Ellen Auerbach
The New Yorker
August 3, 2015
This valuable addendum to MOMA's current exhibition “From Bauhaus to Buenos Aires: Grete Stern and Horacio Coppola” centers on Stern’s partner in the avant-garde photography studio known as ringl + pit. Their Bauhaus-style collaborations, most produced as advertisements in the thirties, are the most arresting images here, juxtaposing models and mannequins, balancing sensuality and restraint. Following a split with Stern, Auerbach’s work became more varied, including portraits of Bertolt Brecht and Willem de Kooning, sensational shots of the dancer Renate Schottelius in midair, and a lovely group of muted color pictures from Mexico—reliquaries, paper roses, an outdoor market—made in collaboration with Eliot Porter. Through Aug. 14.