Why Helmut Newton Treated Rooms Like Stages
written SARA DOUEDARI
This summer, the Helmut Newton Foundation turns its focus away from the performer and toward the stage itself.
With Rooms / Stages and Helmut Newton’s One-off Album, two exhibitions opening simultaneously in Berlin, the institution explores how photography transforms physical spaces into sites of narrative, tension, and imagination.
Helmut Newton
Absolut Vodka, Sweden 1995
(c) Helmut Newton Foundation
Helmut Newton, Bernice, Monaco 1994 (c) Helmut Newton Foundation, Courtesy: Nicola Erni Collection. Annotation: “Berenice, Étoile du Ballet de Monte-Carlo, leg in an iron cage (built by a doctor in Berlin specially for me) at the Beach Club, Monte-Carlo, 1994”
Bringing together works by more than a dozen artists, Rooms / Stages examines the shifting relationship between architecture, presence, and absence. Empty interiors, theatrical settings, museums, underground stations, and meticulously constructed environments become subjects in their own right. Featured artists such as Götz Diergarten, Anna Lehmann-Brauns, Friederike von Rauch, Gregor Schneider, Paolo Ventura, and Robert Polidori challenge the traditional role of space as a passive backdrop, revealing it instead as an active force within the image.
George Rousse, Reims 2012, (c) Georges Rousse, Courtesy Galerie Springer Berlin
At the centre of the exhibition is Helmut Newton, whose work provides a compelling counterpoint to the contemporary positions on view. Throughout his career, Newton approached photography with the instincts of a film director, transforming hotel suites, city streets, private garages, and theatre stages into carefully orchestrated settings. His photographs are never merely about fashion. They are constructed worlds in which power, seduction, glamour, and psychological tension unfold with cinematic precision. Large-scale prints presented throughout the galleries highlight Newton’s remarkable ability to elevate ordinary locations into unforgettable stages.
Helmut Newton, One-off, Credit Phaidon
A selection of 51 Polaroids offers a rare glimpse behind the scenes. Used by Newton throughout his career to test composition, lighting, and spatial relationships, the instant photographs reveal the meticulous process behind images that often appear effortless. They also underscore a central idea of the exhibition: for Newton, space was as carefully cast as the models themselves.
The second exhibition, Helmut Newton’s One-off Album, presents a unique chapter of the photographer’s legacy. Created in 1999 together with collector Gert Elfering, the album brings together 103 original photographs selected by Newton himself. Iconic fashion images sit alongside Polaroids, advertising campaigns, unpublished working shots, and personal favourites, each accompanied by handwritten notes and anecdotes. Shown in Berlin for the first time, the collection offers an unusually intimate portrait of Newton’s visual universe and the stories behind some of his most celebrated photographs.
Together, the two exhibitions reveal photography’s ability to blur the boundaries between reality and performance. Whether through contemporary interpretations of architectural space or Newton’s unmistakable vision of glamour and control, Rooms / Stages demonstrates that every room has the potential to become a stage.
Rooms / Stages and Helmut Newton’s One-off Album are on view from 5 June to 15 November 2026 at the Helmut Newton Foundation, Museum für Fotografie, Jebensstraße 2, Berlin. For further information, visit www.helmut-newton-foundation.org.
Viktoria Binschtok, World of Details, diner seat, 2012 (c) Viktoria Binschtok / KLEMM´S Berlin
Paolo Ventura, Der Sturm No. 5, 2025, (c) Paolo Ventura, Jaeger Art Gallery
Header Image
Götz Diergarten, o.T.1 (Berlin-Alexanderplatz), 2008, Diptychon (rechter Teil)
(c) the Artist