Herbert List

The elusive oeuvre of the German photographer Herbert List is hard to categorize. He worked in almost every genre that photography has to offer: architecture, still life, street-photography, portraiture, documentation and cataloguing. Yet he also blurred the demarcation between those fields: architectural shots seem like composed stilllifes or surreal compositions, documentation of the Greek sculpture or African artefacts borders on portraiture, and when capturing the classical beauty of the male physique, one does not quite know if we look at painstakingly composed arrangements or a private photo-diary, shot spontaneously. With this book we invite the reader to discover List’s multifaceted work, by exploring many masterpieces and some lesser known work side by side. The result is a visual journey leading from enigmatic night shots, surreal and dark compositions, to the Mediterranean sunlight on the bodies of young men and the ruins of ancient Greece. Reggio Emilia, festival Fotografia Europea, May - June 2014