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Personal statement by photographer Sabine WEISS
"I don't like sensational things. I would like to incorporate everything in an instant, so that the human condition is expressed in its minimal substance." (Sabine WEISS)
Background information
"Swiss French black-and-white photographer Sabine WEISS (1924–2021) lived and worked for more than 70 years at her home in Paris, which today houses the archive of her entire body of work. For this volume, 'The Poetry of the Instant', the editor Virginie Chardin delves into the Weiss archive, presenting a selection of more than two hundred of her photographs including reportages, portraits (of Brigitte Bardot, Ella Fitzgerald, Charlie Parker, Niki de Saint Phalle, André Breton, Kees van Dongen, Robert Rauschenberg and Alberto Giacometti, among others) and fashion shoots for top magazines such as the New York Times Magazine, Life, Time, Newsweek, Vogue, Paris Match and Esquire.
Content
The photo volume 'The Poetry of the Instant' offer the richest retrospective ever mounted on the work of Sabine WEISS, the only postwar female photographer to have practiced this profession for so long and in all fields of photography.
The volume traces the photographer's entire career, from reportages for the most important and popular magazines of the time, such as The New York Times Magazine, Life, Newsweek, Vogue, Paris Match, and Esquire, to portraits of artists, from fashion to street shots with an emphasis on children's faces, to her numerous trips around the world.
In her included essay, accompanied by illustrations from historical documents and magazine, curator Virginie traces the life and work by Sabine WEISS, while the text by Casa dei Tre Oci artistic director Denis Curti analyzes her experience in light of a comparison between French humanist photography by Weiss' contemporaries (Doisneau, Brassaï, Cartier-Bresson) and Italian neorealism, as expressed in Weiss’ oeuvre.
The catalog also offers an interesting appendix, which includes an updated biography of the photographer, accompanied by illustrations of historical documents and magazines, along with a selection of solo and group exhibitions and a thorough bibliography of the artist." (sightly adapted publishers text, © Marsilio, 2023)