As of: February 23, 2024, 10:01 a.m
Comments
Press
Split
Well attended: the opening of the exhibition.
© Christian Scholle
The photographer Manfred Lehner shows pictures of Venice away from the hustle and bustle in 92 perspectives.
It is the Mitterdarchinger's first solo exhibition.
Miesbach – An exhibition at the opening of which there is an impressive queue at the entrance is not normally seen in the Oberland.
The audience was accordingly astonished when they sometimes had to wait a while in the stairwell to the gallery in the Waitzinger Keller before getting through the bottleneck of the entrance door.
“Venice – Faces of a City” attracted people, and even more so the photographer Manfred Lehner, who invited people to his first solo exhibition here.
An exhibition with the typical Lehner photos that primarily depict black and white scenes and people with an incredible intensity and, in their professionalism and calmness, let the essential message speak from the picture like a concentrate.
Love for Venice began in 1978
In a sense, it all began with Venice, which the 70-year-old describes as his dream city.
It was 1978 when graphic design student Manfred Lehner got on the train in Munich with a watercolor box and drawing pencil - which you can see in a display case at the entrance - only to find himself standing in front of the Grand Canal "just 500 kilometers away".
His task: Design a poster about the lagoon city.
He was “shocked in love,” said Anja Gild with a smile in her laudatory speech, which this time was not given between the exhibits but was moved to the hall.
It not only offered plenty of space for the numerous guests with many art celebrities from all over the district.
The 92 views of Venice spread over two floors were staged on film in large format.
This is gentle, touching and expressive, as we know from other works by the artist from Mitterdarching, who introduced himself as a “trained graphic designer and passionate photographer”.
Corona prevented the first attempt at an exhibition
Lehner's photo projects range from Valley farmers to the Bavarian State Ballet, from hospital clowns to refugee camps in Indian slums.
And Venice in between.
The extensive show about this should have taken place in the same location in 2020, but Corona intervened and nothing more than a small shop window alternative with twelve motifs was created.
There would have been 70 pictures back then.
22 new ones have been added and continue to tell Lehner's Venice story(s).
Manfred Lehner © Christian Scholle
Pictures show Venice as tourists don't normally see it
Stories that primarily take place outside the hustle and bustle that often threatens to overwhelm the lagoon city because 14 million tourists visit the historic center every year.
You can only see this at certain points in the pictures.
The most depressing thing is where not a single traveler can be seen: in the picture in which a colossus of a cruise ship pushes itself between the historic buildings.
In addition, Lehner creates a picture of the residents' protest against the big ships that briefly wash thousands into the city.
You can see St. Mark's Square empty with chairs pushed together in front of the cafés, the musicians under the arcades in warm winter jackets or the traders who bring into the city at dawn everything that is eaten and sold during the day.
You can see the gondoliers waiting for customers, immersed in their telephones.
Like the young people leaning on a bridge waiting.
Old women do their shopping under a canopy of laundry stretched over alleys.
In the bar that advertises healthy ginseng tea, everyone has a wine glass in their hand, and in the ghetto, which today is once again breathed into life by a Jewish community, the armed soldier guards the chatting men.
Everyone will probably have their own personal memories of Venice, said Gild and asked whether it was even possible to find new things photographically in this city.
“Of course,” you will say when you look at Lehner’s pictures, take them on a journey through time and discover what is usually lost in the general hustle and bustle and snapping.
The Venice pictures can be
seen until March 31st, on weekdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., on Thursdays from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and at events.