William Klein in the Cinemateca Portuguesa on January 2025
William Klein In the Light of Cinema
A collaboration with the Cinemateca Portuguesa as part of the exhibition All The World's a Stage by William Klein
William Klein in the Light of Cinema is a retrospective of the cinematographic work of the American artist-photographer-filmmaker based in Paris, recognised for the experimentation and influence of an exemplary body of work that crossed artistic fields between the late 1940s and the early 2000s. William Klein (1926-2022) was one of the most important photographers of the post-war period, working extensively from the perspective of reportage and fashion in his images. Still, the multiple facets of his work are distinctive features that include abstract art, photography, cinema, writing, graphics and editing.
A politically aware artist, he creatively portrayed the realities of his time in his films, both in documentary cinema, where he was prodigal in a ‘direct cinema’ current and vibrant portraits of the pulse of the days and those portrayed and in fiction, often delirious and seismographic.
Broadway By Light (1958) was his first film essay on New York colour and light, shot in Times Square. It was made two years after the publication of his first book on street photography, Life Is Good (and Good for You) in New York, which would become a classic.
Shortly afterwards, his cinema moved to France and also to Africa. It took in the tensions between American, European, and African cultures, dissent, sharpness of gaze, and freedom of perspective in a sharp, often corrosive work about stereotypes and popular culture, politics and propaganda, the fashion industry, the capitalism of consumer society, and the media sphere populated by celebrities.
Excessive, sensitive or caricatured, his characters in drama, comedy and pro-dystopian science fiction coexist with the human dimension, sometimes larger than life, of the artistic, sporting and activist personalities in portrait films such as those dedicated to Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali, Eldridge Cleaver, Jean Babilée or Little Richard. They are the protagonists of the effervescence of his satires and a non-conformist documentary dynamism.
Offering an expressive programme of William Klein's cinematographic work, this retrospective at the Cinemateca is organised in collaboration with MAAT in Lisbon, in dialogue with the exhibition William Klein - The Whole World is a Stage. At MAAT, the exhibition runs until 3 February. The programme includes the films Broadway by Light, Mr. Freedom, Les Troubles de la Circulation, In and Out of Fashion, Le Business de la Mode, Qui êst-vous Polly Maggoo?, Gare de Lyon, The French, Contacts, Babilé 91, Muhammad Ali The Greatest, Festival Panafricain D'Alger, Eldridge Cleaver, Black Panther, Le Couple, Témoin and Messiah.
