The neg◊laviniaschulz subgroup from the series of Negative are expressionist dance studies of the dancer Lavinia Schulz and the actor Walter Holdt in full-body masks, which they both designed together in the early 1920s.
The starting point of the series are photographs of the 19th and 20th century (by Minya Diez-Dührkoop), which have a typical brown patina and whose motifs cover the entire range of historical photography. When these photographs are inverted (reversing the positive into the negative), a high-contrast blue tone emerges, and the compositional design comes to the fore. Thus, the negative, the actual ‘original’ of a photograph, which threatens to disappear completely due to the triumph of digital photography, becomes the object of contemplation.

text adapted from source : Mai 36 Galerie