Calisthenics in the Stadium, Olympic Games, Berlin

Leni Riefenstahl

1936 · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

From chorus lines to parade marches, displays of synchronized bodies in motion were wildly popular forms of entertainment by the 1920s. Powerfully deployed by the Nazi state after 1933, performances of this type became a shorthand for the racist and anti-Semitic nationalism promoted in Riefenstahl’s experimental films. In 1936 she was commissioned by the state to cover the Summer Olympics in Berlin. Seen here from above, hundreds of local youths do coordinated calisthenics as a spectacle designed to enrapture the public and champion a uniform body type. In the years since World War II, Riefenstahl and her work have been the subjects of considerable debate. Although she has been celebrated for her stylistic innovations and pioneering work as a film director, her promotion of fascism raises fundamental questions about whether we can or should separate artists’ ethics from their art.

Artist

Leni Riefenstahl

Date

1936

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987