In good firm with photographer Walter Pfeiffer: interview

Two younger males, lads, probably youngsters, stand within the Adriatic, stacked one atop the opposite. The blonder of the pair wears a series and wraps his legs over the shoulders and across the torso of his companion, who’s naked chested with a tan and striped swimming shorts. ‘I asked them to start playing where the water was low, but they decided that one would sit on the other’s shoulders. It was not my concept!’ photographer Walter Pfeiffer shares of the double portrait, shot in Rimini within the Eighties. ‘I love when the people I photograph participate in the process. I like being in good company.’

At Pinacoteca Agnelli in Turin, the place a significant new retrospective, ‘Walter Pfeiffer. In Good Company’, has simply opened, the picture is blown as much as movie-poster measurement and framed with a white border. Positioned so it’s the primary standalone picture guests see upon getting into the present, it makes a daring impression and, furthermore, is a becoming introduction to Pfeiffer’s six-decade profession (in 1984, it coated the October situation of French publication Gai Pied, as soon as described as ‘the queen of Europe’s homosexual magazines’). The present’s moniker, equally, is a powerful proxy for Pfeiffer’s character. The Swiss photographer’s repute as an enthusiastic collaborator turns into tangible on the present’s opening in Italy, the place pals and admirers swarm him to say congratulations and want him a contented birthday (he’s simply turned 80).

Before you enter the present correct, an enormous wall coated with pages pulled and printed from Pfeiffer’s scrapbooks supplies further context for the work that follows. It’s a observe he established within the Sixties whereas working at Globus division retailer in Zurich, the place he had been employed as a window decorator following his research on the metropolis’s School of Arts and Crafts. ‘I was bored and had no ideas, then I started to crop images out of magazines and glue them into these notebooks,’ he remembers. ‘I do not prefer to look via my work, that is why I like this wall – I forgot every little thing, so it was once more attention-grabbing for me. When we printed it as a e-book [2012’s Scrapbooks 1969-1985], we took solely the attention-grabbing issues, however right here there may be extra to find.’

Occupying six rooms with greater than 100 pictures from the Seventies via to the 2020s, ‘Walter Pfeiffer. In Good Company’ highlights the broad scope of Pfeiffer’s profession. In one of many smaller areas is the collection Das Auge, die Gedanken, unentwegt wandernd from 1986, that includes black and white headshots printed in strict document cover-sized squares, the portraits are located in pairs, excessive up in direction of the ceiling. Elsewhere, color is basically king, used to underscore the subversive vitality prevalent within the assortment of nonetheless lifes, trend pictures and erotic scenes. ‘Walter’s very open about letting other people interpret the work,’ presents Nicola Trezzi, who, with co-curator Simon Castets, was primarily chargeable for the present’s rhythm. ‘He has done so many books and exhibitions, he’s at all times creating an organization of individuals that can encourage him and set off his curiosity.’