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© Robert Lebeck: 'Romy', Quiberon 1981 Courtesy Johanna Breede PHOTOKUNST |
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Romy in Quiberon, 1981 |
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Original photographs which inspired the movie '3 Days in Quiberon' |
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14 April – 1 June, 2018 |
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Opening: Friday, 13 April, 7-9pm |
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© Robert Lebeck: 'Romy', Quiberon 1981 Courtesy Johanna Breede PHOTOKUNST |
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A woman. A man. A hotel. A landscape. It is early April 1981. In the French seaside resort Quiberon, a quiet little harbor city on a peninsula in the Atlantic, Romy Schneider met the photographer Robert Lebeck. It was as if they had known each other for a long time. He had portrayed her many years ago. It was not the last time the two would meet. However, it would never be as intense as here in Quiberon. April 1981.
Quiberon: a rough landscape between steep cliffs and a rough sea. Robert Lebeck photographed her as she jumped over rocks. Child’s play. It seems effortless and uninhibited: she places one foot into the air and one on solid ground. A few days later these images were published in stern magazine with an interview by Michael Jürgs, at the time the chief reporter of the magazine and later Romy Schneider’s most important biographer. |
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© Robert Lebeck: 'Romy' Quiberon 1981 Courtesy Johanna Breede PHOTOKUNST |
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It is the story of a crisis. In it Romy Schneider talks about "what distresses her, what makes her sick and full of helplessness, seeking solace in alcohol". That at least is how it would appear in Jürgs’ text – in an interview of an historic encounter. Those days in Brittany must have been so tragic, confusing and intense, that they inspired the filmmaker Emily Atef to recently make the film „3 Days in Quiberon“. It is the short story of a slow farewell: a concentration of premonitions, remembrance and photographs that will always remain unforgotten. |
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© Robert Lebeck: 'Romy tanzend mit Barde Glenmor', Quiberon 1981 Courtesy Johanna Breede PHOTOKUNST |
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The exhibition, titled "Romy in Quiberon", will comprise circa 25 black and white photographs uniting the life and death of the legend Romy Schneider - the eternal enigma. Barely anyone else has transposed the multifaceted and changeable essence of this important German postwar actress so profoundly into images as the unforgotten stern photographer Robert Lebeck – no director, no cameraman, not even the many husbands and lovers. With these extraordinarily honest photographs, taken in Quiberon, Lebeck managed to look far beyond the fragile facade of a myth. At times his camera also captures the girl-like innocent smile, which the "Sissi" actress built her fame upon, but Lebeck also uncovers hidden fears, human emptiness as well as a unique sensuality and makes them visible. It is this complexity that enabled Romy Schneider’s face to become the projection screen of a whole generation. Thus „Romy in Quiberon, 1981” is much more than a sensitive portrait of a great actress; it is a body of images of a German postwar history: an overly praised princess, a hunted witch and the unbearable rupture between them.
Almost a year later she would be dead. "Heart failure" was stated on her death certificate. Romy Schneider: the tragic figure. For decades she was considered one of the most successful actresses in Europe yet still she attracted misfortune like the moon pulls the tides. |
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© Robert Lebeck: 'Romy & Bob', Quiberon 1981 Courtesy Johanna Breede PHOTOKUNST |
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© 7 Apr 2018 photography-now.com Ziegelstr. 29 . D–10117 Berlin Editor: Claudia Stein & Michael Steinke contact@photography-now.com T +49.30.24 34 27 80 |
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