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The exhibition ‘Eyes wide open! 100 years of Leica photography’ is now visiting Ghent

Following its enormous success in Germany and Austria, the spectacular exhibition ‘Eyes wide open! 100 years of Leica photography’ is now visiting Belgium on the next stop of its tour and can be seen in the exhibition centre of St. Peter’s Abbey in Ghent from 17 June to 14 August. More than 350 original prints are being shown in St. Peter’s Abbey. Photographs by Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Nick Út, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Robert Lebeck, Julia Baier and François Fontaine document significant moments in the history of art and culture from 1914 to the present day. As an homage to Belgian Leica photography, works by Harry Gruyaert, Gaël Turine and Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt will be shown exclusively at this exhibition.

The exhibition showcases significant moments of the past century in a celebration of the 100th anniversary of Leica photography. The exhibition focuses on the revolutionary changes prompted by a technical innovation, the compact and easily portable ‘Ur-Leica’. The 35 mm camera not only brought about change and progress in the field of photography, but also initiated a considerable social transformation. Most of the images that engraved themselves into our collective consciousness from the 1920s onwards were shot with the Leica (‘Leitz Camera’), thus providing impressive documentation of contemporary events. From that point in time onwards, Leica has shaped and changed the way photographers see the world – and continues to do so today.

St. Peter’s, a former Benedictine abbey in Ghent, will be exhibiting photographs by acclaimed Leica photographers including Will McBride, Paolo Roversi, René Burri, Thomas Hoepker, Bruce Gilden, Mark Cohen, Nobuyoshi Araki, Alexander Rodchenko, Christer Strömholm, Bruce Davidson, F.C. Gundlach, Fred Herzog and William Eggleston in a series of rooms. The photographers chosen for the exhibition are as diverse as the styles and genres they represent: contemporary photography, post-modernism, street photography, art photography, journalistic documentary photography, portraits and much more – in colour and in black-and-white. The exhibits are complemented by documentary material, historic camera models and prototypes, and publications from the company archives of Leica Camera AG.

The curator responsible for the exhibition is Hans-Michael Koetzle, one of Germany’s most renowned photography publicists and curators. An extensive work entitled ‘Eyes wide open! 100 years of Leica photography’ has been published by the Kehrer Verlag to accompany the exhibition and features texts by Alejandro Castellote, Michael Ebert, Peter Hamilton, Anton Holzer, Thomas Honickel, Hans-Michael Koetzle, Franziska Mecklenburg, Rebekka Reuter, Ulf Richter, Christoph Schaden, Emilia Tavares, Enrica Viganò, Bernd Weise and Thomas Wiegand.

The ‘Eyes wide open! 100 years of Leica photography’ exhibition will be open to visitors on Tuesdays to Sundays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and runs from 17 June to 14 August 2016. It will also be open on 18.6.2016, the first Monday of the Ghent Festival. Admission to the exhibition is 8 euros. Concessionary prices will be available for groups and young artists.

Press Release - Exhibition ‘Eyes wide open!' Ghent
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Leica Camera – A Partner for Photography

Leica Camera AG is an international, premium manufacturer of cameras and sports optics. The legendary reputation of the Leica brand is based on a long tradition of excellent quality, German craftsmanship and German industrial design, combined with innovative technologies. An integral part of the brand's culture is the diversity of activities the company undertakes for the advancement of photography. In addition to the Leica Galleries and Leica Akademies spread around the world, there are the Leica Hall of Fame Award and, in particular, the Leica Oskar Barnack Award (LOBA), which is considered one of the most innovative sponsorship awards existing today. Furthermore, Leica Camera AG, with its headquarters in Wetzlar, Hesse, and a second production site in Vila Nova de Famalicão, Portugal, has a worldwide network of its own national organisations and Leica Retail Stores.