Foto / Modernity in Central Europe

When I was in Washington DC last month, I saw an incredible show at the National Gallery called Foto: Modernity in Central Europe 1918 – 1945. As you may have guessed by the title, the show is photography-oriented, but it’s more than that: It’s a story about photography craft, and the way that European photographers bent, broke and otherwise manipulated photos to express the social, political and cultural fragmentation (and chaos) in the wake of the First World War. Most of the artists were unknown to me; they’re all introduced and discussed in detail in the excellent exhibition catalogue. It opens at the Guggenheim New York in October.

This is a photomontage by a Polish artist named Janusz Maria Brzeski. It’s called Twentieth-Century Idyll, but the name of the series is even better: A Robot Is Born. Photo: National Gallery of Art.

Another photomontage, this one by Jindrich Strysky, a Czech artist. Photo: National Gallery of Art