Photo©Michael Friedel
"Everyone knows photos by Michael Friedel," announces Hof's cultural office director Peter Nürmberger about his next exhibition. Be it the Elvis portrait from 1956 on the cover of SPIEGEL. Or the countless photographs published in magazines such as PARIS MATCH, STERN or LIFE.
We cordially invite you to the exhibition
FASSBINDER | SCHYGULLA | BALLHAUS
Photos by Michael Friedel
Freiheitshalle Hof from 21 October 2022 until 6 January 2023
Monday-Friday, 10 am – 5 pm and by appointment
Opening: Friday, 21 October 2022 at 5:30 pm
The internationally esteemed cultural journalist and exhibition curator Hans-Michael Koetzle, who will receive the Culture Prize of the German Society for Photography (DGPh) the following day in Cologne, will speak.
"Fassbinder, Schygulla, Ballhaus" is the title of the exhibition. Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Hanna Schygulla and Michael Ballhaus are the focus. The photographs from the seventies are half a century old. What makes them so interesting for us today? First, of course, there is the quality of Michael Friedel's photographs. But Nürmberger wants to show more: "The selection for Hof starts somewhere else. It's about the relationship to cinema, which is particularly interesting for Hof as a festival location."
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Fassbinder was of course also at the Hof International Film Festival. Like the other formative figures of the New German Cinema, he could not be absent, although he is remembered here more for anecdotes such as being thrown out of a hotel and the nasty quote "Hof bleibt doof, da helfen keine Filme". Worldwide, he is probably the best-known German director who continues to shape film aesthetics to this day. It was a very sworn group of artists around Fassbinder who became style formers in theater and film and who stand for the awakening of a young scene in the 60s into the 80s.
Hanna Schygulla
The actress Hanna Schygulla is still the face that film fans associate with it. She, as well as Fassbinder, has been depicted by Michael Friedel both in the working environment and in private moments. He gets close to them in his photos, very close. Few in the industry have managed to do this so masterfully. Munich, Feldkirchen, Rome - the locations are the background. "We see the real thing in the faces," promises the head of the cultural office in Hof.
Michael Ballhaus
Today, hardly any feature film or series can do without the 360-degree tracking shot around the main character or the couple taking center stage. Gladly with counter-rotation or zoom and increasing speed. The invention goes back to Claude Lelouch, but Michael Ballhaus made it an aesthetic experience. Michael Friedel photographed him in Rome during the shooting of "Martha". A film-historical document - a good photo anyway.
A focal point of the exhibition are the photos taken during Fassbinder's shooting of "Martha" in 1973. In 1974, the film was shown on television and then, for legal reasons, not again for two decades. It was not until 1994 that it was shown at the Venice Film Festival - and at the Hof International Film Festival. In this respect, the exhibition in Hof is in the appropriate place and, of course, open during the festival.
The exhibition is supported by Sparkasse Hochfranken. A catalog will be published.
