What would fashion photography look like today if Helmut Newton had not been around? This question will not be answered by the exhibition at the Kunstforum Wien, but we can be inspired by the power of his images there in the fall of 2022.

Helmut Neust&auml;dter, born at the beginning of the Roaring 20s in Berlin, was given a start in life as the son of a Jewish button manufacturer family, which did not make his youth easy. Helmut Neust&auml;dter had to flee. Not to the USA, however, but in the other direction, to the East. Helmut remained the old, Newton was part of the new identity. If you thought he could only have started his career in the Big Apple, you&#39;d be stunned to learn that it was Australia that Newton chose as his new home after fleeing the Nazis. From there, he managed to chisel his visual language with precision as well as rough edges, which similarly revolutionized <a href="https://lofficiel.at/en/tags/fashionphotography">fashion photography</a>.

<a href="https://lofficiel.at/en">L&#39;Officiel Austria</a> spoke with curator Evelyn Benesch about the exhibition &quot;Helmut Newton Legacy,&quot; which opens at Kunstforum Wien on October 19, 2022.

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Helmut Newton once said, &quot;The term &#39;political correctness&#39; has always appalled me, reminding me of Orwell&#39;s &#39;Thought Police&#39; and fascist regimes.&quot; With this statement, he was as controversial then as he is now. Is that why Helmut Newton&#39;s work is still radical in today&#39;s context?&nbsp;&nbsp;

Evelyn Benesch: &quot;Newton would not make any friends today with his statement on political correctness - however, his work is not radical because of this, but because of its visual language: Newton is first and foremost a fashion photographer. But he doesn&#39;t just photograph fashion, he creates ambiance, and tells a story with the models. In this story, women are mostly the protagonists, even in provocative - never explicit - poses. He often provokes and irritates the audience with his pictures - and fascinates them at the same time. This is just as true for the 1970s as it is for 2022. However, it is clear to us that, especially today, we have to consider social developments that do not take pictorial languages into account in their historical context. This exhibition is an occasion for us to address this.&quot; 
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The unconventional twists in his visual language are considered groundbreaking. Visitors are drawn into the maelstrom of his photos in a fraction of a second. Is there a &quot;Newton formula&quot;?&nbsp;

Evelyn Benesch: &quot;Newton&#39;s photos are composed with immense precision, every detail is precisely illuminated, and the position(s) of the protagonists is/are determined with pinpoint accuracy. The predominant black and white in Newton&#39;s photos support the sharp contrasts of light and shadow. Newton likes to work with diagonals - always a compositional device to draw the viewer&#39;s eye into the depth of the image. Newton used storytelling for the first time in his photos, often - especially in fashion photos - the core has to be traced first; found within a story Newton tells in just one photo.&quot;

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According to what criteria were the works selected for Kunstforum Wien? Which icons of Newtonian photography can we look forward to?&nbsp;

Evelyn Benesch: &quot;Helmut Newton Legacy celebrates the 100th birthday of the photographer. Put together at the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin, the exhibition is intended to do justice to the photographer&#39;s legacy - and accordingly shows major works from all genres and from the 1950s to the turn of the millennium. Among them are the legendary shots for Courr&egrave;ges of 1964, which heralded the turnaround in fashion photography, the iconic diptych of Rue Aubriot of 1975, the Big Nudes of 1981, a large diptych of the Naked and Dressed series, portraits of David Bowie, Elizabeth Taylor, Romy Schneider, Mick Jagger, . . the wonderful reference to Pina Bausch&#39;s ballet Chastity Legend, fashion shoots for Prada, Bulgari, Thierry Mugler and of course Karl Lagerfeld - and, and, and ...&quot;

"We can imagine Newton as a smartphone photographer. But would he have digitally retouched the photos later or changed them using Photoshop?"

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Helmut Newton often had his models assume masculine poses in extremely feminine stylings. Was this the polarization that his photos caused when they were published, and which earned not only enthusiasm but also criticism of sexualization?&nbsp;

Evelyn Benesch: &quot;Newton&#39;s women are thoroughly self-determined - they are powerful, dominant, not always endearing and feminine, as had been the norm in fashion photography up to that point. They move on the street, in elegant apartments, an love hotels&nbsp;or <a href="https://lofficiel.at/en/tags/luxury">luxury</a> hotels. These are role models that commonly had nothing to do with the presentation of elegant fashion or jewels. Nevertheless, there was always criticism of Newton&#39;s portrayal of women. The most prominent is that of American cultural scholar Susan Sonntag, who accused Newton of sexism and misogyny in a 1979 talk show and classified his fantasies as monstrous.&quot;&nbsp;

"Newton's women move in the street, in elegant apartments, love hotels or luxury hotels. These are role models that had nothing to do with the presentation of elegant fashion or jewels."

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Helmut Newton took a completely new direction in 1992 with the Polaroid project &quot;Pola Woman&quot; and made the instant camera the new medium of his choice. Would he be a smartphone photographer today, just as David Hockney, the artist of the century, is now reaching for his stylus and creating digital art on a tablet?&nbsp;

Evelyn Benesch: &quot;Can we answer this question at all? After all, Newton has been dead for almost 20 years ... The Polaroid has always been used as a preparatory study and a medium in its own right. Newton had been using it since the 1970s: as a sketch of ideas, but also to capture a composition or a lighting situation - to satisfy, as he himself said, his impatient desire to know immediately what the situation he was photographing looked like as a picture. It is remarkable, after all, that with Pola Women in 1992 he published exclusively Polaroids - like a glimpse into a sketchbook. Cell phone photos can do all that, too - they are spontaneous and quick. But they are &#39;only&#39; digital and not haptic. In principle, we can imagine Newton as a smartphone photographer. But would he have digitally retouched the photos later, and changed them using Photoshop? Probably not: Newton prepared his shots very precisely - but never retouched them after he took them - which was already possible in analog photography.&quot;&nbsp;

A Politically Incorrect Icon: "Helmut Newton Legacy" at Kunstforum Wien

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