HERZOG, Fred - Photographs. C/O Berlin

Background information

"The first German-language monograph on Fred HERZOG. After immigrating to Canada in the fifties, he 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, Fred 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." (publisher's note, © Hatje Cantz, 2011)

Content

This volume, the catalog of the exhibition at C/O Berlin in 2011 shows Fred HERZOG 'as a pioneer in the art of colour photography. Fred HERZOG acquired an eye for supposedly insignificant details. His motifs are the streets of Vancouver, its supermarkets, filling stations, bars, cityscapes, landscapes and the people around him – the highs and lows of the North American dream. The colours in his pictures give them a unique luminosity, mood and raw authenticity. The typographical design of the book "Fred Herzog – Photographs" centres round the vintage neon signs that repeatedly emerge in the artist's work. A particularly notable feature of the design is the split cover – a photo on top and linen at the bottom." (freely translted, naroska.de)

About the German photographer, Fred HERZOG (b. 1930 in Friedrichshall)

Photo books on the work of Fred HERZOG