Twenty previously unpublished black and white shots, taken between Algeria, England, Indonesia, Iceland, Australia, the United States and Russia, collected between 1964 and 1984, investigate the very first expressive experiments of Wim Wenders, an internationally renowned photographer and director and a giant of contemporary German cinema. The exhibition and catalogue, curated by Simone Azzoni (Asolo, 1972), art critic and professor of Contemporary Art History at the IUSVE in Venice and at the Palladio Design Institute in Verona, are an opportunity to reflect on recent history, and on the importance of listening to the voice of places that, although geographically distant from each other, retain a common identity in Wenders’ story.
Wim Wenders, “A Painter’s Storefront”, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1976 © Wim Wenders, courtesy of Wenders Images
Giulia Russo: Early Works: 1964-1984: What aspect of your research has led you to this point? When and how did the urge to exhibit and tell these two key decades towards Ernst Wilhelm’s biographical turning point, before he became Wim Wenders, arise?
Simone Azzoni: I have been directing – together with Francesca Marra – the Festival Grenze Arsenali Fotografici for seven years and every year it is an urgency of the event to find the right step to grow in subtlety and aesthetic punctuality. Wenders’ project responds to this need: to cruelly traverse the mystery of existences: wealth, poverty, desperation, unexpected lights.
So, having led the Festival Grenze Arsenali Fotografici for seven years, for this edition have you worked in continuity with the previous ones or have you looked for something new, in Wenders? And why dust off these two early decades, given the vastness of the work of the photographer, actor, screenwriter and director?
Every year we look for a name that speaks to the general public. Perfect Days had not yet been released in Italian cinemas, but Wenders was already in my wish list. I was interested in adding a piece to his vast creative mosaic to give those who know his films the chance to enter his modus operandi. These shots do not have the museum destiny of the large color formats that many know, but are an intimate diary preparatory to the construction of the set.
Wim Wenders, “Drive-in, Marfa”, Texas, 1983 © Wim Wenders, courtesy of Wenders Images
I was struck by a statement made by the author during your interview, reported in the catalog. I quote verbatim «Any painting, photograph or cinematographic image begins with the same basic element: an empty frame. This frame wants to be filled and asks to be defined: what is inside and what will remain forever outside?». I turn the question to you: what is inside Early Works: 1964-1984?
There is the expectation of the imponderable, the mystery of an incongruity, the silence in what can happen. The narrative suspension of a turning point.
It seems that the common thread that links the shots in the exhibition is the presence-absence of the author with the specific, and declared, desire to let the places speak for him. How was the selection of images constructed?
The common thread is the curiosity that runs through the landscapes making them a diary and an emotional memory. It is being amazed by the encounter with potential incipits. It is relying on our innate desire to tell stories to find in each frame condensed all the elements that will be part of it.
Wim Wenders, “Helen & Joe”, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 1976 © Wim Wenders, courtesy of Wenders Images
In this sense, it seems that Wenders’ will is to leave each of us the possibility of translating his language. Regarding the relationship with the viewer, following the statements made by the author during your long conversation, what idea have you formed of Wenders’ work Does the need to tell oneself – through “frames” – or to listen prevail?
Absolutely to listen, to dig into the words, to sculpt the details that make up the language so that it is perfect.
In these landscapes, often desolate, that seem to swallow a small humanity, it is also possible to trace references to (his) recent cinema, I am thinking for example of the cumbersome solitude experienced by the protagonist of Perfect Days – that you mentioned before – also told thanks to the notes of Lou Reed and Nina Simone. Is the importance of exploring that sensation of boundless nostalgia again today, a way to indirectly reconnect also to some dramatic current events?
It is a way to get out of it through beauty. A meditative metabolism that, free from what appears, probes the invisible of detail, of the angelic presence that exceeds history and its dramas.
Wim Wenders, “Wingless”, Bali, 1977 © Wim Wenders, courtesy of Wenders Images
Are you referring to any specific historical data?
I am referring to the rubble we leave behind in the continuous destruction of environments and people. Those ruins stand out in Wenders’ shots and are a legacy from which to start again. They are an intermediate point between the already and the not yet. Starting again from the ruins, carrying within us their weight over time.
Over the course of these years of study and research you will certainly have collected many precious memories that have led you to new ideas and important reflections towards unexplored lands. I would like you to tell me about the brightest gem that you will keep guarded in your personal wunderkammer, following the exchange with Wenders.
His rigorous and severe gaze when – waiting for my theoretical stammerings – he awaits the “right” word.
Giulia Russo
Info:
Wim Wenders. Early Works: 1964-1984
curated by Simone Azzoni
14/09 – 15/10/2024
Festival Internazionale di Fotografia di Verona, VII edizione
Grenze Arsenali Fotografici
Spazio Il Meccanico
Via S. Vitale, 2/B, Verona
www.grenzearsenalifotografici.com
Giulia Russo is an author and digital editorial assistant for Juliet, with whom she has collaborated since 2017. More recently she has been a contributing editor on cultural themes for various magazines, with critical insights, dedicated to emerging artists and the new frontiers of contemporaneity. Graduated in Art History at La Sapienza University of Rome, she specialized in Visual Cultures and curatorial practices at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts. Based in Milan, with some fleeting forays into Tiber, she loves listening to stories that she occasionally rewrites
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