"Colorful Lucency" at the Photoinstitut Bonartes

In the 1920s and 1930s, film and cinema enjoyed a greater popularity than at any other point of time in recent cultural history. In order to guarantee their visibility beyond the sphere of projection, the help of their elder brother photography as a genuinely related medium was called for. The exhibition Colorful Lucency - Transparent Stills of the 1920s and 1930s is the first to explore a rare medium of film photography indebted to its day and, like film, relying on celluloid: brightly hand-colored stills owing their lucency to backlight illumination. Taken on the set, these mostly anonymous pictures were aimed at arousing the public's visual curiosity in the lobbies of Vienna's movie palaces and at encouraging them to purchase a ticket.

In collaboration with the Austrian Film Museum, Curator: Roland Fischer-Briand

Photoinstitut Bonartes
Seilerstätte 22, 1010 Vienna
Visits by appointment
T +43 | 1 | 236 02 93, photoinstitut@bonartes.org