Talk with Howard Greenberg and Jessica Lang:
Thursday, 4 July, 6.30 p. m.
The Palace, 1, Knyaz Alexander I Sq.
Pre-registration required: pr@nationalgallery.bg
Registrants will have priority access to the event.
Two Academy Awards winner, renowned cinema and theatre actress Jessica Lange has been building a career as a fine-art photographer for almost two decades. Her first-ever retrospective in Bulgaria presents private, virtually intimate works, created during her travels around the world.
In 1967, she was awarded a scholarship to study photography at the University of Minnesota, which she gave up to pursue acting. During her stay in Paris in the 1970’s, Lange made friends with photographers Robert Frank and Danny Lyon, who help her develop, hone and focus her outlook. She rediscovered this passion of hers only at the beginning of the 1990’s, when she received a Leica camera as a gift. She has not stopped taking pictures ever since.
Lange has been intrigued by the medium of photography, initially as a way to document those close to her, she has continued to shoot, approaching the art as an antidote to the constant fervour of Hollywood. “It is a way of working, that is the opposite of acting. Photography doesn’t depend on collaboration; it can be solitary and private,” she says.
From the Yucatan to Russia to Scandinavia; from Minnesota to Romania to Ethiopia, Lange’s images are documentations of a time and place. Although her subjects range from the traditional American carnival to an isolated train track buried in snow, again and again, you have the feeling that light is the true subject of her pictures. Her work is classic in the sense that she understands quite well the language of photography; what makes a photograph good. That is, awareness of what light does, composition, timing to see the most important and revealing moment, style of printing to bring out personal expression, as well as her unique interests about the human condition. There is a cinematic feel in her work typical for all photographs born of this style which begins in the 1950’s and continues to today. Lange only marks the location as a title and does not date her photographs, which emphasises even further their timeless appearance.
The photographs are courtesy of Jessica Lange and the Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York.
Masters of Photography, 16th edition, is organized by the MUSIZ Foundation in partnership with the National Gallery and the Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York. The project is implemented with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture, Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation, the Sofia Municipality and the U.S. Embassy. It is supported by UniCredit Bulbank and SOF Connect – the operator of Sofia Airport, and carried out with the cooperation of the Grand Hotel Sofia and VIP Digivision, the official representative of L-eica.Official media partner of the National Gallery: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
About Jessica Lange
Born and raised in Cloquet, Minnesota, Lange is well-known for her roles in King Kong, Tootsie, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Frances, Blue Sky, and Grey Gardens. She is the thirteenth actress in history to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting, having won two Academy Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, one Tony Award, one Screen Actors Guild Award and five Golden Globe Awards. She was the first recipient of the George Eastman House Honours Award in 2009.
About Howard Greenberg
Howard Greenberg is one of the world’s foremost photography gallerists, curator and established art dealer. In 1991, Greenberg founded his gallery under his own name. He is an authority on 19th and 20th century photography, and has been an acknowledged leader of establishing its value on the fine-art market. In recognition of these efforts, and his matchless collection of more than 40,000 photographs, American Photo magazine proclaimed Greenberg one of the 25 most important people in photography.
Greenberg’s personal photography collection has been exhibited at the Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland (2012); Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris, France (2013); Hungarian House of Photography, Mai Manó House, Budapest, Hungary (2013 – 2014) and the Jewish Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2014). In September 2018 the entire collection was acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Greenberg was honored by the Aperture Foundation for his contribution to the field of fine art photography (2009). Greenberg also received Lifetime achievement Award from the George Eastman House (2012) and Lifetime Achievement Award by the Center for Photography in Woodstock (2023).
Media Partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
