In direct proximity to the large retrospective Rico Puhlmann: Fashion Photography 50s–90s at the Museum für Fotografie (Museum of Photography), the Lette Verein Berlin is presenting new photographic and film works by 15 photography students who engage with the work of the fashion photographer in a variety of ways. For more than four decades, Puhlmann shaped fashion imagery, developing his own language that incorporated elegance, clarity and choreographed scenes. Now, the participating artists are drawing on key elements of his oeuvre and adapting them to contemporary concerns.

Presence and attitude are central to Puhlmann’s photographs. His iconic fashion photography is often characterised by a distinctly defined figure in an urban setting, in which the body, pose and clothing are photographically transformed into sculptural entities. This interaction of fashion, bodies, space and view serves as the starting point for many of the young photographers’ works. The exhibition also opens up new interpretations: How can Puhlmann’s understanding of style, identity and photography be read today, at a time when diversity, visibility and representation are being redefined?

Questioning and Reinterpreting Puhlmann’s Fashion Images

In their engagement with Puhlmann’s work, the students’ fashion shoots focus on both aesthetic and societal aspects, while articulating their own contemporary answers. Some approaches build on Puhlmann’s elegant, calm visual language, transferring it to today’s urban spaces and portraying scenes in natural light with a reduced visual vocabulary. Others explore how bodies, clothing, and architectural backgrounds transform in dialogic spaces where attitude and presence can be reinterpreted.

The zeitgeist and societal norms of the 1950s to the 1990s, conveyed to us by Puhlmann’s fashion photography, are also queried. Topics including visibility, self-assertion, queer realities of life, the breaking down of normative images of beauty and the body, and how age and diversity are addressed become central. The current works focus on diversity, directness and a conscious openness to differing bodies, identities and life choices, creating new perspectives on a tradition-rich genre.

Fashion photographs have emerged that combine vintage pieces with today’s styles or showcase the works of young designers. Here, we witness encounters between modern and postmodern silhouettes; translucent fabrics meet robust leather, while vibrant colours come up against classic black-and-white. The boundaries between documentation and choreography, between actual urban spaces and stylised settings, consciously remain open. The cinematic works also continue Puhlmann’s interest in movement and physicality, as well as in the interplay between control and situational openness, dynamically carrying these themes into our current urban spaces.

A multi-voiced panorama has been created that not only reflects Puhlmann’s imagery but also asks how fashion photography might function today: as a space of representation, as an aesthetic practice, as a social and political statement? The exhibition invites us to view contemporary aesthetics in relation to a historical body of work and to discover how attitudes, bodies and fashion have shifted, been reimagined and redefined across generations.

Participating Artists

Anita Schulte-Bunert, Elise Witt, Enno Grams, Inna Tonn, Isaac Waldvogel, Lara Marie Schless, Layla Behme, Lilith Kirsch, Marcus Arthur, Moe Otto, Max Philippi, Melissa M. Schwarzinger, Niels Lucke, Phuong Anh Nguyen Le, Tabea Jablonski, Vroni Belm

Curatorial Team

Katja Böhlau and Ina Schoof curated the exhibition.

A special exhibition of the Kunstbibliothek – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin in cooperation with the Lette Verein Berlin