Notorious Photographs Become Focus of Vienna Exhibition

When photography was invented in 1839, long before celebrities were caught on tape, the medium provoked numerous scandals and uproars, which is the focus of the new exhibition “Controversies” in Vienna. The show at Kunst Haus Wien features approximately 100 provocative photographs from Man Ray, Robert Capa, Lewis Carroll, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Oliviero Toscani, Richard Avedon, Robert Mapplethorpe, and others. In every era and every genre, photographs have created conflict—whether social or legal. With some well known and some lesser known images, the Musée de l’Elysée Lausanne and its senior curator Daniel Girardin and attorney, Christian Pirker help shed new light on those images that have already been the subject to some negative attention.