The new exhibition ALICE SPRINGS. RETROSPECTIVE opens at the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin on 2 June 2023. In celebration of the 100th birthday of June Newton aka Alice Springs, over 200 photographs will be displayed throughout the entire exhibition space of the foundation. While major Alice Springs exhibitions were already hosted at HNF in 2010 and 2016, many of the photographs in this new retrospective have never been seen by the public. Extensive research into the foundation’s archives, particularly the holdings recently transferred to Berlin from the Newtons’ apartment in Monaco, has provided new insight into the work of Alice Springs. Now, some of these spectacular results will be shown for the first time as vintage or exhibition prints. June Newton started working in 1970 as a professional photographer under the name Alice Springs, focusing mainly on portraiture. It all started with a case of the flu: when Helmut Newton fell ill in 1970, his wife June came to the rescue. He explained to her how to use his camera and light meter, and she took his place in shooting the advertising image for the French cigarette brand Gitanes in Paris. This portrait of a model smoking launched the new career of the former Australian stage actor, who had little chance of acting in France due to the language barrier. In the wake of that initial success, José Alvarez, then running an ad agency in Paris, arranged commissions for her to shoot ads for pharmaceutical products. Later, as head of the publishing house Editions du Regard, Alvarez published the first book of portraits by Alice Springs in 1983. Alice Springs shot many portraits from the mid-seventies onward. Her images are full of empathy, conveying her characteristic blend of curiosity and understanding for the individuals she encountered over the years. In her portraits of fellow photographers – including Richard Avedon, Brassaï, Ralph Gibson, Sheila Metzner, and Robert Mapplethorpe – and celebrities such as Nicole Kidman, Isabelle Adjani, Vivienne Westwood, Liam Neeson, and Claude Chabrol, Alice Springs succeeded in capturing not only the appearance of her subjects but also their aura. Although most of the people she portrayed were part of the cultural jet set, Alice Springs was not concerned about her subjects’ social status. Her lens often zeros in on the human face, shown tightly cropped with the head and shoulders or as a three-quarter-length portrait. Her subjects look curiously, openly, and directly into her 35 mm camera. Studio shots are rare in her oeuvre; most of her portraits took place in public spaces or inside or outside her protagonists’ homes, mainly using natural light only. We encounter the entire spectrum of responses in these images: from proud poses to natural self-confidence and shy glances. Commissioned by magazines or created on her own initiative, the portraits become visual commentaries, interpretations of the sitter. At the same time, Alice Springs let the individuality of each of her subjects shine through. In doing so, she added a new and unexpected dimension to the familiar face, making it as cliché-free as possible. Her understanding of acting may have contributed to her ability to confront the human facade and look behind it simultaneously. Equally fascinating are her portraits of her husband, which she often took during his own photo shoots. Together with Helmut Newton’s pictures of his wife and select self-portraits, they round out this comprehensive review of works. In a sense, these intimate images are an extension of the earlier joint exhibition, Us and Them. A curated excerpt from the couple’s legendary collaborative project and other mutual portraits are displayed in the rear exhibition space. The exhibition therefore comes full circle on various levels: the life and work of Helmut and June Newton were connected in the most diverse ways, and now they meet again in Berlin.

For more than five decades, Alberto Venzago has been using his Leica to capture a great diversity of subjects, exploring a wide range of photographic genres from documentary to staged scenes and everything in between. With this presentation of some 150 photographs, this retrospective exhibition provides insight into Venzago’s rich and varied body of work. Alberto Venzago has traveled to virtually every corner of the world, and he lived in Australia, Japan, and New York before returning to Switzerland, where he lives today. Constantly being on the move and crossing boundaries were part of his everyday life for many years. From reportages in Iran during the time of the Islamic Revolution to the deforestation of the rainforest, from child prostitution in Manila to voodoo ceremonies in Benin, and his many years observing the Yakuza criminal organization in Japan, the photojournalist has always tried to get as close to his subjects as possible, often putting himself in life-threatening danger in the process. People are always at the heart of his widely published, award-winning reportages. On top of being an acclaimed photojournalist, Venzago is also a professional studio photographer who has produced memorable and aesthetic advertising campaigns. His highly personal portraits of international celebrities like Tina Turner, Penelope Cruz, Sting, and Mick Jagger, as well as his non-commissioned series and motifs, demonstrate the diversity of his creative work. His career has clearly been defined by the alternation between documentary and staged photography, between pictures that are “taken” and those that are “made”. This cross-section of Venzago’s images presented in Wetzlar shows the most important stages of his life’s work, focusing on his series on the voodoo cult, the Yakuza, and a group of magnificent celebrity portraits. A selection of his films is also on view in the exhibition – a testimony to the sensation Venzago has also caused as a film director. Alberto Venzago about his Yakuza series: “At the time, I was the only photographer who could get so close to the Yakuza. The ‘family’ quite simply accepted me, and I was allowed to go practically everywhere, though I didn’t take even one picture during the first months. They put me to the test; and it soon became clear to me that this was going to be a long story, not a scoop. I wanted to go into it in depth. They understood that straight away. Today it would all be inconceivable.” Wim Wenders about Venzago’s project Voodoo – Mounted by the Gods: “What Venzago managed to distill from twelve years of the most amazing experiences, from over 100 hours of video material, and from thousands of negatives, has never been seen before, neither in cinema nor in photography: it is unique, in the truest sense of the word.”

On 2 December 2022, the new exhibition HELMUT NEWTON. BRANDS opened at the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin. With over 200 photographs, the show features many unknown motifs from Newton’s collaborations with internationally renowned brands, such as Swarovski, Saint Laurent, Wolford, Blumarine, and Lavazza. When it came to composition and style, the photographer Helmut Newton did not differentiate between magazine editorials and brand assignments, which were often arranged through advertising agencies. Self-ironically, he called himself “A Gun for Hire” – also the title of the posthumous exhibition of his commercial photography that was on display in 2005, first at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco and then at his foundation in Berlin. This new exhibition picks up where A Gun for Hire left off, showcasing photographs Newton shot mainly in the 1980s and ‘90s for high-paying ad agencies and corporate clients, mostly in and around Monaco. In the front three exhibition rooms, we encounter fashion images for the luxury sector, for example, Newton’s interpretations of Yves Saint Laurent fashion, haute couture, and prêt-à-porter. His photographic stagings are as diverse and individual from season to season as the women’s fashion he depicted. They sometimes transcend reality, transporting us to distant emotional and exotic spheres. Newton’s commissioned works for Wolford, which were published in 1993 and 1994 as calendars for exclusive customers, will also be featured. These images were not only used for pantyhose packaging but also as extra-large formats for billboards, public buses, and building facades. Pictured in pantyhose and tight-fitting bodysuits, the women modelling them became giants in the public space. The first three rooms of the exhibition also display images of different designers’ creations for the American luxury department store chain Neiman Marcus, along with examples from Newton’s many years of close collaboration with Anna Molinari and her label Blumarine, featuring models such as Monica Bellucci, Carla Bruni, and Carré Otis, realized in Nice and Monaco in 1993 and 1994. What all these advertising campaigns have in common: only a few select motifs that Newton integrated into his exhibitions and books during his lifetime were ever well known. For the first time, HELMUT NEWTON. BRANDS offers the possibility to experience these complete photo series in a single exhibition. Further little-known motifs can be found in the main room of the Helmut Newton Foundation: photographs Newton produced for the tobacco companies Philip Morris and Dannemann, for the Turin-based coffee roaster Lavazza, the Italian vintner Ca’ del Bosco, and the Austrian DIY store Bauwelt. Shot in the 1980s and ‘90s, each motif is highly individual, oriented to the brand and its offerings while reflecting the “classic” Newton style. Supplementing the presentation in the rear exhibition room are images from other collaborations, including with fashion jewelry manufacturer Swarovski, as well as Volkswagen and Chanel. In the mid-1970s, Newton also shot two ad campaigns for the famous perfume Chanel No 5 with Catherine Deneuve. Select Polaroids, analogue contact sheets from advertising shoots, lookbooks from fashion clients, and magazine ads are spread out in display cases, pointing to the diverse uses of Newton’s advertising photography. Newton started collaborating early on with fashion brands outside of magazine editorials. For example, from 1962 to 1970, he worked with Nino-Moden of Nordhorn, Germany’s largest textile company at that time, and shot for the London-based Biba catalogue in 1968. That same year, he took a commission from the French car manufacturer Citroën. For decades, Newton staged everyday and luxury products, becoming a link between producers and consumers through his photographs and their publication. His visual narratives were universally understandable, so magazine publishers could easily include them in their different country editions, whether as editorial or advertising. These series are featured for the first time as part of a retrospective of Helmut Newton’s advertising photography. This often underestimated yet influential area of applied photography deals with the intentional visualization of specific products. In Newton’s case, these included women’s pantyhose, evening gowns, ground coffee, television sets, saw blades, silverware, red wine, cars, wristwatches, costume jewelry, and cigars. Sometimes Newton makes the objects the center of attention, placing them literally on a pedestal, while in other images, they are relegated to the sidelines. Ultimately, creating commercial photography for advertising was one of the most important aspects of Newton’s work. That is why the current exhibition HELMUT NEWTON. BRANDS, with over 100 virtually unknown photographs, is vital for a comprehensive and systematic analysis of his work. On the occasion of the new exhibition "Helmut Newton. Brands", the revised new edition of "Helmut Newton. A Gun for Hire" will be published by TASCHEN with forewords by Matthias Harder and June Newton and statements by Pierre Bergé, Tom Ford, Josephine Hart and Anna Wintour, hardcover, 23 x 30.5 cm, 1.85 kg, 240 pages, ISBN 978-3-8228-4643-8 (English, German, French), € 50 | US$ 70 | £ 50; taschen.com