Christine Turnauer – I saw more than I can tell

A magnificent volume and a journey through time: this is Christine Turnauer´s black and white photo series from 1986, now being published for the first time in book form.
North American indigenous peoples travel thousands of miles to participate in traditional dance contests called powwows. With her portable studio tent, Christine Turnauer visited them from northern Alberta to southern Montana. The result: authentic and extraordinary portraits. The dancers were completely themselves, and when they wear their traditional costumes, it becomes a spontaneous expression of pride and inner freedom. It seems as if they have an inner connection to their ancestors. What at first glance may seem like the black-and-white photographs of Edward S. Curtis, or other classics of “Indian” portrait photography from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, differs in Christine Turnauer’s portraits, because the poses are not staged by the photographer, but arise from the active participation of those photographed.

CHRISTINE TURNAUER (*1946, Graz), formerly an assistant to the photographer Frank Horvat, has been working as a freelance photographer since 1979. Focusing on black-and-white portrait photography, she has already published two captivating, illustrated books with Hatje Cantz: "Presence" (2014) and "The Dignity of the Gypsies" (2018).