Albert Renger-Patzsch, Ruth Hallensleben, a dialogue is the twenty-first exhibition held in the ex-kindergarten of Bruzella, home of the Rolla Foundation.

The forty photographs, taken between the 1920s and the 1960s and belonging to the Rolla collection, compare two previously presented authors with a new reading. 


Both were Germans, contemporaries, and worked predominantly in the same field, industrial photography. Albert Renger-Patzsch enjoys international fame, Ruth Hallensleben is yet to be discovered. The reasons are different, starting with the fact that the former also developed personal research, the latter almost always worked on commission. In the introductory text of the catalog, Urs Stahel also examines other factors, social conditioning, and emphasizes that: In this selection, there are hardly any differences in attitude or quality. Although here, too, it is often a question of commissioned versus free photography.


Albert Renger-Patzsch, b. 22.6.1897 Würzburg (D), d. 27.9.1966 Wamel (D).
He began taking photographs at the age of 12. After military service during World War I, he studied chemistry at Dresden Technical College. In the early 1920s he worked as a photographer for the Chicago Tribune before going freelance. Appointed professor and head of the department of pictorial photography at the Folkwangschule in Essen, he left the position after only two semesters because of Nazi oppression. 


Ruth Hallensleben, b. 01.06.1898 Cologne (D), d. 18.04.1977 Cologne (D).
In 1931 she worked as an apprentice for the famous portrait and landscape photographer Elsbeth Gropp. In 1934, she opened her own studio. After training in portrait photography, she took up her predestined role as an industrial photographer. Her work is not only a poetic vision or a technical experiment, but is also a testimony to the historical period in which she lived, that is 20th century Germany. 

Urs Stahel lives and works in Zurich. 
He is a freelance writer, curator, lecturer and consultant. Curator of MAST – Manifattura di Arti, Sperimentazione e Tecnologia – in Bologna, consultant of the MAST collection of industrial photography, Advisor to Foto Colectania, Barcelona, and to the Collection of Art Vontobel, Zürich. He is the co-founder of Fotomuseum Winterthur and was its director and curator from 1993 to 2013. 

On the occasion of BreggiArte we have scheduled some special openings for July:

Free entry
Sunday, 8 October, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. (on the occasion of the Chestnut Festival held in Bruzella).

If you want to come in another time please call or write to us for an appointment. We will be happy to open just for you!




Supported by

Rosella and Philip Rolla are pleased to share the invitation of the Grieder Contemporary Gallery of Zurich, which will occupy our Borgovico33 space in Como for a few months.

As part of the Lake Como Design Festival they are presenting Tenderly, the first exhibition in Italy by the Swiss artist Rolf Sachs (Opening on Saturday 16 September from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.). 

Sachs' exhibition will be open every day from 16 to 24 September from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Afterwards until 21 October on Fridays and Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and by appointment (write to info@grieder-contemporary.com).

Press Release

With great pleasure we present the book/biography of Philip Rolla written by Maria Grazia Rabiolo.


When Philip Rolla left California after graduating from university, the trip he took was diametrically opposite to that of his grandparents, who had arrived in California in the early twentieth century from Piedmont. His professional adventure began in Turin and continued in Italian-speaking Switzerland. A craftsman-engineer, he is the inventor of the most high-performance propellers in the world. His name is linked to powerboat racing and to boats in general. On top of that, he has always nurtured a great passion for contemporary art and photography. He has lived all his life between the United States, which he has never forgotten, and Europe, in particular Switzerland. In Bruzella, in the Valle di Muggio, where he lives with his wife Rosella. he has assembled an important art collection and a foundation that holds reqular photography exhibitions in the former kindergarten. Unquestionably, Phil Rolla's life has been both special and interesting. This biography written by Maria Grazia Rabiolo goes back over it stage by stage with both precision and a sense of participation. What emerges is the portrait of a man, a professional, and a collector who is, to say the least, unique, and inimitable

Maria Grazia Rabiolo was born in 1957 in Lausanne (Canton Vaud) and grew up in Viganello (Cantone Ticino). She earned a degree in Humanities from the University of Milan. As a cultural journalist she has worked for the RSI - Radiotelevisione svizzera di linqua italiana for thirty-four vears. She has lived in Bruzella with her husband since 2002.

Sylvia Notini was born in Boston and grew up in nearby Lexington. After receiving a Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures from Harvard University she moved to Bologna, Italy, where she raised a family while teaching English at the university and working as a freelance translator.

Supported by


 

Maria Grazia Rabiolo
Between two worlds.
Story of Philip Rolla
translation Sylvia Notini
pp.128
210 x 148 mm
ISBN 978-88-947158-2-8
price 20 Chf/Euro

You can buy the book by writing an email to contact@rolla.info.
Soon it will also be available in various bookstores and on amazon.

Turné (weekly magazine of the RSI online newspaper) travels between two worlds to tell you the story of the inventor and art collector Philip Rolla through an exhibition and a biography written by Maria Grazia Rabiolo.

Watch the video

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