Centre Georges Pompidou features a large exhibition on the art and culture of the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) in Germany in the 1920’s and around August Sander. It is a temendous overview presented in France of this artistic trend. Apart from painting and photography as the main art forms presented, the project also brings together architecture, design, film, theatre, literature and music. Although fascinated by some of the portraits painted by Georg Grosz (especially his “Porträt des Schriffstellers” showing an astonishing look alike to French political dwarf Eric Ciotti) and Otto Dix or Jeanne Mammen (with her “Zwei Frauen, tanzend” amazingly resembling the drawings by French contemporary comics artist Boucq), the purpose of this note is to report my fascination for the portraits of August Sander. It is my second encounter with Sander. This time, Centre Pompidou did not hesitate to provide a significantly large body of photographs from his master work “People of the 20th century”. Sander painstakingly photographed his contemporaries, before the chaos brought by the nazis (he did not know in 1920 what was going to happen in the 1930’s and 1940’s). He systematically ordered them in all branches of society, the artists, the farmers, the employees, the clerks, the workers, the clergymen, etc. It gives an insightful view of the German society in the early 20th century, with these people long gone, staring back at us. The body presented is so large that I can only extract a few I particularly enjoyed, like the boring looking engineer, the impressive pastry chef, the tormented painter, the smoking secretary or the amusing police officer. A last reflection when leaving this gallery of portraits…what happened to those people in the next two decades?
