Sasha Stone and Erwin Piscator

Sasha Stone - Erwin Piscator Entering the Nollendorf Theater, Berlin, 1929

(Modernism in Central Europe - Exhibition at the Washington National Gallery)

The photo montage of Sasha Stone shows Erwin Piscator on his way to rehearsals at his first own theater at Nollendorfplatz in Berlin. It was in September 1927.

Piscator was a figure of the greatest importance in the avant-garde of the 20s and 30s. He worked closely with Brecht who shared the same interest in presenting political and social issues of the day. Later Piscator would bring in America his innovative style. He left Germany during the Nazi regime and settled at New York where he worked as a director of the Dramatic Workshop at the New School and also as a director of the Studio Theater (Erwin Piscator: Political Theater in Exile).


In 1928 Sasha Stone published Berlin in Bildern.

By that time Stone was considered as the precursor of the new vision. Leaning on new photo techniques and being influenced by contemporary film experiments, the representatives of this flow proclaimed the break with photographic conventions and rules of the visual perception; they tried new visions and perspectives (EFORS - Europe for Students).

I selected here three images from Stone's Berlin in Bildern. The Dome, then Warenhaus - Wertheim and then a photo that brings me into mind the masterpiece of Joris Ivens, Regen. The movie of Ivens - a poem of twelve minutes about a Dutch city in a rainy hour. Here, in the photo of Stone, rain is falling over Blumenfrauen am Potsdamer Platz.




I found on the web another group of Stone's photos: studies of a nude, and I chose this one for the blog, for its perfect balance.


And here, three clowns. The photo was made some time in the 30s. I wonder whether I saw it two years ago, at the National Art Gallery in Ottawa. It was an exhibition gathering artists from Tiepolo to Picasso, Rouault, Léger, and the subject was the same for all artworks there: buffoons. It was the parade of buffoons.




(Modernism in Central Europe)