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Nov

Exhibition: ‘Helga Paris, Photographer’ at the Akademie der Künste, Berlin

Categories: beauty, black and white photography, documentary photography, exhibition, existence, gallery website, intimacy, landscape, light, memory, photographic series, photography, portrait, psychological, reality, space, street photography, time and works on paper
Tags: Akademie der Künste, Berlin Pubs, Berliner Jugendliche, Berliner Kneipen, documentary photography, Dog Immanuelkirchstrasse, East Berlin, East German photography, East Germany, East Germany in the postwar period, Erinnerung an Z, everyday lives of an East German resident, female textile mill workers, fine art photography, Frauen im Bekleidungswerk Treff-Modelle, Frauen im Bekleidungswerk VEB Treffmodelle Berlin, Garbage Drivers, German art, German artist, German industrial city of Halle, german photographer, German photography, Gesellschaft für Fotografie im Kulturbund, Grosse Klausstrasse Flutgasse, Häuser und Gesichter Halle, Halle, Helga Paris, Helga Paris Berlin Pubs, Helga Paris Berliner Kneipen, Helga Paris Club, Helga Paris Erinnerung an Z, Helga Paris Fotografie, Helga Paris Frauen im Bekleidungswerk Treff-Modelle, Helga Paris Garbage Drivers, Helga Paris Georgia, Helga Paris Grosse Klausstrasse Flutgasse, Helga Paris Häuser und Gesichter Halle, Helga Paris Hellersdorf, Helga Paris Houses and Faces, Helga Paris Hund Immanuelkirchstr, Helga Paris Jugendweihe René Köstner, Helga Paris Marienburger Strasse, Helga Paris Müllfahrer, Helga Paris Memory of Z, Helga Paris Meteln (Christa and Gerhard Wolf), Helga Paris Moscow, Helga Paris Naira, Helga Paris Pauer, Helga Paris Photographer, Helga Paris Prerow, Helga Paris Ramona, Helga Paris Ramona Kollwitzstrasse, Helga Paris Selbst im Spiegel, Helga Paris Self-Portrait in the Mirror, Helga Paris Self-portraits, Helga Paris Sohn des Architekten Melnikow, Helga Paris Son of the architect Melnikov, Helga Paris Sven, Helga Paris Treffmodelle Berlin, Helga Paris Two Women, Helga Paris Winsstraße mit Taube, Helga Paris Winsstrasse with Pigeon, Helga Paris Zwei Frauen, Hellersdorf, Houses and Faces Halle, Hund Immanuelkirchstr, Jugendweihe René Köstner, Marienburger Strasse, Müllfahrer, Meteln (Christa and Gerhard Wolf), post-war East Germany, postwar East Germany, Prenzlauer Berg, Ramona Kollwitzstrasse, René Köstner, Selbst im Spiegel, Self-Portrait in the Mirror, Sohn des Architekten Melnikow, street photography, Treff-Modelle VEB, Treffmodelle Berlin, VEB Treffmodelle clothing factory, Winsstraße mit Taube, Winsstrasse with Pigeon, Women at the Clothing factory VEB Treffmodelle Berlin, Women at the textile factory VEB Models, Zwei Frauen

Exhibition dates: 8th November 2019 – 12th January 2020

Curator: Inka Schube

Helga Paris (German, born Poland, 1938)
Prerow
1960s
Gelatin silver print
Photo: © Helga Paris
Source: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

A couple of years ago I was in Paris, searching for French peasant work clothes of the 1950s in the trendy secondhand shops of the Marais. It took me forever but I eventually found one blue shirt that fitted me… only one. Battered, patched up, but still present after all these years – hard wearing, practical, and tough. But also soft and pliable like a second skin, with its own look and feel, its own distinctive aesthetic. I knew what I wanted, I found it… or it found me. A treasure.

The same could be said of the photographs of Helga Paris. Her photographs picture the tough, hard existence of life in postwar East Germany but there is a fond affection for subject matter in the cameras engagement. Paris approaches her subjects, whether city or people, with directness but it is also a dialogue between the artist and her subjects which “give the viewer an insight into a moment of the everyday lives of an East German resident.”

“Paris opened herself to the worker’s world she found in Prenzlauer Berg, and often took photographs in the immediate surroundings – of friends and neighbours, the area’s old and run-down streets, and the melancholic vitality of the regulars in Berlin’s bars and cafés. The people in her photographs look deeply rooted, as if they had moved to the area with the intention of never going away.”

Misty cobbled corners, people in bars, in clubs, at work, on the street. Much as Ara Güler did for Istanbul (in a more romantic way), Paris captures the essence of an ecosystem, the culture and survival that was the living, behind the Iron Curtain. There is melancholy aplenty, the brooding streets with swooping pigeons and ubiquitous Trabant, all dark in their small sulkiness. There are beautiful boys with Anarchy stencilled on their jumper desiring liberated life, and reflective women deep in their own thoughts. Naira! Naira! Smoking a fag, with drunk-eyed pictures of a child on dirty wall, behind. Oh Naira, of what were you thinking! What brought you to this place?

There is sullenness, compassion, bohemians, students and countercultural intellectuals all pictured with her probing mind. If you could say that a subject finds an artist then this is that aphorism in full technicolor. Engaged and engaging, these essential images stand the test of time – as relevant now in an era of neo-liberal fascism as they ever were in the past.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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Many thankx to the Akademie der Künste for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Helga Paris (German, born Poland, 1938)
No title
1974
From the series Müllfahrer (Garbage Drivers)
Gelatin silver print
Photo: © Helga Paris
Source: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

Helga Paris (German, born Poland, 1938)
Selbst im Spiegel (Self-Portrait in the Mirror)
1971
Gelatin silver print
Photo: © Helga Paris
Source: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

Helga Paris (German, born Poland, 1938)
No title
1975
From the series Berliner Kneipen (Berlin Pubs)
Gelatin silver print
Photo: © Helga Paris
Source: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

Helga Paris (German, born Poland, 1938)
Hund, Immanuelkirchstr. (Dog, Immanuelkirchstrasse)
1970s
From Berlin 1974-1982
Gelatin silver print
Photo: © Helga Paris
Source: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

Helga Paris (German, born Poland, 1938)
Winsstraße mit Taube (Winsstrasse with Pigeon)
1970s
From Berlin 1974-1982
Gelatin silver print
Photo: © Helga Paris
Source: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

Helga Paris (German, born Poland, 1938)
Marienburger Strasse
1970s
From Berlin 1974-1982
Gelatin silver print
Photo: © Helga Paris
Source: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

Helga Paris (German, born Poland, 1938)
Jugendweihe René Köstner
1970s
From Berlin 1974-1982
Gelatin silver print
Photo: © Helga Paris
Source: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

Helga Paris (German, born Poland, 1938)
Meteln (Christa and Gerhard Wolf)
1977
Gelatin silver print
Photo: © Helga Paris
Source: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

Helga Paris (born in 1938 in Goleniów, Poland) occupies an outstanding position in German photography. Her oeuvre exhibits the poetry of a Henri Cartier-Bresson as well as the austerity of an August Sander or Renger-Patzsch. Paris, who has lived in Prenzlauer Berg in Berlin since 1966, has chronicled the long history of postwar East Germany. For more than three decades she has directed her gentle yet precise gaze toward the people who live it. Her photographs tell of the melancholy vitality of East Berlin corner pubs and the poetic tristesse of the old streetcars of the seventies. We encounter garbage truck drivers, stubbornly furious or calm teenagers, and proud female textile mill workers. We travel through Georgia and Siebenbürgen, and meander through the central German industrial city of Halle, a “diva in gray.” But these photographs also tell of the end of the postwar era, of the search for images of childhood and their retrieval. (Text from the catalogue to the exhibition)

Helga Paris : Fotografie from arts-news on Vimeo

Fotografie is a retrospective look at the work of German photographer, Helga Paris. Exhibiting a collection of photos taken in East Germany in the postwar period, Paris’s work is considered to be one of the most revealing and compassionate bodies of work reflecting life in Germany at that time. Going beyond a simple ‘social study’, Paris’s technique was simply to engage with her subjects, rather than take on the role of the distant street photographer. In making this connection, the result has been a collection of photos that give the viewer an insight into a moment of the everyday lives of an East German resident.

Starting in the 60s, Helga Paris took an interest in photography and began teaching herself the basics. Paris came from a fashion and art background, but it was her interest in the everyday lives of the East Berlin people, during the postwar period that made her want to capture that on film. (Text from the Vimeo website)

Helga Paris (German, born Poland, 1938)
Club
1981
Gelatin silver print
Photo: © Helga Paris
Source: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

Helga Paris (German, born Poland, 1938)
Berliner Kneipen (Berlin pubs)
From the series Berlin 1974-1982
Gelatin silver print
Photo: © Helga Paris
Source: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

Since 1966 Helga Paris has lived in Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg, a traditionally working class district that in the DDR days had become a refuge for bohemians, students and countercultural intellectuals, condoned by the authorities. Here she became a chronicler of post-war East Germany. Paris opened herself to the worker’s world she found in Prenzlauer Berg, and often took photographs in the immediate surroundings – of friends and neighbours, the area’s old and run-down streets, and the melancholic vitality of the regulars in Berlin’s bars and cafés. The people in her photographs look deeply rooted, as if they had moved to the area with the intention of never going away. Their faces express both their exhaustion and their lust for life.

Helga Paris (German, born Poland, 1938)
Sven
1981-82
From the series Berliner Jugendliche (Berlin Youth)
Gelatin silver print
Photo: © Helga Paris
Source: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

Helga Paris (German, born Poland, 1938)
Pauer
From the series Berlin Youth
1981-1982
Gelatin silver print
Photo: © Helga Paris
Source: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

Helga Paris (German, born Poland, 1938)
Ramona
1982
Gelatin silver print
Photo: © Helga Paris
Source: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

Helga Paris (German, born Poland, 1938)
Ramona, Kollwitzstrasse
1982
Gelatin silver print
Photo: © Helga Paris
Source: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

Helga Paris (German, born Poland, 1938)
Naira
1982
From the series Georgien (Georgia)
Gelatin silver print
Photo: © Helga Paris
Source: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

Helga Paris (German, born Poland, 1938)
No title
1983-1985
From the series Häuser und Gesichter, Halle / Houses and Faces, Halle 1983-1985
Gelatin silver print
Photo: © Helga Paris
Source: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

Helga Paris (German, born Poland, 1938)
Grosse Klausstrasse Flutgasse
1983-1985
From the series Häuser und Gesichter, Halle / Houses and Faces, Halle 1983-1985
Gelatin silver print
Photo: © Helga Paris
Source: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

Helga Paris (German, born Poland, 1938)
Zwei Frauen (Two Women)
1983-1985
From the series Häuser und Gesichter, Halle / Houses and Faces, Halle 1983-1985
Gelatin silver print
Photo: © Helga Paris
Source: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

Helga Paris (German, born Poland, 1938)
No title
1983-1985
From the series Houses and Faces, Halle 1983-1985
Gelatin silver print
Photo: © Helga Paris
Source: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

From 8 November 2019 to 12 January 2020 at its exhibition halls at Pariser Platz, the Akademie der Künste will present the photographic work of Helga Paris from 1968 to 2011. Featuring 275 works, including many individual images and series that are to be shown for the first time, this will be her most comprehensive exhibition to date and the first retrospective of the artist in her home city of Berlin in 25 years. Excerpts from the extensive Leipzig, Hauptbahnhof (1981), Moskau (1991/92) and Mein Alex (2011) series will be seen for the first time, among others.

In addition to the photographer’s special ability to make ever-changing compressed contemporary history tangible in her images and series over the course of decades, it is her tender, graceful and heavily nuanced black-and-white modulations expressing social empathy that make her work unmistakable.

Helga Paris was born in 1938 in Gollnow, Pomerania (today Polish town of Goleniów), and grew up in Zossen near Berlin. She began her work as a self-taught photographer in the 1960s. She became one of the key chroniclers of life in East Berlin with images of her neighbourhood in the Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg, pictures of pub-goers, sanitation workers, the women from the VEB Treffmodelle clothing factory, artists, punks, children from Hellersdorf and passers-by from Alexanderplatz. Helga Paris also took photographs in Transylvania (1980), Georgia (1982) and the city of Halle (1983-1985), where she produced her Diva in Grau series that was banned from being shown until 1989/90, as well as in Volgograd (1990), New York (1995) and Poland (1996/97), among others. Helga Paris has been a member of the Film and Media Art Section of the Akademie der Künste since 1996.

The curator of the exhibition is art historian Inka Schube, who has worked with Helga Paris on numerous occasions. Filmmaker Helke Misselwitz will present an installation involving interviews with Helga Paris on the topics of origin, the changing city and her work as a photographer in East Germany and up into the early 21st century.

On the occasion of the exhibition, the Spector Books publishing house, Leipzig has released the photography book Helga Paris. Leipzig Hauptbahnhof, 1981.

An exhibition by the Akademie der Künste in cooperation with the ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen), with the kind support of the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftung that allowed the living legacy to be indexed and new prints of three previously unpublished series to be made, as well as the DEFA-Foundation.

Press release from the Akademie der Künste website [Online] Cited 11/11/2019

Helga Paris (German, born Poland, 1938)
Self-portraits
1981-1989
Gelatin silver print
Photo: © Helga Paris
Source: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

Helga Paris (German, born Poland, 1938)
Frauen im Bekleidungswerk Treff-Modelle
1984
Gelatin silver print
Photo: © Helga Paris
Source: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

In the early 1980s the DDR’s Gesellschaft für Fotografie im Kulturbund gave professional photographers commissions that allowed them to work on projects of their own choosing. These commissions not only gave photographers financial security, but also opened doors to places where, under normal circumstances, only media loyal to the regime had been allowed to work. Helga Paris chose to photograph a clothing factory, Treff-Modelle VEB in Berlin, where she herself had had some work experience during her fashion design studies. There she portrayed the factory’s female workers, eliciting a wide variety of subtle reactions from them: from self-confident and open to confrontational and defensive.

Helga Paris (German, born Poland, 1938)
No title
1984
Gelatin silver print
From the series Frauen im Bekleidungswerk VEB Treffmodelle Berlin (Women at the Clothing factory VEB Treffmodelle Berlin)
Photo: © Helga Paris
Source: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

With around 275 photographs from the period of 1968 till 2011 – including numerous single frames and series shown for the first time – the exhibition of Helga Paris at the Akademie der Künste on Pariser Platz is the photographer’s most comprehensive to date. It is the first retrospective of Paris’ work in her home city of Berlin in 25 years.

Having lived in Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg district since 1966, Helga Paris (born 1938) began taking photos of people in her neighbourhood in the early 1970s. She found her photographic motifs in flats, pubs, break rooms and factory halls, or on the streets and in train stations. With a background in modernist painting, theatre and poetry as well as early Soviet, Italian and French cinema, the autodidact photographer has spent the last four and a half decades developing an extensive oeuvre of delicate, nuanced black-and-white photography.

But she is not only a chronicler of Prenzlauer Berg. Helga Paris also has taken photos in Halle, Leipzig, Transylvania, Georgia, Moscow, Volgograd and New York. There, as in her local neighbourhood, she constantly explores how it feels “to be in history”, and how the respective circumstances are reflected at the most private level. Helga Paris’s imagery has a particular poetic approachability, in part because it forgoes all ideological interpretations; her gaze suggests profound solidarity.

For the exhibition, the director Helke Misselwitz has designed a documentary film triptych, in which she makes it possible to experience how the life and work of Helga Paris are both interwoven and interdependent. Misselwitz traces a wide arc from the photographer’s childhood to the present; from Prenzlauer Berg to sites around the world; and from Paris’ close-ups to her farsighted vision.

Text from the Akademie der Künste website [Online] Cited 11/11/2019

Helga Paris (German, born Poland, 1938)
Sohn des Architekten Melnikow (Son of the architect Melnikov)
1991-92
From the series Moskau 1991-92
Gelatin silver print
Photo: © Helga Paris
Source: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

Helga Paris (German, born Poland, 1938)
No title
1991-92
From the series Moscow 1991-92
Gelatin silver print
Photo: © Helga Paris
Source: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

As a result of the Cold War, the remarkable oeuvre of the German photographer Helga Paris (1938) was long almost unknown west of the Iron Curtain. While Paris enjoyed widespread popularity in East Germany, her photographs rarely reached a public in the West. Although her work, with its quite intimate glimpses of daily life in East Germany, is strongly linked to the course of her own life, its expressiveness is universal. The empathy of her gaze makes it easy for us to imagine ourselves in the people and places she photographed.

Resilience

On one hand Helga Paris’ photographs are about life in the German Democratic Republic (DDR), where the Second World War and the country’s communist regime brought restriction, loss, destruction and decline in their wake. On the other they show the gaze of a photographer who had been born in Pommeren (now in Poland), who grew up close to postwar Berlin, and who faced the world with resilience, curiosity and compassion. In 1966 Paris moved for good to Prenzlauer Berg in East Berlin, a traditionally working-class district that had become a refuge for bohemians, students and countercultural intellectuals, closely watched but condoned by the authorities. Here she became a chronicler of postwar East Germany. She often worked in the immediate surroundings – taking photographs of friends and neighbours, on the street, and in bars and cafés.

Hidden tensions

Although in the 1970s and 1980s Helga Paris also photographed in Romania, Poland and Georgia, the accent in the Huis Marseille exhibition is on East Germany before and after the Wende (1989-90). She created the series Berliner Jugendliche (Berlin Youth) in 1980-81, when her own children were teenagers, portraying youngsters who believed in an alternative way of life and who went to the concerts given by independent bands – a sort of East German variant of the Western punk scene. Their anarchic lifestyle did not go unnoticed by the regime, and many of those she portrayed also spent some time in prison. Paris subtly but revealingly captures the hidden tensions of the time in the teenagers’ postures, gestures, and facial expressions. She elicited a similar scale of reactions in the workers she photographed for the series Frauen im Bekleidungswerk VEB Treffmodelle Berlin (Women at the textile factory VEB Models, 1984): from self-confident and open to confrontational and defensive.

Run-down

In the same period Helga Paris documented the decline of the old city centre of Halle, interspersing photos of the city’s long-neglected buildings and streets with portraits of its residents – who only allowed themselves to be photographed if they had a say in how their portraits were taken. The impoverishment of Halle was only partly the result of the faltering East German economy; the government was also deliberately allowing the historic centre of Halle and other East German cities to become rundown in order to compel their populations to move into modern flats on urban peripheries. The exhibition Häuser und Gesichter: Halle 1983-85 was banned by the regime in 1987; it was 1990 before the people of Halle could see the photographs for themselves.

Helga Paris was born Helga Steffens in 1938 in Gollnow, Pommeren, now known as Goleniów in Poland. At the end of the war she fled with her family to Zossen, her father’s native city. She first came into contact with photography through an aunt who worked in a photographic laboratory. Between 1956 and 1960 she studied fashion design at the Fachschule für Bekleidung in Berlin. There she met the artist Ronald Paris, to whom she was married between 1961 and 1974, and with whom she had two children.

Via the Arbeiter- und Studententheater in Berlin, for which she made costumes, Paris came into contact with the later documentary maker Peter Voigt, who encouraged her to take more photographs. To improve her techniques, from 1967 to 1968 she worked in the Deutsche Werbeund Anzeigengesellschaft DEWAG photographic laboratory. She took many photographs in the theatre, such as productions of the Volksbühne, as her husband was also its set designer. In later years she would say that this experience had given her a solid foundation for her attitude to space as a street photographer.

Paris’s work was first exhibited in 1978, in the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Dresden. In 1996 she became a member of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. Her self-portraits were a great success at the Kunst in der DDR exhibition in the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin (2003), and in 2004 Helga Paris was awarded the prestigious Hannah-Höch-Preis for a lifetime of achievement in the arts.

Press release from Huis Marseille for the exhibition Helga Paris / East Germany 1974-1998 Cited 26/11/2019

Helga Paris (German, born Poland, 1938)
Erinnerung an Z (Memory of Z)
1994
Gelatin silver print
Photo: © Helga Paris
Source: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

Helga Paris (German, born Poland, 1938)
No title
1998
Gelatin silver print
From the series Hellersdorf
Photo: © Helga Paris
Source: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

Helga Paris (German, born Poland, 1938)
Hellersdorf #2
1998
Gelatin silver print
From the series Hellersdorf
Photo: © Helga Paris
Source: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

Helga Paris (German, born Poland, 1938)
Hellersdorf #7
1998
Gelatin silver print
From the series Hellersdorf
Photo: © Helga Paris
Source: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

Helga Paris (German, born Poland, 1938)
Hellersdorf #8
1998
Gelatin silver print
From the series Hellersdorf
Photo: © Helga Paris
Source: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

Akademie der Künste
Pariser Platz 4
10117 Berlin
Phone: +49 (0)30 200 57-1000

Opening hours:
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Akademie der Künste website

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Nov

European photographic research tour exhibition: ‘The Photojournalist Robert Capa II’ at the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center, Budapest

By Dr Marcus Bunyan Leave a Comment

Categories: American, american photographers, black and white photography, documentary photography, exhibition, existence, gallery website, landscape, light, memory, photographic series, photography, psychological, reality, space, street photography, time and works on paper
Tags: american photographer, American photography, American photojournalism, American photojournalist, American soldiers guard a group of captured Germans, Andre Kertesz, Battle of the Bulge, Colelville-sur-Mer, Cow in the middle of a street lined with ruined buildings, D-Day, D-Day landings, Endre Ernő Friedman, Endre Ernő Friedmann, Eva Besnyö, first woman photojournalist, Fountain rubble in city square Stalingrad, Funeral procession for victim killed on the day of the presidential elections, Gerda Taro, German soldiers captured by American forces, German soldiers captured by American forces burying some of the men killed during the D-Day landings, German soldiers captured by American forces during the Battled of the Bulge, Gerta Pohorylle, Guangzhou China, György Kepes, La Guerre Civile en Espagne, Leica camera, LIFE Magazine, Man and cat outside an air-raid shelter, Medical transport craft for men wounded, Medical transport craft for men wounded in the first wave of American troops landing on D-Day, Normandy, Normandy June 1944, Omaha Beach, photojournalism, Picture Post, Regards magazine, Robert Capa, Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center, Robert Capa Cow in the middle of a street lined with ruined buildings, Robert Capa Fountain rubble in city square Stalingrad, Robert Capa Funeral procession for victim killed on the day of the presidential elections, Robert Capa German soldiers captured by American forces, Robert Capa German soldiers captured by American forces during the Battle of the Bulge, Robert Capa La Guerre Civile en Espagne, Robert Capa Man and cat outside an air-raid shelter, Robert Capa Medical transport craft for men wounded, Robert Capa Medical transport craft for men wounded in the first wave of American troops landing on D-Day, Robert Capa Soldiers leading a French woman who had collaborated with the Germans, Robert Capa Soldiers leading a French woman who had collaborated with the Germans to the Préfecture de Police, Robert Capa Student civil-defense volunteers assisting the wounded, Robert Capa The death of a Loyalist militaman, Robert Capa The Falling Soldier, Robert Capa war photographer, Saint-Lð, Soldiers leading a French woman who had collaborated with the Germans, Soldiers leading a French woman who had collaborated with the Germans to the Préfecture de Police, Spanish Civil War, Student civil-defense volunteers assisting the wounded, The death of a Loyalist militaman, The Falling Soldier, The Greatest War Photographer in the World: Robert Capa, The Photojournalist Robert Capa II, The Spanish War Kills Its First Woman Photographer, Vu Magazine, Vu Magazine No. 445

September 2019

First gallery

Installation view of the exhibition The Photojournalist Robert Capa II at the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center, Budapest

I didn’t have time on my European photographic research tour to post about this exhibition at the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center, Budapest.

Let me say right off bat, that I’m not a great fan of Capa’s work and the larger, 1990s non-vintage prints presented in this exhibition were unimpressive.

I admire Capa’s courage in order to get the shot (“If your photographs aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough”), but his photographs leave me cold. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but his objectivity, his reportage, is just that. Looking back 80 years later, we must remember how raw, how radical and confronting these photographs would have been when viewed in Life magazine and Picture Post at the time: authentic representations of war and death straight from the front. But in terms of the image, what you see is what you get. The framing is not particularly good, the angles are pretty conventional and front on, the occurrences direct and focused. The immediacy of the image, that is their strength.

For me they don’t leave a lasting impression, never have done. Yes, the D-Day landings because he was there; The death of a Loyalist militiaman because it is so famous; the shaving of the women collaborators heads because they are so vile … but you wonder, does his greatness come from the fact that, time and time again, he got the job done and produced the goods (as in a saleable image). That and the reality that he was a great self promoter: labelled the ‘Greatest War Photographer in the World’ by Picture Post in 1938. But was he a good image maker?

They are what they are. That’s really all you can say.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Installation views of the exhibition The Photojournalist Robert Capa II at the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center, Budapest

“La Guerre Civile en Espagne,’ in Vu Magazine No. 445 September 23, 1936

Caption: “Le jarret vif, la poitrine au vent, fusil au poing, il dévalaient la pente couverte d’un chaume raide.. Soudain l’essor est brisé, une balle a siffle – une balle fratricide – et leur sang est bu par la terre natale … ”

“His step quick, his chest to the wind, his rifle in his hand, he hurtled down the steep slope. Suddenly the boom was broken, a bullet whistled – a fratricidal bullet – and their blood is drunk by the homeland … ”

The caption as published in LIFE magazine: “Robert Capa’s camera catches a Spanish soldier the instant he is dropped by a bullet through the head in front of Cordoba.”

Installation view of the exhibition The Photojournalist Robert Capa II at the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center, Budapest

Robert Capa (American-Hungarian, 1913-1954)
September 5, 1936. The death of a Loyalist militaman
1936
Gelatin silver print

“The Spanish War Kills Its First Woman Photographer,” in LIFE magazine (Gerda Taro, July 1937)

Gerda Taro (1910-1937)

Gerta Pohorylle (1 August 1910 – 26 July 1937), known professionally as Gerda Taro, was a German Jewish war photographer active during the Spanish Civil War. She is regarded as the first woman photojournalist to have died while covering the frontline in a war.

Taro was the companion and professional partner of photographer Robert Capa. The name “Robert Capa” was originally an alias that Taro and Capa (born Endre Friedmann) shared, an invention meant to mitigate the increasing political intolerance in Europe and to attract the lucrative American market. A significant amount of what is credited as Robert Capa’s early work was actually made by Taro.

Coverage of the Spanish Civil War

When the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, Taro travelled to Barcelona, Spain, to cover the events with Capa and David “Chim” Seymour. Taro acquired the nickname of La pequeña rubia (“The little blonde”). They covered the war together in northeastern Aragon and in the southern Córdoba province. Always together under the common and using the bogus signature of Robert Capa, they succeeded in publishing through important publications (the Swiss Zürcher Illustrierte, the French Vu). Their early war photographs are distinguishable since Taro used a Rollei camera which rendered squared photographs while Capa produced rectangular pictures using a Contax camera[citation needed] or a Leica camera. However, for some time in 1937 they each produced similar 35 mm pictures under the label of Capa&Taro.

Subsequently, Taro attained some independence. She refused Capa’s marriage proposal. Also, she became publicly related to the circle of anti-fascist European and intellectuals (such as Ernest Hemingway and George Orwell) who crusaded particularly for the Spanish Republic. fr:Ce Soir, a communist newspaper of France, signed her for publishing Taro’s works only. Then, she began to commercialise her production under the Photo Taro label. Regards, Life, Illustrated London News and Volks-Illustrierte (the exile edition of Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung) were amongst the publications that used her work.

Reporting the Valencia bombing alone, Taro obtained the photographs which are her most celebrated. Also, in July 1937, Taro’s photographs were in demand by the international press when, alone, she was covering the Brunete region near Madrid for Ce Soir. Although the Nationalist propaganda claimed that the region was under its control, the Republican forces had in fact forced that faction out. Taro’s photographs were the only testimony of the actual situation.

Text from the Wikipedia website

“So nobody will forget your unconditional struggle for a better world” (epitaph in French and Catalan on her tomb in Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris)

“The Spanish War Kills Its First Woman Photographer,” in LIFE Magazine (Gerda Taro, July 1937)

Robert Capa

(Endre Ernő Friedmann)
22 October 1913, Budapest, Hungary – 25 May 1954, Thái Bình, Vietnam

He never avoided challenges – he brought his restless, adventurous spirit and toughness from Hungary. He hardly had anything else in his luggage when he left his native country in 1931. He made photo-history with his war reportage on the Spanish Civil War, WWII, China, and Vietnam. His stories and, in particular, his slogan – “if your photographs aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough” – made him a legendary person. But he made a mistake in Thái Bình. He went too close.

His brother wrote about him: “He lived a lot and suffered a lot during his short life. He was born poor and died poor. He bequeathed us the chronicle of his unique career along with the visual proof of his conviction: not only can mankind endure a lot but it is able to win every now and then.”

His parents – Júlia Berkovits and Dezső Friedmann – were tailors, who ran a prosperous show-room in Budapest. Their first child was László, followed by Endre and five years later by Kornél. After a Lutheran elementary school, Robert Capa went to study at Madách Secondary School. Inspierd by Lajos Kassák, he became interested in journalism in 1929, one year before his matriculation. After 1930, he was a photographer.

He was a good friend of Suzanne Szász, i.e. Székely Zsuzsa, already in Budapest. He lived at the same house as Éva Besnyő, who was his first childhood love.

He was shortly imprisoned because of his leftist connections and his participation in a leftist demonstration on 1 September 1930. In prison, he learnt the methods of the infamous investigator Péter Hain, who beat him so hard that he lost consciousness. He was released through his parents’ connections and he almost immediately left the country.

According to one of the legends, he only had a stick of salami in his luggage when he left. His train ticket to Vienna was paid by the Jewish Community of Pest, from there he went on to Prague through Brno and somehow he eventually arrived in Berlin. He left in July 1931 and it took him two or three weeks to get to the German capital. He studied journalism at the German Political College (Deutsche Hochschule für Politik). Since his parents were becoming poor and were not able to support him, he went to work as a photo lab assistant at the photo agency Dephot (Deutscher Photodienst). In the beginning, almost everybody spoke Hungarian at Dephot. No wonder since it was founded by Simon Guttmann and its financial manager was László Fekete, known as Ladislaus Glück at that time.

There were László Czigány (Taci) and György Markos among his fellow-workers and friends. He received his first camera at this time, a Voigtländer 6×9 from György Kepes. Later he got a Leica from Guttmann to carry out smaller assignments.

In 1932, he was sent by Guttmann to make the report which made him famous: he took the photo of Leon Trotsky at the Socialist Congress in Copenhagen. He was the only one to succeed in taking a photo of Trotsky, since photography was strictly forbidden at the meeting. The photo was published by Weltspiegel on a full page.

He was assisted in adapting himself to the foreign city and culture by his friends from Budapest, György Kepes and Éva Besnyő. They often invited him for dinner at their home, actively contributing to his subsistence besides his spiritual development. (At this time he stealthily ate the everyday roast-meat chop of his landlady’s dachshund.) He had to leave Berlin in 1933, which became more and more dangerous for left-wing Jewish intellectual immigrants. He went to Vienna and from there to Budapest by boat. He went to court schoolgirls at Lajos Pécsi’s studio in Dorottya Street almost everyday with his friends from the Munka-kör (Work Circle), among them Lajos Kassák. He worked for photographer Ferenc Veres in Budapest, taking photos of Budapest for touristic leaflets and publications. But he did not do it just howsoever! He did it by the metre. The photographer bought the exposed and developed Leica-films by 26 frames, i.e. by the metre from Endre Friedmann. We do not know what happened to these pictures or those he made in 1933 at the World Scout Jamboree in Gödöllő. Some of them were certainly taken to Paris, where a photographer friend of his tried to sell them to French photo agencies – without any success.

He moved to Paris in September 1933, still not as Capa, but neither as Bandi Friedmann any more; he tried to sell his photos under his new name André Friedman – with little success. He was starving more often than eating well. The young Hungarian with many names yet being actually an unknown photographer was helped by André Kertész with work, connections, his friendship and – knowing Capa – certainly with some money, too. (Later – already in America – he designed Capa’s book titled Death in the Making [Így készül a halál] from Gerda Taro’s and Capa’s photos taken in Spain.) He came into contact with Gisèle Freund, Hans Namuth and Chim at this time. Soon after he made friends with Henri Cartier-Bresson.

His first photo report was published in 1934 in Vu Magazine. He changed his name to Capa around this time almost together with his girlfriend Gerda Pohorylle, whose name became Gerda Taro. Foreign literature wrongly put together the name of Robert Capa from those of Robert Taylor and Frank Capra, but, to our knowledge, he was called Cápa (shark) because of his big mouth and pushy behaviour already at secondary school in Budapest. All he did abroad was to make it sound English by dropping the accent. The change of his name was also motivated by financial interests, since Gerda was able to sell the photos of a successful American photographer at a price three times higher than those of André. His appearance was also significantly transformed together with the change of his name. He had his long hair cut and he began to wear well-ironed suits, believing that it would be the seal of his success. However, it was difficult for him to work up the change of his name and the radical transformation of his appearance mentally.

He went to record the Spanish Civil War in 1936/37 together with Gerda Taro (whom he taught photography), assigned by Regards, a leftist French weekly magazine. And why should he not have received accreditation when his commissioner, Regards had a Hungarian editor, Pál Aranyossy writing under the name of Falus? Dezső Hoffmann was also working here at this time. Gerda died during an air-raid, but Spain became the springboard to world-wide fame for Capa since his photo titled “The Falling Soldier” irrevocably became a classic.

He worked in London, Paris and returned to Spain to take photos at the fall of Barcelona. He was everywhere where the sky was resounding. Besides the weekly magazine Regards, his photos were also published in LIFE. A countless number of his photos were published by Stefan Lorant in his journals, in Weekly Illustrated and in Picture Post. Lorant coined the slogan “The Greatest War Photographer in the World: Robert Capa,” which accompanied him all through his life.

He spent six months in China with film director Joris Ivens and cameraman John Fernhout during the Japanese occupation. He learnt English from the Dutch in the middle of China and he taught them songs of Hungarian highwaymen in exchange. By the way, Fernhout was Éva Besnyő’s first husband, whom she met earlier in the Spanish Civil War.

Capa returned to Paris, then went back to Spain again to take the series of photos published on 11 pages in Picture Post, two pages in LIFE and five pages in Regards.

After his father died in Budapest, he had nothing else binding him to Europe, so he moved to the United States in 1939 following his mother and his younger brother. Not only his photography, but also the typical Hungarian “lecho” (lecsó) dish cooked by Júlia Friedmann became a legend in the larger group of their friends. He preserved his Hungarian bonds: in his writing “Why have I left home?” he wrote about the conspiracy with his secondary schoolmates under the pillars of the Chain Bridge in Budapest. At the time, he mostly made reportage for LIFE, for example about the presidential elections in Mexico, where he met Kati Deutsch again, a former pupil of Hungarian photographer Lajos Pécsi.

He authored a book in 1941 together with writer Diana Forbes-Robertson about the air battle of London, entitled The Battle of Waterloo Road. After Hungary’s declaration of war, for being a citizen of an enemy state, he was not allowed to leave a ten-mile range of New York and he was also forbidden to take photos. However, in a rather short time, as perhaps the only alien enemy, he achieved to be accredited by the U. S. Army. He only had these personal documents at that time: U. S. residence permit, a Hungarian passport and letters of assignment from various journals. It did not pose an unsolvable problem to him, since he already succeeded in crossing international borders with an expired passport and a nicely decorated Hungarian restaurant menu – and with his big talk – already ten years earlier.

He took photos in England, North Africa, Sicily and in other parts of Italy. He landed with the first American troops on D-Day. He covered the last German offensive in Belgium and took photos about the fall of Leipzig. In the last day of the war he was asked by the Paris correspondent of the American Army’s radio to read an appeal in Hungarian on the air to persuade the population of besieged Budapest to turn against the Germans. Capa accepted to do it; however, by this time his Hungarian had become so rusty that he had to give it up in disgrace. After this incident, his friends were teasing him unmercifully about being a fake Hungarian. At this time Hemingway’s saying became a classic: “Capa speaks seven languages, but all of them poorly.”

At the end of the war, he was about to have a business-card printed with the title “Robert Capa, war photographer, unemployed.” Being aware of the course of world history since that time and Capa’s life story, he could hardly have distributed a lot of these cards. He received U. S. citizenship after the war, officially under the name of Robert Capa.

He went to the Soviet Union in 1947 with John Steinbeck, who wrote about him: “Capa was able to see and use what he had discovered. He was able to show the whole population’s hatred on a child’s face… Capa’s work is the proof of his great heart and his exuberant compassion… I frequently travelled and worked with Capa. He may have had much closer friends but nobody liked him as much as I did. He liked to seem to be easy and carefree in his work. But he was not. His photos are not accidental.”

In the same year, he founded Magnum in New York with Henri Cartier-Bresson, David Seymour, George Rodger, Maria Eisner, William Vandivert and his wife. Organising the agency, getting clients and making money took much of his time. He wrote to Maria Eisner around 1950: “I enjoy so much to be able to take photos again that I think I will get into to the habit.” After his death, Magnum was taken on and managed by his younger brother, Kornél Friedmann – or as he is better known: Cornell Capa.

In 1947, Robert Capa went to Turkey with a 16 mm film camera. A little bit later he covered the birth of the State of Israel. In Tel Aviv he met a lot of Hungarian acquaintances and then, guided by Paul Goldmann, a photographer of Hungarian origins, he took pictures of the heroic defence at the Kibbutz Negba in the Negev Desert. He also recorded the immigrant Hungarian battalion fighting for the liberation of Jerusalem.

In 1948, he spent six weeks in Hungary, taking photos of the war-torn country with the more and more evident signs of communist influence. At this time reconstruction works were implemented under the first three-year plan. He was accompanied by György Markos, his friend in Berlin and then in Paris. He took photos at the Ganz Shipyard, he recorded the first rice harvest in Békés County and the city of Budapest reviving from the ruins. “The day before I left, I went to get my exit visa. The sergeant who handled foreigners studied my passport very thoroughly. After stamping my exit visa, he asked me which school I went to. I told him the name of my secondary school in Budapest and he promptly listed my teachers and found out the year of my matriculation. He attended the same school, which he finished two years later than me. He gave back my passport and said: “If you had been born two years later with your talent, you either would not be alive today or you would be a secretary of a minister. This way, however, you are only a troubled Western liberal. This is historical materialism.”” This story, entitled “Conversation in Budapest” was published a year later in Holiday Magazine.

Until 1952, he mostly reported about his travels on assignment by Holiday Magazine, often writing the articles as well. Although he never grew rich, he was always full of ideas hiding opportunities to make a lot of money. Once he said: “I will never make millions. You make millions if you have one good idea. When you have twenty a day, you have to share them.” He was proud of his shrewdness that he attributed to being Hungarian. He reversed the well-known slogan from Hollywood, quoted earlier. In his version he said: “It is not enough to have talent, you also have to be Hungarian.”

In 1954, he was sent to Indochina by LIFE to cover the French colonies. On 25 May, he stepped on a land-mine and died. He was honoured with a posthumous Croix de Guerre by General René Cogny.

Capa’s memory has not faded – neither in Hungary, nor abroad. This is, not the least, due to his younger brother who, after the deaths of Capa, Bischof and Chim, felt that he did not have a more important task in his life than ensuring eternal life for these geniuses of photography. His zeal is attested by several exhibitions and books. His work was not without success: almost thirty years after Capa’s death, one of the best Hungarian writers, Ferenc Karinthy wrote about the photographer in his book The End of the World (Vége a világnak). Also András Simor wrote a poem as an homage to the photographer and to the soldier he made immortal. Film director Miklós Jancsó wrote an essay for the fortieth anniversary of Thái Bình. And above all: there is no photographic history or textbook without mentioning both of their names with Robert Capa on the top.

Károly Kincses (2005) “Robert Capa,” on the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center website [Online] Cited 03/11/2019

Please note: according to Capa’s birth entry his fathers name was Dávid Friedman (one n) and he was named Endre Ernő Friedman (one n). According to my friend György Németh whom this information came from, he later used his name with two N. As György says, it’s a bit of a mess as he used all kind of spelling throughout his life. Thank you György!

Robert Capa’s birth entry

Second gallery

Installation view of the exhibition The Photojournalist Robert Capa II at the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center, Budapest

Robert Capa (American-Hungarian, 1913-1954)
Fountain rubble in city square, Stalingrad, USSR
August 1-31, 1947
Gelatin silver print, printed 1990s
50 x 40 cm

Robert Capa (American-Hungarian, 1913-1954)
Student civil-defense volunteers assisting the wounded, Guangzhou, China
July-September 1938
Gelatin silver print, printed 1990s
40 x 50 cm

Installation views of the exhibition The Photojournalist Robert Capa II at the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center, Budapest

Robert Capa (American-Hungarian, 1913-1954)
Funeral procession for victim killed on the day of the presidential elections, Mexico City, Mexico
July 9, 1940
Gelatin silver print, printed 1990s
40 x 50 cm

Robert Capa (American-Hungarian, 1913-1954)
Man and cat outside an air-raid shelter, London, UK
June-July 1941
Gelatin silver print, printed 1990s
40 x 50 cm

Installation views of the exhibition The Photojournalist Robert Capa II at the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center, Budapest

Robert Capa (American-Hungarian, 1913-1954)
Medical transport craft for men wounded in the first wave of American troops landing on D-Day, off Omaha Beach, near Colelville-sur-Mer, Omaha Beach, Normandy, France
June 6, 1944
Gelatin silver print, printed 1990s
50 x 40 cm

Robert Capa (American-Hungarian, 1913-1954)
German soldiers captured by American forces burying some of the men killed during the D-Day landings, near Colelville-sur-Mer, Omaha Beach, Normandy, France
June 1944
Gelatin silver print, printed 1990s
50 x 40 cm

Robert Capa (American-Hungarian, 1913-1954)
American soldiers guard a group of captured Germans, southwest of Saint-Lð, Normandy, France
July 26-30, 1944
Gelatin silver print, printed 1990s
40 x 50 cm

Robert Capa (American-Hungarian, 1913-1954)
Cow in the middle of a street lined with ruined buildings, Normandy, France
June-July 1944
Gelatin silver print, printed 1990s
40 x 50 cm

Robert Capa (American-Hungarian, 1913-1954)
Soldiers leading a French woman who had collaborated with the Germans to the Préfecture de Police to have her head shaved, Chartres, France
August 18, 1944
Gelatin silver print, printed 1990s
40 x 50 cm

Installation view of the exhibition The Photojournalist Robert Capa II at the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center, Budapest

Robert Capa (American-Hungarian, 1913-1954)
German soldiers captured by American forces during the Battle of the Bulge, south of Bastogne, Belgium
December 23-26, 1944
Gelatin silver print, printed 1990s
50 x 40 cm

Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center, Budapest
8 Nagymező Street, 1065 Budapest, Hungary
Phone: +36 1 413 1310

Opening hours:
Monday – Sunday: 11 am – 7 pm

Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center, Budapest website

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Nov

Exhibition: ‘Gordon Parks: The Flávio Story’ at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Center, Los Angeles

By Dr Marcus Bunyan Leave a Comment

Categories: American, american photographers, black and white photography, documentary photography, exhibition, existence, gallery website, intimacy, landscape, light, memory, photographic series, photography, photojournalism, portrait, quotation, reality, space, street photography, time and works on paper
Tags: Abia and Isabel da Silva, African American photographer, Apartment Building Where the Gonzalez Family lives, Aracy a Neighbour of the da Silva Family, Bedroom in the Gonzalez Family Apartment, Brazilian press, camera as a weapon, Catacumba, Catacumba favela, Catacumba Hill, Child Crying at the Window, Child Playing Surrounded by Trash, Children's Asthma Research Institute and Hospital, economic and racial inequality, Ely-Samuel Gonzalez on His Bed, Family's Day Begins, favela, Felix and Esther Gonzalez, first African-American staff photographer at Life, Flávio and Cleuza da Silva, Flávio Catches His First Fish, Flávio da Silva, Flávio da Silva Looking at Gordon Parks's Book 'Moments Without Proper Names', Flávio Waves Goodbye to the Gonçalves Family, Flávio's story, Four Officials Inspect Catacumba Favela, Freedom's Fearful Foe, Gordon Parks, Gordon Parks Abia and Isabel da Silva, Gordon Parks and Flávio da Silva at Airport, Gordon Parks Catacumba Favela, Gordon Parks Family's Day Begins, Gordon Parks Flavio, Gordon Parks Flávio and Cleuza da Silva, Gordon Parks Flávio da Silva, Gordon Parks Flávio da Silva Looking at Gordon Parks's Book 'Moments Without Proper Names', Gordon Parks Isabel da Silva, Gordon Parks Mário da Silva Crying after Being Bitten by Dog, Gordon Parks Nair da Silva Holding Zacarias, Gordon Parks The da Silva Children Climbing the Hillside, Gordon Parks The da Silva Family, Gordon Parks: The Flávio Story, Henri Ballot, Henri Ballot Apartment Building Where the Gonzalez Family lives, Henri Ballot Aracy a Neighbour of the da Silva Family, Henri Ballot Bedroom in the Gonzalez Family Apartment, Henri Ballot Child Crying at the Window, Henri Ballot Child Playing Surrounded by Trash, Henri Ballot Ely-Samuel Gonzalez on His Bed, Henri Ballot Maria Penha da Silva, Henri Ballot Photographer Henri Ballot with Ely-Samuel, Isabel da Silva, José Gonçalves, José Gonçalves Flávio Catches His First Fish, José Gonçalves Flávio Waves Goodbye to the Gonçalves Family, José Gonçalves Snapshot of Flávio da Silva and the Gonçalves Family, Latin America, LIFE Magazine, Lower East Side in Manhattan, Maria Penha da Silva, Mário da Silva Crying after Being Bitten by Dog, Nair da Silva Holding Zacarias, Nôvo recorde americano: Miséria, New American Record: Misery, O Cruzeiro, Paulo Muniz, Paulo Muniz Gordon Parks and Flávio da Silva at Airport, personal history, photo essay, photo essays, Photographer Henri Ballot with Ely-Samuel, poverty, poverty in New York, racial discrimination, Removal of Residents' Possessions Catacumba Hill, Renaissance man, Rio de Janeiro, Snapshot of Flávio da Silva and the Gonçalves Family, social and political injustice, The da Silva Children Climbing the Hillside, The da Silva Family, The Flávio Story

Exhibition dates: 9th July – 10th November 2019

Curator: Amanda Maddox and Paul Roth

Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006)
Flavio
1978
Paper Closed: 21.6 × 15.1 cm (8 1/2 × 5 15/16 in.)
Collection of the Ryerson Image Centre
© The Gordon Parks Foundation

“Playing God can be a tricky business”

There are some heartbreaking images (in particular by French/Brazilian photographer Henri Ballot), but in Parks photographs we never seem to hear Flavio’s voice – just his representation through the image. Despite Parks coming from a similar background of poverty and disenfranchisement and wanting the best for the boy, one can only wonder about the psychological effects of showing him the promised land and then having it all taken away.

The only time we come close to hearing Flavio’s wishes and his voice is in a snippet: “In spite of his wish to remain in the United States, Flávio was sent back to Brazil in 1963. Now 70 years old, he has never returned to the United States.”

Marcus

.
Many thankx to the J. Paul Getty Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

On assignment to document poverty in Brazil for Life magazine, American photographer Gordon Parks encountered one of the most important subjects of his career: Flávio da Silva. Parks featured the resourceful, ailing boy from an impoverished Rio favela (Portuguese for shantytown) and his family in the heart-rending 1961 photo essay “Freedom’s Fearful Foe.” It resulted in donations from Life readers but sparked controversy in Brazil. This exhibition explores the celebrated photo essay, tracing the extraordinary chain of events it triggered and Parks’ representation of Flávio over several decades.

Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006)
Untitled (Flávio da Silva), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1961
Gelatin silver print
Image (approx.): 35.6 × 27.9 cm (14 × 11 in.)
The Gordon Parks Foundation
© The Gordon Parks Foundation

Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006)
Family’s Day Begins, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Negative 1961, printed later
Gelatin silver print
Image: 27.3 × 35.6 cm (10 3/4 × 14 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Purchased with funds provided by the Photographs Council
© The Gordon Parks Foundation

Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006)
Untitled (The da Silva Children Climbing the Hillside), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1961
Gelatin silver print
Image: 33.7 × 23.2 cm (13 1/4 × 9 1/8 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Purchased in part with funds provided by the Photographs Council, Trish and Jan de Bont, Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser, Manfred Heiting, Lyle and Lisi Poncher, and Devon Susholtz and Stephen Purvis
© The Gordon Parks Foundation

Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006)
Mário da Silva, Crying after Being Bitten by Dog, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Negative 1961, printed later
Gelatin silver print
Image: 20 × 13.3 cm (7 7/8 × 5 1/4 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Purchased with funds provided by the Photographs Council
© The Gordon Parks Foundation

Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006)
Catacumba Favela, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Negative 1961, printed later
Gelatin silver print
Image: 17.9 × 18.7 cm (7 1/16 × 7 3/8 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Purchased with funds provided by the Photographs Council
© The Gordon Parks Foundation

Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006)
Flávio da Silva, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1961
Gelatin silver print
Image: 33.7 × 22.2 cm (13 1/4 × 8 3/4 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Purchased with funds provided by the Photographs Council
© The Gordon Parks Foundation

Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006)
Isabel da Silva, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Negative 1961, printed later
Gelatin silver print
Image: 32.7 × 22.2 cm (12 7/8 × 8 3/4 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Purchased with funds provided by the Photographs Council
© The Gordon Parks Foundation

Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006)
Abia and Isabel da Silva, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Negative 1961, printed later
Gelatin silver print
Image: 23 × 29.9 cm (9 1/16 × 11 3/4 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Purchased with funds provided by the Photographs Council
© The Gordon Parks Foundation

Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006)
Untitled (Nair da Silva, Holding Zacarias), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Negative 1961, printed later
Gelatin silver print
Image: 30.5 × 22.9 cm (12 × 9 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Purchased with funds provided by the Photographs Council
© The Gordon Parks Foundation

Paulo Muniz (Brazilian, 1918-1994)
Untitled (Gordon Parks and Flávio da Silva at Airport, Soon to Fly to United States), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Negative July 5, 1961, printed later
Gelatin silver print
Framed: 72.9 × 57.6 cm (28 11/16 × 22 11/16 in.)
The Gordon Parks Foundation Courtesy of the artist’s estate/IMS

Unknown maker
Untitled (Four Officials Inspect Catacumba Favela)
August 7, 1967
Gelatin silver print
Image: 18.1 × 24 cm (7 1/8 × 9 7/16 in.)
Diários Associados Collection-Rio de Janiero/Instituto Moreira Salles

Unknown maker
Untitled (Removal of Residents’ Possessions, Catacumba Hill, Avenida Epitácio Pessoa)
October 15, 1970
Gelatin silver print
Image: 24.1 × 18 cm (9 1/2 × 7 1/16 in.)
Diários Associados Collection-Rio de Janiero/Instituto Moreira Salles

José Gonçalves (American, born 1927)
Flávio Catches His First Fish, Denver, Colorado
Negative about 1962, print about 1977
Gelatin silver print
Sheet: 25.4 × 20.3 cm (10 × 8 in.)
The Gordon Parks Foundation
© José Gonçalves

José Gonçalves (American, born 1927)
Untitled (Snapshot of Flávio da Silva and the Gonçalves Family)
Negative 1961-63; printed 1976
Chromogenic print
Sheet: 12.7 × 8.9 cm (5 × 3 1/2 in.)
The Gordon Parks Foundation
© José Gonçalves

José Gonçalves (American, born 1927)
Untitled (Snapshot of Flávio da Silva and the Gonçalves Family)
Negative 1961-63; printed 1976
Chromogenic print
Sheet: 8.9 × 12.4 cm (3 1/2 × 4 7/8 in.)
The Gordon Parks Foundation
© José Gonçalves

José Gonçalves (American, born 1927)
Flávio Waves Goodbye to the Gonçalves Family from the Train That Will Take Him to New York, Denver, Colorado
Negative July 27, 1963, print about 1977
Gelatin silver print
Sheet: 20.3 × 25.4 cm (8 × 10 in.)
The Gordon Parks Foundation
© José Gonçalves

The J. Paul Getty Museum announced today an exhibition of photographs by celebrated artist Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006). On view July 9-November 10, 2019 at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Center, Gordon Parks: The Flávio Story explores one of the most important photo essays Parks produced for Life magazine and traces how its publication prompted an extraordinary sequence of events over several decades. The exhibition is co-organised by the Getty and the Ryerson Image Centre in Toronto, Canada in partnership with Instituto Moreira Salles, Brazil, and The Gordon Parks Foundation, New York.

“Gordon Parks’ photographs chronicling social justice, civil rights, and the African-American experience in the United States are both a vital historical document and a compelling body of artistic work,” says Timothy Potts, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. “And, of all his varied projects, Parks considered the photographs of Flávio among his most important achievements. The great impact that it had, and still has today, can only be appreciated by presenting these photographs in their full socio-political context, which is what this exhibition does for the first time.”

An accomplished filmmaker, composer, writer and poet, Parks is best remembered for his prolific career as a photographer. He became the first African-American photographer on staff at Life magazine, where he covered subjects ranging from fashion to social injustice. In 1961 the magazine sent him to Brazil with a specific assignment: to document poverty in Rio de Janeiro for a special series on Latin America. Told to photograph the hardworking father of a large, impoverished household, Parks all but disregarded these instructions and turned his attention instead to one resident in particular – an industrious, severely asthmatic twelve-year-old boy named Flávio da Silva who lived in Catacumba, one of Rio’s working class neighbourhoods known as favelas.

Over the course of several weeks Parks photographed Flávio as he performed household chores and entertained his seven brothers and sisters – daily activities that were often interrupted by debilitating asthma attacks. Having himself grown up in abject poverty in Kansas, Parks felt deep sympathy for his subject and forged an emotional bond with him. Ultimately Parks advocated for a comprehensive photo essay dedicated to Flávio’s story in the pages of Life; editors responded by publishing a twelve-page piece, titled “Freedom’s Fearful Foe: Poverty,” in June 1961. The exhibition will include images from this spread, as well as outtakes from the assignment.

Within days of its publication in the magazine, Flávio’s story emerged as a blockbuster. Moved by Parks’ heartbreaking coverage, Life‘s readers wrote thousands of letters and spontaneously donated money to support the da Silva family and the revitalisation of the favela. Upon seeing the images, the president of the Children’s Asthma Research Institute and Hospital (CARIH) in Denver, Colorado offered to treat Flávio as a patient, free of charge. In July 1961, Life sent Parks back to Rio as part of the magazine’s follow-up efforts. After helping to move the da Silva family from Catacumba, Parks accompanied Flávio from Rio to the United States. For the next two years Flávio lived and received treatment at CARIH but spent most weekends with a Portugeuse-speaking host family who introduced him to various aspects of American culture.

Anticipating a compelling story about Flávio’s medical progress and experience in the U.S., Life assigned a local photographer, Hikaru “Carl” Iwasaki, to document the boy’s arrival in Denver, admission to the hospital, and acclimation at school. A selection of these images will be on view in the exhibition, including some that Life never published, alongside snapshots made by Flávio’s host father in Denver, José Gonçalves. In spite of his wish to remain in the United States, Flávio was sent back to Brazil in 1963. Now 70 years old, he has never returned to the United States.

When published in 1961, “Freedom’s Fearful Foe: Poverty” was also met with criticism, particularly within the Brazilian press. Outraged and determined to retaliate against Life‘s negative portrayal of the Catacumba favela and its residents, the Brazilian magazine O Cruzeiro sent staff photographer Henri Ballot to report on poverty in New York, where Life was headquartered. While exploring the Lower East Side in Manhattan, Ballot documented an immigrant family from Puerto Rico – Felix and Esther Gonzalez and their children – who lived in a derelict one-bedroom apartment. Arguing that poverty was equally endemic in the United States, O Cruzeiro published Ballot’s photographs in October 1961 in the photo essay “Nôvo recorde americano: Miséria” (New American Record: Misery). Photographs from this story, as well as from an investigative exposé on Parks’ reportage also published in O Cruzeiro in 1961, will be on view in the exhibition.

Over the years Parks periodically returned to Flávio as a subject. In 1976 he published Flávio, which recounted and updated the story through words and pictures. In the book’s introduction, Parks provided insight into his own conflicted engagement with certain photographic assignments that focused on people like the da Silva family, acknowledging that he “was perhaps playing God” by digging “deeper and deeper into the privacy of these lives, hoping … to reshape their destinies into something much better.” Following this admission, Parks returned to Brazil only once in the 1990s; it marked the last time Parks and Flávio saw each other prior to Parks’ death in 2006.

“Parks regarded poverty as ‘the most savage of all human afflictions,’ in no small part because he was born into destitution,” says Amanda Maddox, co-curator of the exhibition and an associate curator at the Getty Museum. “As a photographer he consciously wielded his camera as a weapon – his chosen term – in an attempt to combat economic and racial inequality. Viewed in this context, his documentation of Flávio da Silva – for Life and beyond – reveals the complexity of his empathetic approach and the inherent difficulties of representing someone else’s personal story – a story that resonated with many people over many years – in any form.”

In addition to more than 100 photographs, the exhibition will also include original issues of Life that featured Flávio’s story, previously unseen ephemera related to Flávio’s time in Denver, and private memos, correspondence, and records held by Life and Parks.

Gordon Parks: The Flávio Story is on view July 9-November 10, 2019 at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Center. The exhibition is co-curated by Amanda Maddox, associate curator of photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum, and Paul Roth, director of the Ryerson Image Centre. An accompanying book is available, published by Steidl Verlag, with essays by Maddox and Roth, as well as Sergio Burgi, curator at Instituto Moreira Salles; Beatriz Jaguaribe, professor of comparative communications, School of Communications, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro; and Maria Alice Rezende de Carvalho, professor of sociology, Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro.

Press release from the J. Paul Getty Museum Cited 27/10/2019

Henri Ballot (French / Brazilian, 1921-1997)
Ely-Samuel Gonzalez on His Bed, Manhattan, New York
1961
Gelatin silver print
Image: 23.5 × 15.8 cm (9 1/4 × 6 1/4 in.)
Henri Ballot/Instituto Moreira Salles Collection

Henri Ballot (French / Brazilian, 1921-1997)
Apartment Building Where the Gonzalez Family lives, Manhattan, New York
1961
Gelatin silver print
Image: 16 × 23.9 cm (6 5/16 × 9 7/16 in.)
Henri Ballot/Instituto Moreira Salles Collection

Henri Ballot (French / Brazilian, 1921-1997)
Child Playing Surrounded by Trash, Manhattan, New York
1961
Gelatin silver print
Image: 16 × 24 cm (6 5/16 × 9 7/16 in.)
Henri Ballot/Instituto Moreira Salles Collection

Henri Ballot (French / Brazilian, 1921-1997)
Bedroom in the Gonzalez Family Apartment, Manhattan, New York
1961
Gelatin silver print
Image: 18.3 × 24 cm (7 3/16 × 9 7/16 in.)
Henri Ballot/Instituto Moreira Salles Collection

Henri Ballot (French / Brazilian, 1921-1997)
Child Crying at the Window, Manhattan, New York
1961
Gelatin silver print
Image: 24.2 × 18 cm (9 1/2 × 7 1/16 in.)
Henri Ballot/Instituto Moreira Salles Collection

Henri Ballot (French / Brazilian, 1921-1997)
Photographer Henri Ballot with Ely-Samuel (on the Left) and His Brothers, Manhattan, New York
1961
Gelatin silver print
Image: 17.8 × 24.4 cm (7 × 9 5/8 in.)
Henri Ballot/Instituto Moreira Salles Collection

Henri Ballot (French / Brazilian, 1921-1997)
Maria Penha da Silva, Flávio’s Grandmother, and Her Other Grandchildren, Reading ‘Life’, Guadalupe, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1961
Gelatin silver print
Image: 16 × 24 cm (6 5/16 × 9 7/16 in.)
Henri Ballot/Instituto Moreira Salles Collection

Henri Ballot (French / Brazilian, 1921-1997)
Aracy, a Neighbour of the da Silva Family, Pointing out Where the Photographs for Gordon Parks’s Reportage Were Taken in the da Silvas’ Former Home, Catacumba Hill, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1961
Gelatin silver print
Image: 23.8 × 15.9 cm (9 3/8 × 6 1/4 in.)
Henri Ballot/Instituto Moreira Salles Collection

Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006)
Untitled (The da Silva Family), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Negative 1976, printed later
Gelatin silver print
Image: 22.9 × 34 cm (9 × 13 3/8 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Purchased with funds provided by the Photographs Council
© The Gordon Parks Foundation

Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006)
Untitled (Flávio da Silva), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Negative 1976, printed later
Gelatin silver print
Image: 34.3 × 23.5 cm (13 1/2 × 9 1/4 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Purchased with funds provided by the Photographs Council
© The Gordon Parks Foundation

Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006)
Untitled (Flávio da Silva), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1976
Gelatin silver print
Sheet: 35.6 × 27.9 cm (14 × 11 in.)
The Gordon Parks Foundation
© The Gordon Parks Foundation

Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006)
Flávio da Silva Looking at Gordon Parks’s Book ‘Moments Without Proper Names’, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1976
Gelatin silver print
Sheet: 35.6 × 27.9 cm (14 × 11 in.)
The Gordon Parks Foundation
© The Gordon Parks Foundation

Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006)
Untitled (Flávio and Cleuza da Silva), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1976
Gelatin silver print
Sheet: 35.6 × 27.9 cm (14 × 11 in.)
The Gordon Parks Foundation
© The Gordon Parks Foundation

Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006)
Untitled (Flávio da Silva), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1999
Gelatin silver print
Image: 20.3 × 25.4 cm (8 × 10 in.)
The Gordon Parks Foundation
© The Gordon Parks Foundation

Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006)
Untitled (Flávio da Silva), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1999
Gelatin silver print
Sheet: 25.4 × 20.3 cm (10 × 8 in.)
The Gordon Parks Foundation
© The Gordon Parks Foundation

The J. Paul Getty Museum
1200 Getty Center Drive
Los Angeles, California 90049

Opening hours:
Tues – Friday 10 am – 5.30 pm
Saturday 10 am – 9 pm
Sunday 10 am – 5.30 pm
Monday closed

The J. Paul Getty Museum website

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Oct

Exhibition: ‘Wolfgang Schulz and the Photography Scene around 1980’ at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg

By Dr Marcus Bunyan Leave a Comment

Categories: beauty, Berlin, black and white photography, colour photography, documentary photography, exhibition, existence, gallery website, intimacy, landscape, light, memory, New York, photographic series, photography, portrait, psychological, reality, space, street photography, time and works on paper
Tags: Agrarlandschaften, Agricultural Landscapes, André Gelpke, André Gelpke Powder Keg III, André Gelpke Pulverfaß, André Gelpke Sex Theater, Andreas Horlitz, Andreas Horlitz Essen Frühling, Angela Neuke, Angela Neuke Deutschlandbesuch von US-Präsident Ronald Reagan in Zusammenhang mit der NATO-Ministerkonferenz, Angela Neuke US President Ronald Reagan visiting Germany for the NATO Ministerial Conference, Blood Sausage, Blutwurst, Camera Austria, Dagmar Hartig, Dörte Eißfeldt, Dörte Eißfeldt Dunkelrücken, Dörte Eißfeldt Große Liebe, Deutschlandbesuch von US-Präsident Ronald Reagan in Zusammenhang mit der NATO-Ministerkonferenz, Dunkelrücken, erotic theatre, Essen Frühling, European photography, Fotogeschichte, Fotografie, Fotografie. Zeitschrift internationaler Fotokunst, Fotografie: Kultur jetzt, Fotokritik, German photography, German photography scene 1980, Große Liebe, Hans-Christian Adam, Hans-Christian Adam Underwater Group Portrait, Hans-Christian Adam Unterwasser-Gruppenportrait, Heinrich Riebesehl, Heinrich Riebesehl Agrarlandschaften, Heinrich Riebesehl Agricultural landscapes, Heinrich Riebesehl Schillerslage (Hannover), historical archaeology of German photography, history of photography, Holger Stumpf, Holger Stumpf Planetarium Stadtpark, Kohlscheid, Mediendocumenta, Miron Zownir New York, Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, non-establishment subcultures, North German landscape, people living on the margins of society, Petra Wittmar playgrounds, Petra Wittmar Spielplätze, photographic montage, Planetarium Stadtpark, playgrounds, poetic photography, Powder Keg III, Pulverfaß, realities of life in West Germany, Reconsidering Photography, Reinhard Matz, Reinhard Matz Blood Sausage, Reinhard Matz Blutwurst, representation of private realities, residential architecture, Schillerslage (Hannover), Sex Theater, SM queer and transsexual scene, Spielplätze, St. Pauli entertainment district, True Love, Underwater Group Portrait, Unterwasser-Gruppenportrait, Urban Landscapes, US President Ronald Reagan visiting Germany for the NATO Ministerial Conference, Verena von Gagern, Verena von Gagern Barbara, Volksfoto, Wilhelm Schürmann Kohlscheid, Wolfgang Schulz, Wolfgang Schulz and the Photography Scene around 1980, Wolfgang Schulz Fotografie, Wolfgang Schulz Michael, Wolfgang Schulz Self-Portrait

Exhibition dates: 14th June – 24th November 2019

Featured photographers: Wolfgang Schulz, Hans Christian Adam, Dörte Eißfeldt, Verena von Gagern, André Gelpke, Dagmar Hartig, Andreas Horlitz, Reinhard Matz, Angela Neuke, Heinrich Riebesehl, Wilhelm Schürmann, Holger Stumpf, Petra Wittmar, and Miron Zownir

Wolfgang Schulz (b. 1944)
Michael
1980
Silbergelatine | Gelatin silver paper
24 x 30 cm
Privatsammlung | private collection
© Wolfgang Schulz

I love this gritty, inventive, subversive German photography from the late 1970s – early 1980s. Challenge me. Take me bleak places. Tell it like it is, baby…

Marcus

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Many thankx to the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Wolfgang Schulz (b. 1944)
Selbstportrait | Self-Portrait, Riesweiler
1978
Silbergelatine | Gelatin silver paper
24 x 30 cm
Privatsammlung | private collection
© Wolfgang Schulz

Wolfgang Schulz (b. 1944)
Ohne Titel | Untitled
um | c. 1980
Silbergelatine | Gelatin silver paper
24 x 30 cm
Privatsammlung | private collection
© Wolfgang Schulz

As part of its exhibition series Reconsidering Photography, the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg is undertaking a survey of the German photography scene around the year 1980. The springboard for the examination is the journal Fotografie. Zeitschrift internationaler Fotokunst, published by Wolfgang Schulz (b. 1944) between 1977 and 1985. On the occasion of the exhibition, MKG is inviting photography experts Reinhard Matz (Cologne), Steffen Siegel (Folkwang University Essen), and Bernd Stiegler (University of Konstanz) to relate their research project on the 1980s to the historical photographs in the MKG collection. The aim of the collaboration is to create a historical archaeology of German photography around 1980 based on the example of the journal Fotografie and its protagonists. The exhibition will show some 150 photos by Wolfgang Schulz, Hans Christian Adam, Dörte Eißfeldt, Verena von Gagern, André Gelpke, Dagmar Hartig, Andreas Horlitz, Reinhard Matz, Angela Neuke, Heinrich Riebesehl, Wilhelm Schürmann, Holger Stumpf, Petra Wittmar, and Miron Zownir, together with the journal itself, accompanied by a series of interviews conducted with contemporary witnesses expressly for the exhibition.

Something remarkable happened in the field of photography between 1975 and 1985: important galleries were established and photography increasingly became a coveted item on the art market. Suddenly, collecting and exhibiting photographs in museums was no longer the exception. Photography really stepped into the limelight in style at the so-called Mediendocumenta in 1977. Basic academic reference books were published and a large number of journals were founded. These include both periodicals that since that time have dominated the scholarly discourse, such as History of Photography and Fotogeschichte, as well as magazines designed for the broader public with an interest in photography, including Camera Austria, European Photography, Volksfoto, and Fotokritik.

Among this second group was a journal that was published between 1977 and 1985 with a total of 40 issues, for which its editor, Wolfgang Schulz, who had studied physics and then taught himself photography, chose a name that was as concise as it was ambitious: Fotografie. Zeitschrift internationaler Fotokunst (later Fotografie: Kultur jetzt). Today, this journal seems to have been almost completely forgotten. And yet the achievements of the editor and the contributing authors and photographers surely deserve a closer look. The mix of images and texts they came up with is an important resource for exploring a photography scene that, around 1980, was working hard to establish the medium as an independent art form. At the same time, the 40 issues of Fotografie exude the charm of the open-ended and were shaped by the personal predilections of their editor. An in-depth study of the journal lets us return to the origins of recent photographic history in Germany, which today – surprisingly enough – seem largely to have been buried in the dust of the past.

The exhibition is divided into four sections. It pays tribute to the photographic work of Wolfgang Schulz from the period around 1980, presents works by photographers that for the most part found their way into the MKG collection during that era, displays all 40 issues of the journal Fotografie (unfurling an impressive creative panorama), and lets contemporary witnesses have their say in video interviews as a kind of “oral history.”

Wolfgang Schulz was not merely one of the first journal editors to set himself the task of presenting “a complete overview of contemporary photography with a focus on German photography” but also a notable photographer in his own right. In his photography, as in his editorial work, Schulz tried to evade established norms, while also trying his hand at different styles and subjects. In his Ireland pictures, for example, he followed the narrative tradition of pictorial reportage but simultaneously created a strictly documentary-seeming typology of barns and their various manifestations. With a series of shots of undergrowth, he turned his attention to the unspectacular, and he also portrayed the protagonists on the photography scene who crossed his threshold. For the first time ever, the exhibition is showing his photographic works from the period around 1980.

The images in the MKG collection give an idea of the broad scope covered by art photography in the 1980s. The selection is based on the photo spreads published in Fotografie and thus undoubtedly reveals the preferences of its editor, who seems to have been interested neither in the circle around Bernd and Hilla Becher nor in Michael Schmidt, and who deliberately set out to provoke his readers. Heinrich Riebesehl (1938-2010) explored the North German landscape in his documentary series Agrarlandschaften (Agricultural Landscapes). In a similarly factual style, Wilhelm Schürmann (b. 1946) devoted himself to a highly subjective theme: his childhood surroundings on Steinhammerstrasse in Dortmund. These images are supplemented by his photographs of urban landscapes and residential architecture. Riebesehl and Schürmann both sought their motifs in the realities of life in West Germany that confronted them everywhere they looked. André Gelpke (b. 1947) for his part explored Hamburg’s St. Pauli entertainment district for an independent series he called Sex Theater. He conveys here his view of erotic theatre as a mirror of society that tellingly reveals the audience’s double standards. Wolfgang Schulz also printed Miron Zownir’s pictures of New York’s underground SM, queer, and transsexual scene. These photo spreads reflect the editor’s interest in non-establishment subcultures and in people living on the margins of society.

The photography scene around 1980 was predominantly male: of 147 portfolios published in Fotografie, only 24 presented female photographers. One of the privileged few, Dörte Eißfeldt (b. 1950), combined in her work Große Liebe (True Love, 1980) photographic montage techniques with the serial principle, creating in the darkroom photograms with motifs from her own daily life. Her approach might be dubbed “poetic photography,” the term used by photographer Verena von Gagern (b. 1946) to describe the “representation of private realities.” Von Gagern made pictures in the late 1970s within the “emotional realm” of her own family, among them the image Barbara (1978). Petra Wittmar (b. 1955) pursued by contrast a stricter documentary concept. In her series Spielplätze (Playgrounds, 1979), she takes a critical look at the dreary world of the modern metropolis.

Press release from the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg

André Gelpke (b. 1947)
Pulverfaß | Powder Keg III
1978
Silbergelatinepapier | Gelatin silver paper
22 x 32.8 cm
Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg
© André Gelpke

Miron Zownir (b. 1953)
New York
1983
Silbergelatinepapier | Gelatin silver paper
23.2 x 15.4 cm
© Miron Zownir

Verena von Gagern (b. 1946)
Barbara
1978
Silbergelatinepapier | Gelatin silver paper
29 x 19.8 cm
Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg
© Verena von Gagern

Reinhard Matz (b. 1952)
Blutwurst | Blood Sausage
1981
Aus der neunteiligen Serie “Wurst” | from the nine-part series “Wurst”
Silbergelatinepapier | Gelatin silver paper
22.5 x 27 cm
© Reinhard Matz, Köln

Hans-Christian Adam (b. 1948)
Unterwasser-Gruppenportrait | Underwater Group Portrait (Salzburg College Photo Students)
Vigaun bei | near Hallein, Salzburg, 1985
Silbergelatinepapier | Gelatin silver paper
19.2 x 26.5cm
© Hans Christian Adam

Angela Neuke (1943-1997)
Deutschlandbesuch von US-Präsident Ronald Reagan in Zusammenhang mit der NATO-Ministerkonferenz am 9. und 10. Juni 1982 in Bonn, 1982 | US President Ronald Reagan visiting Germany for the NATO Ministerial Conference in Bonn on June 9 and 10, 1982
Silbergelatinepapier | Gelatin silver paper
18,6 x 28 cm
LVR Landesmuseum Bonn
© L. Lutz, 2019

Andreas Horlitz (1953-2016)
Aus der Serie | from the series “Essen, Frühling 1981”
1981
C-Prints
40.3 x 59.4 cm + 13.9 x 59.4 cm
Museum Folkwang, Essen
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019

Dagmar Hartig (b. 1952)
Ohne Titel | Untitled
1981
Aus der Serie | from the series “Plastic World”
C-Print
20.3 x 30.2 cm
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019

Dörte Eißfeldt (b. 1950)
Aus | from “Dunkelrücken”
1986
Dia-Installation mit 170 Kleinbilddias und Tonspur | Slide installation with 170 35mm slides and soundtrack
© Dörte Eißfeldt

Holger Stumpf (b. 1953)
Planetarium, Stadtpark | city park Hamburg
1979
Silbergelatinepapier | Gelatin silver paper
16 x 23.5 cm
Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg
© Holger Stumpf

Heinrich Riebesehl (1938-2010)
Schillerslage (Hannover), Okt. 78
1978
Aus der Serie | from the series “Agrarlandschaften” (Agricultural landscapes)
Silbergelatinepapier | Gelatin silver paper
22.6 x 35.9 cm
Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019

Wilhelm Schürmann (b. 1946)
Kohlscheid
1978
Silbergelatinepapier | Gelatin silver paper
21.4 x 28 cm
Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg
© Wilhelm Schürmann, Herzogenrath

Petra Wittmar (b. 1955)
Aus der Serie | from the series “Spielplätze” (playgrounds)
1979
Silbergelatinepapier | Gelatin silver paper
17 x 26 cm
© Petra Wittmar

Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg
Steintorplatz, 20099 Hamburg

Opening hours:
Tuesday to Sunday 10 am – 6 pm
Thursday 10 am – 9 pm
Closed Mondays

Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg website

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Oct

Exhibition: ‘Once. Again. Photographs in Series’ at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Center, Los Angeles

By Dr Marcus Bunyan Leave a Comment

Categories: American, american photographers, beauty, black and white photography, colour photography, documentary photography, exhibition, existence, gallery website, intimacy, landscape, light, memory, photographic series, photography, portrait, psychological, reality, space, street photography, time and works on paper
Tags: 10.29.97 4:35 PM, 10.31.98 5:22 PM, 2.16.98 5:20 PM, 2.21.98 4:45 PM, 65 East 125th Street Harlem, aerial photography, afghanistan, Alfred Stieglitz, Alfred Stieglitz Georgia O'Keeffe, Alfred Stieglitz Georgia O'Keeffe: A Portrait, American social documentary photography, Ba Deli Family Kabul, built environment, Camilo José Vergara, Camilo José Vergara 65 East 125th Street Harlem, changes in the natural world, contemporary portraits, Covered in Gramps' Blanket, documentary photography, Donna Ferrato, Donna Ferrato Sarah after a Court Hearing, Donna Ferrato Sarah and a member of B.A.C.A., Donna Ferrato Sarah Augusta, Flávio da Silva, Georgia O'Keeffe, Georgia O'Keeffe: A Portrait, Getty Center, Golden Gate Bridge, Golden Gate Bridge atmospheric conditions, Gordon Parks, Gordon Parks Flávio da Silva, Gordon Parks: The Flávio Story, Gulbahar, Harlem storefront, In Gramps' Pajamas, In Grandma Ruby's Velour Bottoms, intimate portraits of people, j. paul getty museum, Jem Southam, Jem Southam December 1996, Jem Southam January 2000, Jem Southam March 1998, John Divola, John Divola Zuma, Josef Sudek, Josef Sudek The window of my studio, Kabul July 2010, Kabul November 1994, Kapisa Province June 20, Kapisa Province May 2009, LaToya Ruby Frazier, LaToya Ruby Frazier Covered in Gramps' Blanket, LaToya Ruby Frazier In Gramps' Pajamas, LaToya Ruby Frazier In Grandma Ruby's Velour Bottoms, LaToya Ruby Frazier Wrapped in Gramps' Blanket, Michael and Pam, Milton Rogovin, Milton Rogovin Michael and Pam, Milton Rogovin Yvonne and Daughter Sonya, Once. Again. Photographs in Series, photographic series, photographing friends and family, photographs in series, Richard Misrach, Richard Misrach 10.29.97 4:35 PM, Richard Misrach 10.31.98 5:22 PM, Richard Misrach 2.16.98 5:20 PM, Richard Misrach 2.21.98 4:45 PM, Sarah after a Court Hearing, Sarah and a member of B.A.C.A., Sarah Augusta, Sarah Augusta Learning Self Defense, Seamus Murphy, Seamus Murphy Ba Deli Family Kabul, Seamus Murphy Gulbahar, Seamus Murphy Kabul July 2010, Seamus Murphy Kabul November 1994, series in photography, social documentary photogaphy, The window of my studio, transformations in landscapes, transformations in the built environment, Walnut Grove Bulldozed, Walnut Grove Standing, Walnut Grove Uprooted by Bulldozers, William A. Garnett, William A. Garnett Walnut Grove Bulldozed, William A. Garnett Walnut Grove Standing, William A. Garnett Walnut Grove Uprooted by Bulldozers, William Wordsworth, William Wordsworth Once again, Wrapped in Gramps' Blanket, Yvonne and Daughter Sonya, Zuma

Exhibition dates: 9th July – 10th November 2019

Curator: Mazie Harris

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946)
Georgia O’Keeffe: A Portrait
1918
Gelatin silver print
Image: 11.4 × 8.6 cm (4 1/2 × 3 3/8 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Some fabulous photographs in series in this posting, which document transformations in landscapes or intimate portraits of people at different times in their lives… and some challenging ones as well. My favourite photographs in series are not represented: Duane Michals narrative fairytales; Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills; and Nicholas Nixon’s The Brown Sisters.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

.
Many thanks to the J. Paul Getty Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Photographers often record change through images in series, registering transformations in the world around them. Artists featured in the exhibition photographed faces and places over minutes, months, or years. Historical and contemporary photographs prompt reflection on the ways the passage of time impacts how we see people and spaces.

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946)
Georgia O’Keeffe: A Portrait
1923
Gelatin silver print
Image: 8.9 × 11.7 cm (3 1/2 × 4 5/8 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946)
Georgia O’Keeffe: A Portrait
1933
Gelatin silver print
Image: 8.9 × 11.4 cm (3 1/2 × 4 1/2 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Artists have long used cameras to record change, documenting transformations in landscapes or intimate portraits of people at different times in their lives. Once. Again. Photographs in Series, on view July 9-November 10, 2019 at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Center, features historical and contemporary artists who have revisited people and places to make extended photographic series, prompting reflection on the impact of the passage of time – on photographers as well as their subjects.

The exhibition, drawn primarily from the collection of the Getty Museum, takes its cue from artist Gordon Parks’ trips to Brazil over several decades to document the life of Flávio da Silva. Parks’ photographs are on view in Gordon Parks: The Flávio Story, installed in the adjacent galleries of the Center for Photographs.

Photographing friends and family is a familiar pastime for many, and the exhibition includes the work of several artists who made masterful portraits of loved ones over the course of many years. Alfred Stieglitz photographed artist Georgia O’Keeffe frequently during their tumultuous 30 year relationship, and the photographs on view expose shifts in their rapport as well as changes in Stieglitz’s photographic style over time. Series by Harry Callahan of his wife Eleanor, Paul Strand of his wife, artist Rebecca Salsbury, and Julia Margaret Cameron of her niece Julia Jackson similarly offer fascinating reflections on the changes in relationships over time.

The exhibition also includes compelling contemporary portraits, including photojournalist Seamus Murphy’s record of the physical and emotional toll inflicted upon a family living in Afghanistan under rule of the Taliban, and Donna Ferrato’s documentation of a woman who fled an abusive relationship. Both series register the struggles as well as triumphs.

A number of artists in the exhibition document seasonal and man-made changes in the landscape. In a 1953 series by William A. Garnett, aerial photography is used to capture a walnut grove before and after the trees were felled to make way for a housing development. The startling perspective of Garnett’s images came to play an important role in the burgeoning environmental movement. Richard Misrach used his move to a new home in the hills above Berkeley, California, as an opportunity to take hundreds of photographs of the astonishing range of colours and atmospheric conditions surrounding the Golden Gate Bridge at sunset each evening. Several of his richly saturated sunset images are featured in the exhibition. Works by Roni Horn, Jem Southam, and Josef Sudek also trace changes in the natural world, to both political and poetic effect.

Transformations in the built environment also reveal the profound effects of the passage of time. LaToya Ruby Frazier documented the painful process of clearing the rooms of her family home in a series of self-portraits in which she cloaked herself in the familiar belongings of her loved ones. In order to spotlight socioeconomic changes in American neighbourhoods, Camilo José Vergara photographed the dramatic transformation of a single Harlem storefront over 40 years, as it changed hands, changed facades, and split into two establishments. Other artists in the exhibition, including John Divola and William Christenberry, chronicle the disintegration of architecture over time, creating evocative meditations on deterioration.

“‘Once again’ is a phrase repeated in a poem by William Wordsworth,” says Mazie Harris, assistant curator of photographs at the Getty Museum and curator of the exhibition. “He was fascinated by the powerful feeling that arises when revisiting a familiar place. He’s experiencing his surroundings in real time and yet is constantly aware of his memories of being there before. The photographers in this exhibition conjure that same sensation. They offer us the opportunity to see people and places afresh, even as we track the powerful changes wrought by time.”

Once. Again. Photographs in Series, is on view July 9-November 10, 2019 at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Center. The exhibition is curated by Mazie Harris, assistant curator of photographs at the Getty Museum.

Press release from the J. Paul Getty Museum website [Online] Cited 11/08/2019

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976)
The Window of My Studio
1940-54
Gelatin silver print
Image: 22.1 × 14.1 cm (8 11/16 × 5 9/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© I&G Fárová Heirs

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976)
The Window of My Studio
1940-54
Gelatin silver print
Image: 17.1 × 10.3 cm (6 3/4 × 4 1/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© I&G Fárová Heirs

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976)
The Window of My Studio
1940-54
Gelatin silver print
Image: 23.5 × 16.5 cm (9 1/4 × 6 1/2 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© I&G Fárová Heirs

William A. Garnett (American, 1916-2006)
Walnut Grove Standing
March 21, 1953
Gelatin silver print
Image: 34.3 × 26.7 cm (13 1/2 × 10 1/2 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Estate of William A. Garnett

William A. Garnett (American, 1916-2006)
Walnut Grove Bulldozed
March 21, 1953
Gelatin silver print
Image: 26.5 × 34.3 cm (10 7/16 × 13 1/2 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Estate of William A. Garnett

William A. Garnett (American, 1916-2006)
Walnut Grove Uprooted by Bulldozers
March 22, 1953
Gelatin silver print
Image (trimmed to mount): 34.1 × 26.5 cm (13 7/16 × 10 7/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Estate of William A. Garnett

Milton Rogovin (American, 1909-2011)
Michael and Pam
1973
Gelatin silver print
Image: 17.9 × 17.4 cm (7 1/16 × 6 7/8 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Milton Rogovin

Milton Rogovin (American, 1909-2011)
Yvonne and Daughter Sonya
1974
Gelatin silver print
Image: 18 × 17.3 cm (7 1/16 × 6 13/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Milton Rogovin

Milton Rogovin (American, 1909-2011)
Yvonne and Daughter Sonya
1974
Gelatin silver print
Image: 17.2 × 17.2 cm (6 3/4 × 6 3/4 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Milton Rogovin

Milton Rogovin (American, 1909-2011)
Yvonne and Daughter Sonya
1974
Gelatin silver print
Image: 18.1 × 16.8 cm (7 1/8 × 6 5/8 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Milton Rogovin

John Divola (American, born 1949)
Zuma
1977
Chromogenic print
Image: 24.7 × 30.4 cm (9 3/4 × 11 15/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Gift of the Wilson Centre for Photography
© John Divola

John Divola (American, born 1949)
Zuma
1977
Chromogenic print
Image: 24.8 × 30.6 cm (9 3/4 × 12 1/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Gift of the Wilson Centre for Photography
© John Divola

John Divola (American, born 1949)
Zuma
1977
Chromogenic print
Image: 24.7 × 30.5 cm (9 3/4 × 12 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Gift of the Wilson Centre for Photography
© John Divola

Camilo José Vergara (American, born Chile, 1944)
65 East 125th Street, Harlem
December 1977
Chromogenic print
Image: 38.7 × 58.4 cm (15 1/4 × 23 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Gift of Bruce Berman and Lea Russo
© Camilo José Vergara

Camilo José Vergara (American, born Chile, 1944)
65 East 125th Street, Harlem
October 1980
Chromogenic print
Image: 37.8 × 58.5 cm (14 7/8 × 23 1/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Gift of Bruce Berman and Lea Russo
© Camilo José Vergara

Camilo José Vergara (American, born Chile, 1944)
65 East 125th Street, Harlem
October 1981
Chromogenic print
Image: 38.7 × 58.4 cm (15 1/4 × 23 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Gift of Bruce Berman and Lea Russo
© Camilo José Vergara

Seamus Murphy (Irish, born 1959)
Kabul: November 1994
1994, print 2015
Gelatin silver print
Image: 22.6 × 34.2 cm (8 7/8 × 13 7/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Gift of David Knaus
© Seamus Murphy

Seamus Murphy (Irish, born 1959)
Ba Deli Family, Kabul: November 1996
1996, print 2015
Gelatin silver print
Image: 22.4 × 34.5 cm (8 13/16 × 13 9/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Gift of David Knaus
© Seamus Murphy

Seamus Murphy (Irish, born 1959)
Gulbahar, Kapisa Province: June 2003
2003, print 2015
Gelatin silver print
Image: 34.6 × 22.6 cm (13 5/8 × 8 7/8 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Gift of David Knaus
© Seamus Murphy

Seamus Murphy (Irish, born 1959)
Gulbahar, Kapisa Province: May 2009
2009, print 2015
Gelatin silver print
Image: 22.5 × 34.4 cm (8 7/8 × 13 9/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Gift of David Knaus
© Seamus Murphy

Seamus Murphy (Irish, born 1959)
Kabul: July 2010
2010, print 2015
Gelatin silver print
Image: 22.6 × 34.7 cm (8 7/8 × 13 11/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Gift of David Knaus
© Seamus Murphy

Richard Misrach (American, born 1949)
10.29.97, 4:35 PM
1997, print 1999
Chromogenic print
Image: 45.8 × 59 cm (18 1/16 × 23 1/4 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Gift of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser
© Richard Misrach, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, Pace/ MacGill Gallery, New York and Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Los Angeles

Richard Misrach (American, born 1949)
2.21.98, 4:45 PM
1998, print 2016
Chromogenic prin
Image: 152.4 × 188 cm (60 × 74 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Gift of Sharyn and Bruce Charnas
© Richard Misrach, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York and Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Los Angeles

Richard Misrach (American, born 1949)
2.16.98, 5:20 PM
1998, print 1999
Chromogenic print
Image: 46.2 × 58.9 cm (18 3/16 × 23 3/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Gift of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser
© Richard Misrach, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, Pace/ MacGill Gallery, New York and Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Los Angeles

Richard Misrach (American, born 1949)
10.31.98, 5:22 PM
1998, print 1999
Chromogenic print
Image: 46.3 × 58.9 cm (18 1/4 × 23 3/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Gift of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser
© Richard Misrach, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, Pace/ MacGill Gallery, New York and Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Los Angeles

LaToya Ruby Frazier (American, born 1982)
Clockwise from top left: Wrapped in Gramps’ Blanket, 2010; In Grandma Ruby’s Velour Bottoms, 2010; Covered in Gramps’ Blanket, 2010; In Gramps’ Pajamas, 2010
Gelatin silver prints
Image (each): 43.5 × 58.4 cm (17 1/8 × 23 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Purchased with funds provided by the Photographs Council
© LaToya Ruby Frazier

Jem Southam (British, born 1950)
December 1996
1996
Chromogenic print
68.6 × 85.7 cm (27 × 33 3/4 in.)
Gift of The Michael G. and C. Jane Wilson 2007 Trust
© Jem Southam

Jem Southam (British, born 1950)
March 1998
1998
Chromogenic print
68.6 × 85.7 cm (27 × 33 3/4 in.)
Gift of The Michael G. and C. Jane Wilson 2007 Trust
© Jem Southam

Jem Southam (British, born 1950)
January 2000
2000
Chromogenic print
68.6 × 85.7 cm (27 × 33 3/4 in.)
Gift of The Michael G. and C. Jane Wilson 2007 Trust
© Jem Southam

Donna Ferrato (American, born 1949)
Sarah Augusta
2012
Pigment print
28.6 × 50.8 cm (11 1/4 × 20 in.)
Gift of The Kevin & Delia Willsey Collection
© Donna Ferrato

Donna Ferrato (American, born 1949)
Sarah Augusta Learning Self Defense
2013
Pigment print
33.9 × 50.9 cm (13 3/8 × 20 1/16 in.)
Gift of The Kevin & Delia Willsey Collection
© Donna Ferrato

Donna Ferrato (American, born 1949)
Sarah after a Court Hearing
2014
Pigment print
33.9 × 50.8 cm (13 3/8 × 20 in.)
Gift of The Kevin & Delia Willsey Collection
© Donna Ferrato

Donna Ferrato (American, born 1949)
Sarah and a member of B.A.C.A. discussing a strategy to protect the boys
2014
Pigment print
33.9 × 50.8 cm (13 3/8 × 20 in.)
Gift of The Kevin & Delia Willsey Collection
© Donna Ferrato

Donna Ferrato (American, born 1949)
Sarah
2013
Pigment print
50.8 cm x 33.9 (20 in. x 13 3/8)
Gift of The Kevin & Delia Willsey Collection
© Donna Ferrato

The J. Paul Getty Museum
1200 Getty Center Drive
Los Angeles, California 90049

Opening hours:
Tues – Friday 10 am – 5.30 pm
Saturday 10 am – 9 pm
Sunday 10 am – 5.30 pm
Monday closed

The J. Paul Getty Museum website

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Sep

Vale Robert Frank ‘The American’

By Dr Marcus Bunyan Leave a Comment

September 2019

Robert Frank (American-Swiss, 1924-2019)
Parade – Hoboken, New Jersey
1955

The flags will be all askew.
The jukeboxes will be playing.
And the light will never falter from his incandescent images.

Vale.

Robert Frank (American-Swiss, 1924-2019)
Bar, New York City
1955-56

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Aug

Exhibition: ‘Among Others: Photography and the Group’ at The Morgan Library & Museum, New York

By Dr Marcus Bunyan Leave a Comment

Categories: American, american photographers, beauty, black and white photography, documentary photography, exhibition, existence, gallery website, intimacy, light, memory, photographic series, photography, photojournalism, portrait, postcards, psychological, reality, Robert Frank, space, street photography, time and works on paper
Tags: A training school for Black sit-ins, American art, American photographers, American photography, Among Others, Among Others: Photography and the Group, Amy Arbus, Amy Arbus The Clash NYC, anti-slavery, Anti-Slavery Constitutional Amendment Picture, Art Kane, Art Kane Harlem, Baseball-Photographer Trading Cards, Beatle Lips, Before the show, Bob Adelman People Wall World's Fair, Collage Chicago, Come Out!!, Danny Lyon, Danny Lyon Haitian women praying in the market, Duane Michals, Duane Michals Baseball-Photographer Trading Card, Eugene Omar Goldbeck, Eugene Omar Goldbeck Indoctrination Division, Eve Arnold, Eve Arnold A training school for Black sit-ins, Fotoescultura with eight subjects, Gay Liberation Front, Gay Liberation Front poster image shoot, George Harrison, Group at the Main Building Moscow State University, group photography, Haitian women praying in the market, Harlem, Harry M. Callahan, Harry M. Callahan Collage Chicago, human pyramid, human pyramid: fifty-six boys in white uniforms, Imogen Cunningham, Imogen Cunningham Baseball-Photographer Trading Card, Indoctrination Division, Jean-Pierre Ducatez Beatle Lips, John Lennon, Mike Mandel, Mike Mandel Baseball-Photographer Trading Cards, Mike Mandel Duane Michals Baseball-Photographer Trading Card, Mike Mandel Imogen Cunningham Baseball-Photographer Trading Card, Moscow State University, Myers Cope Co. Atlantic, Myers Cope Co. Atlantic City Photo-multigraph of unidentified girl, Paul McCartney, People Wall World's Fair, Peter Hujar, Peter Hujar Gay Liberation Front poster image shoot, Photo-multigraph of unidentified girl, photographs of groups of people, Photography and the Group, pop photographica, Powell & Co. Anti-Slavery Constitutional Amendment Picture, Ringo Starr, Robert Frank, Robert Frank Trolley - New Orleans, seventeen women in swimsuits hold magazines, Studio Retrato-Escultura Victor, Studio Retrato-Escultura Victor Fotoescultura, Susan Meiselas, Susan Meiselas Before the show, Susan Meiselas The dressing room, The Clash NYC, The dressing room, The Golden Age of Jazz, Trolley - New Orleans, vernacular photography, Woman in trick photo-booth, women in aprons pose among trees

Exhibition dates: 31st May – 18th August 2019

Bob Adelman (1930-2016)
People Wall, World’s Fair, New York
1965
Gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum
Purchased as the gift of Nancy and Burton Staniar
© Bob Adelman Estate

Love Mike Mandel’s classic Baseball-Photographer Trading Cards (1975, below)

Some of my favourite group photographs:

Nicholas Nixon’s The Brown Sisters
Edward J. Kelty’s Circus photographs
Crowds at Weegee’s crime scene photographs and his Coney Island (c. 1939)
Cindy Shermans’s early Film stills

Marcus

.
Many thankx to the The Morgan Library & Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Photographer Unidentified
Untitled (women in aprons pose among trees)
1913
Commercially processed gelatin silver print; postcard
The Morgan Library & Museum
Gift of Peter J. Cohen

Photographer Unidentified
Untitled (women in aprons pose among trees) (detail)
1913
Commercially processed gelatin silver print; postcard
The Morgan Library & Museum
Gift of Peter J. Cohen

Myers Cope Co. Atlantic City
Photo-multigraph of unidentified girl (Woman in trick photo-booth)
c. 1920s
Gelatin silver print with postcard back
The Morgan Library & Museum
Gift of Peter J. Cohen

Studio Retrato-Escultura Victor
Fotoescultura with eight subjects
c. 1940s
Carved, painted, and assembled wood with hand-coloured gelatin silver prints
The Morgan Library & Museum
Purchased as the gift of Richard and Ronay Menschel

Photographer Unidentified
Group at the Main Building, Moscow State University
after 1953
Gelatin silver print and mixed media
The Morgan Library & Museum
Purchased as the gift of Peter J. Cohen

Photographer Unidentified (American)
Untitled (seventeen women in swimsuits hold magazines up on a low stage on a lawn)
20th century (c. 1950s)
Commercially processed gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum
Gift of Peter J. Cohen

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, b. 1924)
Trolley – New Orleans
1955
Gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum

Harry M. Callahan (American, 1912-1999)
Collage, Chicago
1957
Gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum
Gift of Richard and Ronay Menschel
© The Estate of Harry Callahan; courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

Art Kane (American, 1925-1995)
Harlem
1958
In “The Golden Age of Jazz,” Esquire, January 1959
The Morgan Library & Museum
Purchased on funds given by Peter J. Cohen, Ronald R. Kass, and Elaine Goldman
Photograph by Art Kane for Esquire, a publication of the Hearst Communications, Inc.,
Art Kane Courtesy © The Art Kane Archive

Jean-Pierre Ducatez (French, b. 1941)
Beatle Lips: George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr
1965
Gelatin silver prints
The Morgan Library & Museum
Purchased as the gift of Allen Adler
© Jean-Pierre Ducatez

Susan Meiselas (American, b. 1948)
The dressing room, Fryeburg, Maine, USA, 1975 (Before the show)
1975
From the series Carnival Strippers
Gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum, Purchased on the Charina Endowment Fund
© Susan Meiselas/Magnum Photos

Amy Arbus (b. 1954)
The Clash, NYC
1981
Gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum
Gift of Amy Arbus
© Amy Arbus

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Haitian women praying in the market, HAITI, March 1986
1986
The Morgan Library & Museum
Purchased as the gift of Ronald R. Kass
© Danny Lyon/Magnum Photos

The Morgan Library & Museum presents a new exhibition about photography’s unique capacity to represent the bonds that unite people. From posed group portraits and candid street scenes to collages, constructions, and serial imagery, photographers have used many methods to place people in a shared frame of reference. Opening May 31, 2019, Among Others: Photography and the Group brings together more than sixty exceptional works spanning the 1860s to the present to explore the complexity of a type of image that is often taken for granted. Drawn primarily from the Morgan’s collection, the works in the exhibition include images by Amy Arbus, Eve Arnold, Robert Frank, Peter Hujar, and August Sander.

Among Others presents the seemingly endless possibilities of the group photograph, placing historically important portraits alongside records of significant cultural moments and experiments that helped reinvent the genre. In representations of the group, artist, subjects, and circumstances come together to create an image that might call to mind a loving family, a chance encounter among strangers, an embodiment of the democratic spirit, or a photographer’s ability to read and respond to a crowd. The photographs in the exhibition come in many formats: not just exhibition prints, snapshots, and posters, but also photo books, painted wooden sculpture, collages, baseball cards, and even a wastepaper basket featuring Richard M. Nixon. In their range and ingenuity, the works pose questions about family, diversity, democracy, representation, and the varieties of visual delight.

One section of the exhibition features candid scenes from public life, such as Robert Frank’s Trolley, New Orleans (1955), seen in a large-scale print the artist made around the time it graced the cover of his landmark book, The Americans (1959). Also on view are photographs of collective actions that came to define significant cultural moments, such as Eve Arnold’s 1960 photograph of a training school for Black sit-ins and Danny Lyon’s image of Haitian women praying in the month after the collapse of the corrupt regime of Jean-Claude Duvalier.

Photographers took a wide range of approaches to representing the group beyond the arranged sittings of families or civic organisations. Bob Adelman’s People Wall, World’s Fair, New York exploits the way IBM’s 1965 attraction cast a spotlight on the social and ethnic diversity of fair attendees. For a 1970 recruitment poster for the Gay Liberation Front, Peter Hujar asked the group’s members to run exuberantly toward him on the street, enacting their slogan, “Come Out!!” Camera artists have often embedded themselves in the action they portray, as Susan Meiselas did when mingling with carnival strippers, first to capture them behind the scenes and then to photograph their audience from a performer’s perspective.

When the subjects are beloved celebrities, the portrait seals a relationship of shared admiration between maker and viewer. In 1965, press photographer Jean-Pierre Ducatez made four images that zeroed in on the lips of each of the Beatles, creating likenesses that appealed directly to dedicated fans. In 1981, Amy Arbus happened to snap a photo of a photogenic group hanging out near Times Square, and only later learned they were members of the Clash and their entourage.

The exhibition features items of “pop photographica” that play radically with the conventions of camera representation. In these pieces, individual portraits are mixed and matched to suit the purposes of board games, collectibles such as cigarette cards, and even psychological tests.

“The Morgan’s photography collection has grown and evolved in many directions since its founding in 2012, always with a dual emphasis on the camera’s creative possibilities and its role in shaping modern sensibilities,” said Colin B. Bailey, Director. “We are excited to present this wide-ranging selection of works, most of which are recent acquisitions and have never been exhibited before at the Morgan.”

Joel Smith, the Morgan’s Richard L. Menschel Curator and Department Head, said, “The group is a subject we’re so accustomed to seeing in photographs, it’s easy to forget that the conventions around it had to be invented, and that they shape our picture of reality. This exhibition invites viewers to explore the many ways images have defined – since long before the selfie – how it looks to belong to a group and what it means to be represented.”

Press release from The Morgan Library & Museum [Online] Cited 21/07/2019

Powell & Co.
Anti-Slavery Constitutional Amendment Picture
1865
Albumen print
The Morgan Library & Museum
Purchased on the Charina Endowment Fund

Powell & Co.
Anti-Slavery Constitutional Amendment Picture (detail)
1865
Albumen print
The Morgan Library & Museum
Purchased on the Charina Endowment Fund

Eugene Omar Goldbeck (American, 1892-1986)
Indoctrination Division, Air Training Command, Lackland Air Base, San Antonio, Texas, July 19, 1947
1947
Gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum
Purchased on funds given by members of the Photography Collectors Committee

Eugene Omar Goldbeck (American, 1892-1986)
Indoctrination Division, Air Training Command, Lackland Air Base, San Antonio, Texas, July 19, 1947 (detail)
1947
Gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum
Purchased on funds given by members of the Photography Collectors Committee

Photographer Unidentified (American)
Untitled (human pyramid: fifty-six boys in white uniforms arranged in eight levels in a gymnasium)
20th century
Commercially processed gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum
Gift of Peter J. Cohen

Photographer Unidentified (American)
Untitled (human pyramid: fifty-six boys in white uniforms arranged in eight levels in a gymnasium) (detail)
20th century
Commercially processed gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum
Gift of Peter J. Cohen

Eve Arnold (American, 1912-2012)
A training school for Black sit-ins. They are harassed but taught not to hit back when harassed by Whites, Virginia, USA
1960
From the series Non-Violence
Gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum
Purchased on the Photography Collectors Committee Fund
© Eve Arnold/Magnum Photos

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
Contact sheet: Gay Liberation Front poster image shoot
1969 or 1970
Gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum, Peter Hujar Collection
Purchased on the Charina Endowment Fund
© Peter Hujar Archive, LLC
Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York and Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
Contact sheet: Gay Liberation Front poster image shoot (detail)
1969 or 1970
Gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum, Peter Hujar Collection
Purchased on the Charina Endowment Fund
© Peter Hujar Archive, LLC
Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York and Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

Mike Mandel (American, b. 1950)
Baseball-Photographer Trading Cards (front and verso)
1975
Photo-offset lithography on cards
The Morgan Library & Museum
Purchased as the gift of Jane P. Watkins
© Mike Mandel
Courtesy the artist and Robert Mann Gallery, New York

Mike Mandel (American, b. 1950)
Imogen Cunningham Baseball-Photographer Trading Card
1975
Photo-offset lithography on card
The Morgan Library & Museum
Purchased as the gift of Jane P. Watkins
© Mike Mandel
Courtesy the artist and Robert Mann Gallery, New York

Mike Mandel (American, b. 1950)
Duane Michals Baseball-Photographer Trading Card
1975
Photo-offset lithography on card
The Morgan Library & Museum
Purchased as the gift of Jane P. Watkins
© Mike Mandel
Courtesy the artist and Robert Mann Gallery, New York

The Morgan Library & Museum
225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY
Phone: (212) 685-0008

Opening hours:
Tuesday through Thursday: 10.30 am – 5 pm
Friday: 10.30 am – 9 pm
Saturday: 10 am – 6 pm
Sunday: 11 am – 6 pm

The Morgan Library & Museum website

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Dr Marcus Bunyan

Dr Marcus Bunyan is an Australian artist and writer. His art work explores the boundaries of identity and place. He writes Art Blart, a photographic archive and form of cultural memory, which posts mainly photography exhibitions from around the world. He holds a Dr of Philosophy from RMIT University, Melbourne, a Master of Arts (Fine Art Photography) from RMIT University, and a Master of Art Curatorship from the University of Melbourne.

ARCHIVE OF ALL AUSTRALIAN ARTISTS AND EXHIBITIONS THAT HAVE APPEARED ON THE BLOG AT THIS LINK

ARCHIVE OF ALL INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS AND EXHIBITIONS THAT HAVE APPEARED ON THE BLOG AT THIS LINK

Marcus Bunyan black and white archive: ‘Mask’ 1994

Marcus Bunyan black and white archive: 'Mask' 1994

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Archive for the 'street photography' Category

Exhibition: ‘Helga Paris, Photographer’ at the Akademie der Künste, Berlin

Exhibition dates: 8th November 2019 – 12th January 2020

Resilience

Hidden tensions

Run-down

European photographic research tour exhibition: ‘The Photojournalist Robert Capa II’ at the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center, Budapest

September 2019

First gallery

Gerda Taro (1910-1937)

Robert Capa

Second gallery

Exhibition: ‘Wolfgang Schulz and the Photography Scene around 1980’ at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg

Exhibition dates: 14th June – 24th November 2019

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Marcus Bunyan black and white archive: ‘Mask’ 1994

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