished and recently developed by John Maloof, who discovered Vivian Maiers archive in 2007 at a small auction in Chicago, unaware of the importance of this colossal work. The entire photographic collection includes around 120,000 negatives, most of them unpublished. The black and white and colour photographs included in this exhibition show New York and Chicago street scenes from the 1950s to the 1980s; most of them come from this part of the archive that remained unpublished and unknown even to Vivian Maier.

Throughout her life, Vivian Maier kept on shooting photographs, steadily and almost obsessively; photographs that were never shown to anyone, not even to the family with which she lived and for which she worked for more than 17 years. She knew how to capture in detail the moments and singularities of Urban America of the second half of the twentieth-century with a great sense of composition, light and context: images of the demolition of historic constructions as a result of the urban development of the times, scenes of peoples daily life in the city, as well as photographs of some of the most iconic places of New York and Chicago.

Vivian Maiers photographic language comes from her own visual experience, based on the subtle and quiet observation of the world involving her. With her medium format Rolleiflex, she knew how to capture her time for a fraction of a second. She narrated the beauty of ordinary things, seeking the imperceptible cracks and elusive inflections of the real in everyday banality.

Most of times she finds herself inside the photographs: behind a mirror, in her own shadow extending on the ground, in her silhouette in the puddles of rainwater, and even in the reflections of her distorted image, repeated to infinity in search of herself. Vivian Maier made numerous self-portraits throughout her life, as many as the possibilities to discover herself. But her world was also the others, the unknown, the anonymous people whom she approached for a little while. She sought the exact place and angle and harmonized with them in the space. As Anne Morin, the exhibition curator, states, Vivian Maier stays at the threshold and even beyond the scene she photographs, never on this side, so as not to be invisible. She takes part in what she sees and becomes a subject herself.

Vivian Maiers work has renewed the interest in the genre of Street Photography; her images already belong to the history of 20th century photography, next to the big masters of Street Photography such as as Helen Levitt, William Klein, Diane Arbus or Garry Winogrand.

Vivian Maier (1926 2009)

Born in New York to a French mother and Austrian-Hungarian father, Vivian Maier worked as a governess for more than 40 years. She spent her youth in France until her return to the United States in 1951, where she worked as a nanny for more than four decades, initially in New York until 1955, and later in Chicago. Vivian Maier spent her spare time taking photographs, which she kept away from everybodys sight.

Her entire life went inevitably unnoticed, and is still a mystery. It seems that she died in absolute poverty, living in the street for a while, until the children she had taken care of during the 50s bought an apartment for her and paid her bills until her death in 2009.

More information at: http://www.vivianmaier.com/

The exhibition Vivian Maier. In Her Own Hands is part of Foto Colectania Foundations thematic year, which is focused on the question But, what is photography?. The question does not aim to provide a unique answer, but to draw attention to the importance of photography and the image in contemporary society and culture. Foto Colectania is honoured to be partner of the Bank Sabadell Foundation and Damm Foundation.

Practical Information

Vivian Maier. In Her Own Hands

From 6 June to 10 September 2016

Curator

Anne Morin

Images available at:

http://www.mahala.es/public/VivianMaier/

Foto Colectania Foundation

Julin Romea, 6

08017 Barcelona

www.colectania.es

Opening times:

From Monday to Saturday from 11h to 14h and from 16h to 20h. Closed on bank holidays.

August: from Monday to Friday, from 11 to 14h and from 16 to 20h. Closed on 15 August.

Entrance fee: 3 (Concessions: 2 . Free entrance on the 1st Saturday of the month).

Exhibition produced by:

For more information:

Neus Fornells / Ita Fbregas

M +34 66337 38 16

Barcelona+3493 412 78 78 ext. 2035

Madrid + 34 91 826 17 22

neus@mahala.es / ita@mahala.es /

www.mahala.es

Main Partners:

Sponsors of Foto Colectania:

With the support of:

Vivian Maier

In Her Own Hands

Text by Anne Morin, Exhibition Curator

For all the dinners are cooked, the plates and cups washed, the children sent to school and gone out into the world. All has vanished. No biography or history has a word to say about it.

Virginia Woolf, A Room of Ones Own

Vivian Maier (1926-2009) worked as a governess for more than four decades as of the beginning of the 1950s. Her entire life went inevitably unnoticed, until her photographic corpus was discovered recently in 2007 by the young researcher of Chicagos history John Maloof: a colossal work consisting of more than 120,000 negatives, super 8mm and 16mm films, various recordings, miscellaneous photographs, and a multitude of undeveloped films. In spite of the fact that there has not been enough time to compare the different scholarly and critical analyses of this work, it seemed appropriate to show a non-exhaustive yet representative selection of the photographers images. This first presentation provides a glimpse into the fine eye and subtlety with which Vivian Maier appropriated the visual language of her age.

In her spare time, Vivian Maier photographed the street, people, objects, landscapes; ultimately, she photographed what she saw abruptly, to put it simply. She knew how to capture her time for a fraction of a second. She narrated the beauty of ordinary things, seeking the imperceptible cracks and elusive inflections of the real in everyday banality.

Her world was the others, the unknown, anonymous people, whom Vivian Maier touched upon for a second, so that when she recorded with her camera was first a matter of distance that same distance that turned those characters into the protagonists of an anecdote of no importance. And even though she dared imperious, disconcerting compositions, Vivian Maier stays at the threshold and even beyond the scene she photographs, never on this side, so as not to be invisible. She takes part in what she sees and becomes a subject herself.

The reflections of her face, her shadow that extends on the ground, the figure of her silhouette, are projected in the perimeter of the photographic image. Vivian Maier made numerous self-portraits in those years with the insistence of someone in search of herself. She cultivated a certain obsession, less for the image itself than for the act of photographing, for the gesture, like an accomplishment in the making. The street was her theatre; her images a pretext.

Anne Morin

Exhibition curator

Vivian Maier gave no titles to the images exhibited. Indications of place or dates come from handwritten notes found in her archives.

All the prints come from the collection of John Maloof, Chicago.

Vivian Maier Super8 Documentary Films

The super 8 footage presented in this exhibition enables us to follow the movement of Vivian Maiers eye. She started filming street scenes, events and places in 1960. Her cinematographic approach is closely linked to her photographers language: it is a matter of visual experience, of discrete and silent observation of the world that surrounds her. There is no narrative, no camera movement (the only cinematographic movement proper will be that of the motor coach or metro in which she finds herself). Vivian Maier films brings her to the photographic image: she observes, stops intuitively on a subject and follows it. She zooms in with her lens to get close without drawing near and to focus on an attitude or detail (like the legs and hands of individuals in the middle of a crowd).

Vivian Maier

Colour Photographs

Vivian Maier turned to colour photography in the beginning of the 1970s. The switchover to colour was accompanied with a change of practice because henceforth the photographer works with a Leica. The camera is light, easy to carry: the photos are shot directly at eye level, unlike the Rolleiflex that she used to use. Vivian Maier thus asserts her craft by squaring up to visual contact with the others and photographing the world in its coloured reality. Her work in colour remains nonetheless singular and free, even playful. She explores the specific features of the chromatic language with a certain casualness, elaborates her own vocabulary, but above all, has fun with the real: underscoring strident colour details, showing the multi-coloured mismatches of fashion or playing with gleaming counterpoints.

Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York

Vivian Maiers Biography

1926Vivian Maier is born in New York on 1 February.

Her father is of Austro-Hungarian origin and her mother is French, born in the Alps.

1930Her father leaves the family home. Vivian Maier and her mother share an apartment with the photographer Jeanne Bertrand.

1932They leave for France and settle in Saint-Bonnet-en-Champsaur in the High Alps.

1938They return to live in New York.

1950Vivian Maier goes to France again to claim an inheritance from her great aunt; she would use this money to finance her travels. She produced numerous landscapes and portraits of the inhabitants of Champsaur valley, using box or folding type cameras.

1951She travels to Cuba, Canada and California.

She starts working as a governess to earn a living.

Ca. 1952She buys her first Rolleiflex. She is interested in daily life in the streets of New York. She also shoots portraits: children in her charge, but also strangers and some celebrities she comes across.

1955She travels to and works in Los Angeles.

1956She moves definitively to Chicago, where she is employed by the Gensburg family, for whom she would work for 17 years. She sets up a laboratory in the private bathroom placed at her disposal in the house.

1959-1960Vivian Maier travels around the world, staying in particular in the Philippines, Asia, India, Yemen, the Near East, southern Europe, and then goes to France for one last time.

1970-1980She shoots photographs in colour with her Leica as well as 8mm and 16 mm footage. Vivian Maier takes her last photographs.

1990-2000She puts her sizeable collection of books, press clippings, films and prints in storage. It would be seized some years later to settle unpaid rent. She is virtually without employment and her resources are meagre.

The Gensburg family rents an apartment to house her.

2009She dies in Chicago on 21 April.

Articles and Related Links

Vivian Maiers official website:

http://www.vivianmaier.com/

Website of the film Finding Vivian Maier:

http://www.findingvivianmaier.com/

Link to Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivian_Maier

Article published in Le Magazine of Jeu du Paume, by Abigail Solomon-Godeau, on 16 September 2013: Inventing Vivian Maier.

http://lemagazine.jeudepaume.org/2013/09/vivian-maier-by-abigail-solomon-godeau/

Article published in [LENS] PHOTOGRAPHY, VIDEO AND VISUAL JOURNALISM, The New York Times, by Kerri MacDonald, on 12 January 2016, part 1: Digging Deeper Into Vivian Maiers Past.

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/01/12/digging-deeper-into-vivian-maiers-past/?_r=0

Article published in [LENS] PHOTOGRAPHY, VIDEO AND VISUAL JOURNALISM, The New York Times, by Kerri MacDonald, on 13 January 2016, part 2: A Peek Into Vivian Maiers Family Album.

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/01/13/a-peek-into-vivian-maiers-family-album/?version=meter+at+null&module=meter-Links&pgtype=Blogs&contentId=&mediaId=&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.es%2F&priority=true&action=click&contentCollection=meter-links-click

Vivian Maier / Maloof Collection, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York

Press Images

TERMS OF USE OF EXHIBITION IMAGES

The following images shall be used only and exclusively in the manner and for the purpose for which they are authorised, which is the dissemination of Foto Colectanias exhibition.

No more than 2 images can be used for the same publication.

For other uses of the images, please contact:

DiChroma Photography, info@dichroma-photography.com

Vivian Maier

Self-Portrait, New York, 1953

Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, Nueva York

Vivian Maier

Self-Portrait, 1956

Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York

Vivian Maier

New York, NY, date unknown

Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York

Vivian Maier

New York, 3 September, 1954

Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York

Vivian Maier

New York, c. 1952

Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York

Vivian Maier

Chicagoland, date unknown

Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York

Vivian Maier

Chicago, c. 1960

Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York

Audrey Hepburn at the premiere of My Fair Lady at the RKO Palace Theatre. Chicago, October 23, 1964

Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York

Vivian Maier

Chicago, IL, date unknown

Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York

Vivian Maier

Untitled, date unknown

Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York

Images available at:

http://www.mahala.es/public/VivianMaier/

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