拍品专文
Hans Richter, the Dadaist, was one of the earliest proponents of film making in an experimental mode. Richter, who joined the Zurich Dada group shortly after the creation of the "Cabaret Voltaire" in 1916, made films as early as 1920, showing as soon as the 1923 Soire du "Coeur barbe" performance in Paris, along with Man Ray. Rhythmus 21 and Rhythmus 23 were his first complete films. These pioneering efforts were an outgrowth of his "scroll paintings" executed with Viking Eggeling, his collaborator and producer in film. The Rhythmus films were soon followed by Inflation and Ghosts Before Breakfast (Vormittagsspuk), the 1928 work from which the three images included here are taken.
In 1929, Richter organized the film program for the seminal international exposition, Film und Foto in Stuttgart. He included not only works of the avant-garde by Man Ray and Eggeling but experimental works in other disciplines such as documentaries and newsreels. (Hambourg, The New Vision: Photography Between the World Wars, p. 287, N. 77). In conjunction with Film und Foto, he published one of the three catalogues accompanying the exhibition, titled Film Hater Today, Film Lover Tomorrow (ibid, p. 91). He may be best remembered for the work he began in 1944, Dreams That Money Can Buy which Man Ray, Ernst, Duchamp, Calder and Lger contributed to.
The image of the four flying derbies became Richter's signature image. Van Deren Coke, writing in Avant-Garde Photography in Germany, 1919-1939 says of Richter, "On at least one occasion Richter had printed 1 x 1-inch prints from a series of frames taken with a movie camera, such as the one of the three (sic) floating derby hats. This sequence from his 1928 film, Vormittagsspuk (Ghosts Before Breakfast), inevitably recalls Ren Magritte's surreal imagery. A type of lyricism is evoked that is unusual for Germany but very much in line with various manifestations of surrealism in France during the early, vital years of the movement's success." (op. cit., p. 15) Magritte joined the Surrealist movement in 1927 and his first one-man exhibition was held in Paris the same year.
In 1929, Richter organized the film program for the seminal international exposition, Film und Foto in Stuttgart. He included not only works of the avant-garde by Man Ray and Eggeling but experimental works in other disciplines such as documentaries and newsreels. (Hambourg, The New Vision: Photography Between the World Wars, p. 287, N. 77). In conjunction with Film und Foto, he published one of the three catalogues accompanying the exhibition, titled Film Hater Today, Film Lover Tomorrow (ibid, p. 91). He may be best remembered for the work he began in 1944, Dreams That Money Can Buy which Man Ray, Ernst, Duchamp, Calder and Lger contributed to.
The image of the four flying derbies became Richter's signature image. Van Deren Coke, writing in Avant-Garde Photography in Germany, 1919-1939 says of Richter, "On at least one occasion Richter had printed 1 x 1-inch prints from a series of frames taken with a movie camera, such as the one of the three (sic) floating derby hats. This sequence from his 1928 film, Vormittagsspuk (Ghosts Before Breakfast), inevitably recalls Ren Magritte's surreal imagery. A type of lyricism is evoked that is unusual for Germany but very much in line with various manifestations of surrealism in France during the early, vital years of the movement's success." (op. cit., p. 15) Magritte joined the Surrealist movement in 1927 and his first one-man exhibition was held in Paris the same year.