Photographs
Fred Herzog
Hatje Cantz
Edited by Felix Hoffmann, C/O Berlin, foreword by Felix Hoffmann, texts by Claudia Gochmann, Fred Herzog in conversation with Stephen Waddell, graphic design by Naroska Design
English
2010. 192 pp., 98 ills., 92 in color
19.80 x 21.60 cm
Half cloth
2011
ISBN 9783775728119
After immigrating to Canada in the fifties, Fred Herzog (*1930 in Bad Friedrichshall, Germany) devoted himself to what at the time was an unusual medium: color photography. In doing so, he breached entrenched visual habits and doctrines, which primarily assigned the status of art to black-and-white photography.
As a pioneer in the field of color photography, Herzog perfected his eye for the supposedly insignificant. His motifs are the streets of Vancouver, supermarkets, gas stations, bars, urban scenes, landscapes, and, again and again, the people in his environment—the heights and depths of the North American dream. He tested the potential of color photography as a medium for great objectivity and great artistry alike, and his critical gaze shows us the trivial, the ephemeral, and the apparently meaningless. Above all, however, color lends his photographs a unique atmosphere and force, and is ultimately what lends them such authenticity.
Exhibition: C/O Berlin, November 6, 2010–January 9, 2011 | And further venues
About the Artist
Herzog was born and grew up in Stuttgart, Germany, but was evacuated from the city during the aerial bombardment of the Second World War. His parents died during the war after which he dropped out of school and found work as a seaman on ships. He emigrated to Canada in 1952, living briefly in Toronto and Montreal before moving to Vancouver in 1953. He had taken casual photos since childhood, and began to take photography seriously after moving to Canada. His work focuses primarily on working class people, and their connections to the city around them. He worked with slide film ,which limited his ability to exhibit, and also marginalised him somewhat as an artist in the 1950s and 1960s when most work was in black and white. However, he has been increasingly recognized in recent decades.[3] His work has appeared in numerous books, and various galleries, including the Vancouver Art Gallery.
About the Publisher:
Hatje Cantz publisher are committed to this motto more than ever – with our accustomed high quality we remain faithful to the standards set by Gerd Hatje: premium books that are produced in close collaboration with artists and curators. Our profile has always been shaped by tradition and avant-garde from all over the world. We present our program in a bilingual preview catalogue, in which masters of the twentieth century such as Paul Klee, Paul Gauguin, and Eva Hesse meet contemporary artists such as Michael Borremans, Gerhard Richter, and Filip Dujardin.
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