Daniel Gendre
Online exhibition “Unexpected”
04-28.02.2021
The exhibition represents photographs filmed by Daniel Gendre during the work on various advertising campaigns in the 1970s and free studio shootings. The creative breakthroughs that occurred during the work allowed these photographs to become objects of art. All the prints are made with unsurpassed mastery, without using any digital processing, and are hand-printed by the artist.
Daniel Gendre was born in 1946 and educated in Geneva, Switzerland. He learned photography in London where he spent three years assisting well-known photographers such as Bookbinder, Phil Jude and Duffy. Gendre worked as an advertising photographer for over 40 years. His work has been published and recognised with many exhibitions and awards. His photographs have been purchased by the Swiss Photographic Foundation, Kunsthaus Zürich and the Swiss Photographic Foundation Winterthur. With the support of the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs, his works were exhibited in 2009 at the Russian National Museum in Saint-Petersburg and his book was published by Offizin Verlag Zürich. Gendre’s works were selected in 2011 for a public presentation at the Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne. His extensive work on Tokyo has been exhibited at the Embassy of Japan in Switzerland in 2012, 2015 and 2017. In 2019 he donated the Russian National Museum for Political History in Saint Petersburg 44 original prints of his USSR work in 1970s.
Selected exhibitions:
2003 Galerie Sarasin, Genf: 50 portraits en noir/blanc
2004 Werkgalerie, Maur ZH: Photographies en noir/blanc
2007 Galerie Last, Zürich: Petites histoires russes
2008 Nationalmuseum für politische Geschichte Russlands, Villa Matilda Felixowna Kschessinskaja, St. Petersburg
2009 Galerie im Höchhuus, Küsnacht: Lipsticks et polachromes
2011 Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne: Présentation publique
2011 Japanische Botschaft, Bern: Tokyo, poésie urbaine
2012 Le Château, Montcherand: Déchets de Vinyle
2015 Japanische Botschaft, Bern: Silent Tokyo (Still lives – Natures mortes)
2020 Photobastei, Zurich "Postkarten - Carte postales", Bilder aus den 70er- und 80er-Jahren
“The photographs represented and at the RossArt Gallery in Zürich, were all taken between 1973 and 1990 there are all related to advertising.
Commercial photography at that time was a mirror of the spirit of that moment. It suggested, it teased and most times, it complimented the viewer’s intelligence and sensibility.
It represented craftsmanship combined with visual aesthetics. There were no computers that allowed one to correct mistakes in an instant. Things were done in-camera or by hand in the darkroom. With the result that each photograph took time and represented a labor of love. It was the last time when (we) people were proud to be in advertising.
The photographer was advertising’s rock star. The icon with cult status. The artist with an eye that could capture a magical moment.”
Daniel Gendre
Windisch, Switzerland, 21st of November, 2020