STUDIO MANASSE TRA AVANGUARDIA E PORNOKITSCH

Fondato dai coniugi Olga Spolarics e Adorjan Wlassics, l'Atelier Manasse/Studio Manassè fu attivo a Vienna tra il 1922-1938. Due parole possono caratterizzare la produzione fotografica di Manasse: glamour (alcuni direbbero kitsch) e erotismo. A queste caratteristiche si abbina la capacità di creare uno stile e un genere assolutamente riconoscibile. Tra avanguardia e pornokitsch.

 

Lo studio Manasse acquisita negli anni Venti, un alto grado di popolarità attraverso fotografie sexy e glamour,in prevalenza di donne. Utilizzano tecniche di ritocco artigianali e innovative per creare immagini surreali e noir con un simbolismo erotico malcelato sotto una maschera di stile glorioso, eleganti pose e costumi futuristici e stravaganti. Intorno allo studio si crea così una piccola corte di costumisti e attrezzisti, e posare nude per l'atelier diventa quasi una moda, tanto che si lasciano convincere anche signore della borghesia viennese.

“…Studio Manasse, which flourished in the 1930s in Vienna, captured morethan just portrait photography bursting with erotic charge; it immortalized the fluid state of beauty and the “new woman”: confident in her own sexuality as she struggled to redefine her position in the modern world. Each picture offers a conflict of concepts, as provocative poses are presented in such traditional roles that the cynicism intended renders them humorously absurd . Adorjan and Olga Wlassics, a husband-and-wife team, founded Studio Manasse in the early 1920s. The first Manasse illustrations appeared in magazines in 1924, a booming industry at the time, as the movie industry skyrocketed and publications aimed to satisfy a public obsessed with glimpses into the world of glamour. Attracting some of the leading ladies of the time from film, theater, opera, and vaudeville,Studio Manasse created masterpieces, employing all the techniques of makeup, retouching, and overpainting to keep their subjects happy while upholding an uncompromised artistic vision.Molded bodies were dreams with alabaster or marbel-like skin; backgrounds were staged so that the photographer could control each environment. And as their art found a home, the Wlassics found themselves able to afford a pattern of life similar to those reflected in their photographs. Their clients ran the gamut, from the advertising agencies to private buyers. When the Wlassics opened a new studio ni Berlin, their business in Vienna was managed more and more by associates, until 1937, when the firm’s name was sold to another photographer. Adorjan passed away just ten years later; Olga remarried and died in 1969…”