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BIBLIOGRAFIA DETTAGLIATA: http://www.horvatland.com/WEB/en/page/BIBLIOGRAPHY/content.htm
BIOGRAFIA DETTAGLIATA:
1928
Born on April 28th, in Abbazia, Italy (now Opatija, Croatia). My parents, Karl and Adele Edelstein, were both medical doctors, though my mother was to become a psychoanalyst.
1939 – 1945
Lived in Lugano, Switzerland. When I was fifteen, I swapped my postage stamp collection against a 35 mm Retinamat camera.
1947 – 1950
Moved to Milano, Italy. I first studied art, at the Accademia di Brera, then worked in an advertising firm, then purchased a Rolleicord camera and freelanced for Italian magazines.
1950
First trip to Paris, where I met Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Capa.
1952 – 1953
Trip to Pakistan and India, as free-lance photographer.
1954 – 1955
Moved to London, working mainly for LIFE and PICTURE POST.
1955
Moved to Paris, where I still live.
1957 – 1962
Became a fashion photographer, traveling between Paris, London and New York, working for JARDIN DES MODES, ELLE, GLAMOUR, VOGUE, HARPER’S BAZAAR, etc. Between 1958 and 1961 I was part of MAGNUM as an associate photographer.
1962 – 1963
Work on two books: STRIP-TEASE and TELEVISION. Trip around the world, for the German magazine REVUE.
1964 – 1988
Fashion and advertising photography in Europe and the USA.
1976 – 1986
Personal projects : “PORTRAITS OF TREES”, “VERY SIMILAR”, “NEW YORK UP AND DOWN”, “GOETHE’S JOURNEY TO SICILY”.
1986 – 1987
Worked on “ENTRE VUES”: interviews with famous photographers, published in French by Nathan, Paris, in 1988.
1989
Began experimenting with digital imaging.
1990 – 1998
Working mainly on projects for books: “SCULPTURES BY DEGAS”, “BESTIARIUM”, “MYTHOLOGIES”, “WALKS AROUND BOULOGNE-BILLANCOURT”, “HISTORY OF FASHION AT MUSÉE GALLIERA”, “ROMANESQUE SCULPTURES”.
1998
First website: HORVATLAND.
1999
Working on “1999, A DAILY REPORT”.
2000
Film FRANK HORVAT, 1999, on ARTE.
2003 – 2004
Photographs of “LA VERONIQUE”: 50 yards around my house in Provence.
2005
Photographs of the “SCULPTURES BY ROBERT COUTURIER”, for his exhibition at the Musée Maillol, Paris.
2006
Retrospective exhibition at Espace Landowski, Boulogne-Billancourt, France.
2007
Beginning of project “AN EYE AT THE FINGERTIPS”.
2008
Retrospective exhibition WAYS OF AN EYE, at Villa Tamaris, La Seyne, Var, France.
“DE BOCCHE-TETTE-CULI-CAZZI-E-MONE”: illustrations to erotic poems by Zorzi Baffo, a venitian aristocrat of the 18th century.
2009
Publication, under the name of ONLY FOR FEW, of a series of small books reserved for collectors, printed individually at the author’s cost:
• ADELE EDELSTEIN (or Book about My Mother)
• DR. KARL HORVAT (or Book about My Father)
• DE BOCCHE-TETTE-CULI-CAZZI-E-MONE (illustrations to the erotic poems by Zorzi Baffo, a venitian aristocrat of the 18th century)
• NEW YORK UP AND DOWN (with a text by Franz Kafka)
• MASKEN UND MANDARINEN (with texts by the german poetess Ingrid Mylo)
• VRAIES SEMBLANCES (with love poems in 8 different languages)
Creation of a stage play, in collaboration with Hélène Busnel, François Hatt and Roberte Léger : AI-JE EMBRASSÉ NIETZSCHE SUR LE MONTE SACRO? (DID I KISS NIETZSCHE ON THE MONTE SACRO?) Performed at Horvat’s studio in Boulogne-Billancourt.
2010
Began working on HORVATLAND, A TRIP THROUGH A MIND, to my knowledge the first iPad application about photography entirely conceived by the author of the photographs. Award of PREMIO DEL CENTENARIO, by La Fondazione del Centenario, Lugano, Switzerland.
2011
Publication of the iPad application HORVATLAND.
Award for a photographic career by CRAF, Spilimbergo, Italy.
2012
Began working on a video project : EPPUR SI MUOVE (or MOVING STILLS).
Began working on a retrospective exhibition : THE HOUSE WITH 15 KEYS.
HORVAT EXIBITIONS:
1955
“MUSLIM WEDDING” in FAMILY OF MAN, MOMA, New York.
1977
“ARBRES”, personal exhibition, at Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Nantes, France.
1978
“TREES”, personal exhibition, at Photographers Gallery, London.
1979
“TREES”, personal exhibition, at ICP New York.
1980
“ARBRES”, personal exhibition, at Artcurial Gallery, Paris.
“30 HAPPY YEARS”, personal exhibition, at Photographers Gallery, London.
1981
“30 ANNEES DE BONHEUR”, personal exhibition, at Galerie Mamya, Paris.
“TREES”, personal exhibition, at Galleria Novecento, Palermo, Italy.
“TREES”, personal exhibition, at Zeit Gallery, Tokyo.
1982
“TREES”, personal exhibition, at National Museum, Malta.
“PARIS-PARIS”, collective exhibition, Centre Pompidou, Paris.
1983
“ARBRES”, collective exhibition, at Centre Pompidou, Paris.
“ARBRES”, personal exhibition, at Maison de la Culture, Angoulème, France.
“ARBRES”, personal exhibition, at La Chambre Claire, Paris.
“VRAIES SEMBLANCES”, personal exhibition, at Espace Canon, Paris.
1984
“ARBRES”, personal exhibition, at Centre Culturel, Toulon, France.
“FASHION PHOTOGRAPHS”, personal exhibition, at Sander Gallery, New York.
“RENAULT”, collective exhibition, Centre Kodak, Paris.
“REGARDS SUR L'ARCHITECTURE”, collective exhibition, Angers, France.
1985
“PHOTOGRAPHIES DE MODE”, personal exhibition, at Centre d'Art Centemporain, Montbéliard, France.
“AKT PHOTOGRAPHIE”, collective exhibition, at Stadtmuseum, München, Germany.
“FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY”, collective exhibition, at Victoria and Albert Museum, London. “TREES”, personal exhibition, in Berlin-Neukölln, Germany.
1986
“VRAIES SEMBLANCES”, personal exhibition, at Galleria Novecento, Palermo, Italy.
“VRAIES SEMBLANCES”, collective exhibition, at Photokina, Köln, Germany.
“VRAIES SEMBLANCES”, personal exhibition, and
“SCULPTURES BY RODIN” at Centre Culturel, Verrières, France.
1987
“HOMMAGE À FERRARI”, personal exhibition, at Fondation Cartier, Jouy-en-Josas, France.
1988
“FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY”, personal exhibition, at Centre Culturel Français, Prag, Czechoslovakia.
“PHOTOGRAPHES ET CRÉATEURS DE MODE”, personal exhibition, at Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris.
“FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY”, personal exhibition, at Bell Commons Space, Tokyo.
1989
“FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY, personal exhibition, at Prinz Gallery, Kyoto, Japan. "PHOTOGRAPHIES DE MODE”, personal exhibition, at Espace Paris-Audiovisuel, Paris.
“ALBUM DE FAMILLE”, personal exhibition, at Comptoir de la Photographie, Paris. “PHOTOGRAPHIES DE MODE”, personal exhibition, at Festival de la Photographie de Mode, Trouville, France.
1990
“VRAIES SEMBLANCES”, personal exhibition, Fotofest, Houston, USA.
“VRAIES SEMBLANCES”, personal exhibition, at French Institute, New York.
“FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY”, Personal exhibition, at several FNAC centers in France.
“RETROSPECTIVE”, personal exhibition, at Folio Gallery, Calgary, Canada.
“DIGITAL PRINTS”, personal exhibition, at FNAC, Paris.
1991
“FASHION PHOTOGRAPHS”, personal exhibition, at Vision Gallery, San Francisco, USA.
“APPEARANCES”, collective exhibition, at Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
“RETROSPECTIVE EXHIBITION”, at Galerie du Chateau d'Eau, Toulouse, France.
1992
“DIGITAL IMAGES”, personal exhibition, at Galerie Pictorial, Paris.
“SCULPTURES BY DEGAS”, as part of collective exhibition “PHOTOGRAPHIE ET SCULPTURE”, at Centre National de la Photographie, Paris.
1993
“FASHION PHOTOGRAPHS”, as part of “VANITÉS” at Centre National de la Photographie, Paris.
“PERSONAL EXHIBITION”, at Foto-folies, Rodez, France.
1994
“COLLECTIVE EXHIBITION” of the Select Collection at Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland.
“LE BESTIAIRE D'HORVAT”, personal exhibition, at Centre National de la Photographie, Paris.
1995
“PLEASE DON’T SMILE, FASHION PHOTOS”, personal exhibition at:
Hamiltons, London, Staley Wise, New York,Carla Sozzani, Milano,
Agathe Gaillard, Paris.
“LE BESTIAIRE D'HORVAT”, personal exhibition, at Centro Krizia, Milano, Italy.
“LE BESTIAIRE D'HORVAT”, personal exhibition, at Parc Régional de la Bresse, France.
1996
“FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY”, personal exhibition, at Fotofest, Houston, USA.
“PARIS-LONDON”, personal exhibition, at Musée Carnavalet, Paris.
1997
“PERSONAL EXHIBITION”, at Photographie-Forum, Frankfurt a.M., Germany.
“PERSONAL EXHIBITION”, at Institut Français, Prag, Czech Republic.
“PERSONAL EXHIBITION”, at Institut Français, Bratislava, Slovakia.
“VINTAGE PRINTS”, personal exhibition, at Staley-Wise Gallery, New York.
“HIGH FASHION PHOTOGRAPHS IN ROME, FOR HARPER’S BAZAAR”, personal exhibition, at Galleria Acta International, Rome, Italy.
1998
“GOETHE IN SICILY”, personal exhibition, at Goethe-Haus, Frankfurt a.M., Germany.
“51 PHOTOGRAPHIES EN NOIR ET BLANC”, personal exhibition, at Galerie Esther Woerdehoff, Paris.
“70 ANS-70 PHOTOS”, personal exhibition, at Galerie Esther Woerdehoff, Paris.
“VRAIES SEMBLANCES, personal exhibition, Institut Français, Valence.
"51 BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPHS”, personal exhibition, Galeria Railowski, Valencia, Spain.
1999
“GOETHE IN SICILY”, personal exhibition, at Casa di Goethe, Rome.
“HORVAT’S BESTIARY”, personal exhibition, at the Zoological Museum in Kiel, Germany.
“VERY SIMILAR”, personal exhibition, at Hackelbury Fine Arts, London.
2000
“MINI-RETROSPECTIVE”, personal exhibition, at Galerie Serge Aboucrat, Paris.
“VERY SIMILAR”, personal exhibition, at Jane Jackson Gallery, Atlanta, GA, USA.
“51 PHOTOGRAPHS IN BLACK AND WHITE”, personal exhibition, at Galerie In Focus,Cologne, Germany.
“FASHION PHOTOGRAPHS”, personal exhibition, at Sao Paolo, Brésil.
“NEW YORK UP AND DOWN”, personal exhibition, at Stadtgalerie, Kiel, Germany.
“51 PHOTOGRAPHS IN BLACK AND WHITE”, personal exhibition, at Musée Régional des Centovalli, Intragna, Switzerland.
“1999, A DAILY REPORT and PARIS VINTAGE”, personal exhibition, at Musée Régional des Centovalli, Intragna, Switzerland.
“51 PHOTOGRAPHS IN BLACK AND WHITE”, personal exhibition, at Galleria Assolibri, Firenze, Italy.
“FEMMES PLUS QUE FEMMES”, collective exhibition, at Fundation Armando Alvarez Penteado, Sao Paulo, Brazil.
“FRANK HORVAT”, 1999, Film, at ARTE.
2001
“STRIP TEASE”, personal exhibition, at Galerie Dina Vierny, Paris.
2002
“HOMAGE TO CATALONIA”, personal exhibition, at Fundation Vila Casas, Barcelona, Spain.
“1999, A DAILY REPORT”, personal exhibition, at Janos Gat Gallery, New York.
“STRIP-TEASE”, personal exhibition, at Staley Wise Gallery, New York.
“BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPHS”, personal exhibition, at Haeckelbury Fine Arts, London.
“VRAIES SEMBLANCES”, personal exhibition, at Galerie Dina Vierny, Paris.
“BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPHS”, personal exhibition, at Fifty-one Fine Art Photography, Antwerpen.
2003
“BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPHS”, personal exhibition, at Fahey-Klein Gallery, Los Angeles.
“RETROSPECTIVE”, personal exhibition, at Maison de la Photographie, Toulon, France.
“BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPHS”, personal exhibition, at Jan Schluetter Gallery, Köln, Germany.
2004
“ARCHIVAL INKJET PRINTS”, personal exhibition, at Wouter Van Leeuwen Gallery, Amsterdam, Holland.
“BLACK AND WHITE VINTAGE PRINTS”, personal exhibition, at Janos Gat Gallery, New York, USA.
“LA VÉRONIQUE”, personal exhibition, at Nature and Landscape Festival, La Gacilly, France.
“LA VÉRONIQUE”, personal exhibition, at Dina Vierny Gallery, Paris.
2005
“PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE SCULPTURES BY ROBERT COUTURIER”, personal exhibition, at Musée Maillol, Paris.
“LA VÉRONIQUE”, personal exhibition, at Assolibri Gallery, Florence, Italy.
2006
“BLACK AND WHITE AND COLOUR”, personal exhibition, at Tristan’s Gallery, Cornwall, GB.
“ICÔNES ET INÉDITS”, Digital black and white prints, personal exhibition, at La-Maison-près-Bastille, Paris.
“RETROSPECTIVE EXHIBITION”, at Espace Landowski, Boulogne-Billancourt, France.
“FASHION PHOTOGRAPHS”, personal exhibition, at Holden Luntz Gallery, Palm Beach, Florida, USA.
2007
“ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE”, personal exhibition, at La-Maison-près-Bastille, Paris.
“STRIP-TEASE”, personal exhibition, at Assolibri Gallery, Florence, Italy.
2008
“FASHION PHOTOGRAPHS”, personal exhibition, at Artparis.
“NEW YORK UP AND DOWN”, personal exhibition, at La-Maison-près-Bastille, Paris.
“WAYS OF AN EYE”, retrospective exhibition, at Villa Tamaris, La Seyne, Var, France.
2009
“BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPHS”, personal exhibition, at Gallery Hiltawski, Berlin and Gallery Aplanat, Hamburg.
“VERY SIMILAR”, personal exhibition, at Gallery Hiltawski, Berlin and Gallery Aplanat, Hamburg.
“DE-BOCCHE-TETTE-CULI-CAZZI-E-MONE”, personal exhibition, at Gallery Dina Vierny, Paris.
“GLI ANNI DEL BIANCO E NERO”, personal exhibition, at Gallery Ersel, Torino, Italy.
2010
“FASHION PHOTOGRAPHS”, personal exhibition, at Manège Gallery, Saint-Petersburg.
“BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPHSAN” and “AN EYE AT THE FINGERTIPS”, personal exhibitions, at BSI Gallery, Lugano, Switzerland.
“BLACK AND WHITE”, Photographica Gallery, Lugano, Switzerland.
2011
“VINTAGE PRINTS”, personal exhibition, at Birgit Filzmaier, Zurich, Switzerland.
“NO REPEAT”, retrospective, at CRAF, Spilimbergo, Italy.
2012
“THE IPAD EXHIBITION”, personal exhibition, Gallery Hiltawski, Berlin.
“TRIP TO CARRARA”, personal exhibition, at Dina Vierny Gallery, Paris.
“RETROSPECTIVE”, personal exhibition, at Brucie Collections, Kiev, Ukraine.
“TRIP TO CARRARA”, personal exhibition, at Susanna Orlando Gallery, Forte dei Marmi, Italy.
“FASHION PHOTOGRAPHS”, personal exhibition, at Presentation House, Vancouver, Canada.
2013
“LES MAINS D’HORVAT (LOOK MA! NO HANDS!)”, personal exhibition, at Gallery Dina Vierny, Paris.
“photography is the art of not pushing the button”
Why keys?
I am at the age when one looks back and tries to make sense of it all.
I had the luck to take photographs for almost 70 years, in a period when the
world changed more than in any comparable time span.
To live in 6 different countries and to travel to several more.
To think, speak and write in 4 languages.
To photograph many subjects, from different viewpoints and with different
techniques.
To have other interests beside photography, such as writing and olive growing.
My eclecticism had it's drawbacks. Some questioned my sincerity. Some found
that my photos were hard to recognize, "as if they were by 15 different authors".
This is why I went through my work (or through what has been preserved of it),
searching for a common denominator.
I didn't find one - but 15. Running (more or less) through all those years.
I called them keys.
Frank Horvat
House with 15 keys:
Light
The human condition
Time suspended
Voyeur
Eye to eye
Metaphors
Makes you think of...
Two
Many
The ‘real’ woman
Doesn’t quite fit
Things
'Dumb' photos
Self-portraits
Light
2003, Cotignac (France), Grègoire's Hands
Everyone knows that photography means ‘writing with light’. As Niepce, Daguerre and Talbot began doing around 1830, and as a billion people do now with their mobile phones.
What is a little different - in my case and in that of some others - is that I react almost more
to the light itself than to the objects on which it shines. To the point that I seldom use a flash, i.e. a light that can be seen only after the shot is taken. And that I wouldn't press the shutter even in front of the most interesting person (or event), unless I felt that the way it’s lit is significant.
This comes from the obvious fact that photography, beside being about light, is essentially about time (or rather about the stopping of time). Which in turn is why the instant is decisive, in Cartier-Bresson's famous words.
Light, to me, seems all the more decisive as it’s fleeting (just as time itself). Which is why I am less interested in that of a landscape at noon, under a blazing sun, than in the light at dusk, or under a moving foliage, or in some interior, with highlights and shadows changing continually, depending my own movements and on what goes on around me.
And also why (to me) the forerunners of photography were not so much the painters of the Quattrocento, with their perspective and their camera obscura, nor Caravaggio with his violent light effects, as the 22 years old Rembrandt, in his self-portrait now at the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, where most of his face is hidden by a seemingly accidental shadow, except for his right cheek and the tip of his nose. As if to say: these parts have to stand for the whole.
1950, Polesine (Italy), Paesants, replacing their oxen, lost in a flood
I've been asked: ‘what do you mean by ‘the human condition’?
The best answer I can give is that ‘human conditions’ means having problems. And that to me, those who have problems seem more interesting than those who don't.
Artists have been aware of this for a long time - particularly western artists. Photographers didn't take long to follow.
Many photographed poverty, disease and war. Several produced great images, and became famous. A few felt guilty about their succes - as if it had been at the expense of the suffering - and justified themselves by claiming their intention to alert public opinion, in order to prevent future suffering. I tend to be skeptical about these claims - even if I trust their sincerity and admire their courage.
As for myself, I never photographed war - possibly because I lacked the physical courage. But even in peacetime I wouldn't direct my camera at a relative (or a friend) finding himself in a painful situation. Simply because it wouldn’t seem right to take advantage of his misery for my own photographic ends.
Admittedly, I haven't always been so considerate with strangers. Partly because I understand
magazine readers, wishing to ‘witness’ extreme and even tragic events. Just as I don’t blame passers-by, neglecting their business and crowding around the victim of some traffic accident. After all, it is their business, that same misfortune could have happened to any one of them. Watching it can be seen as an act of sympathy (or of compassion), in the original sense of these words: sharing the plight (pathos, passio) of a fellow human being.
It is true that for a photographer the borderline between excessive intrusiveness and excessive aloofness can be narrow. All I can say is that I did my best, by trying to suggest problems rather than pointing to them.
1962, Cairo, swinging girl
Any photograph, of course, is a suspension of time - but some are more of a suspension than others. Or, reciprocally: the camera can suspend any moment of time - but some seem more worth suspending than others.
As Faust says to Mephisto, when waging his bet:
If ever to the moment I will say:
"Ah, linger on, thou art so fair!"
Then may you fetters on me lay,
Then shall I perish, then and there!
Then may the death-bell toll, recalling
Then from your service you are free;
The clock may stop, the pointer falling,
And time itself be past for me!
There is indeed something faustian (or mephistophelic), about this tool - allowing us to freeze the flow by which we are carried. Except that at the end of Goethe's tale, Faust is redeemed, time is restored and Mephisto's gifts turn out to be nothing but make-believe.
Something similar could be said about photography: did I really - when pressing the shutter - believe that those moments were worth preserving? Do you really - you the spectator - feel that the flow has been suspended?
I am not sure about how to answer the first question: so many years have passed, so many times have I reconsidered and reprinted these pictures! As for the second, the answer is up to you.
1952, Lahore (pakistan), Hira Mandi, young dancer
Voyeur is a french word for someone seeking sexual satisfaction through his eyes - rather than ‘normally’, through more suitable organs. But also, in a wider sense, for someone keen to penetrate, or to grab, or to possess through his sight, though not necessarily with a sexual intent.
In this sense, all photographers are voyeurs. I don't mind being included in the lot and acknowledging voyeurism as one of the keys to my house.
Except that when I selected the photographs for this chapter, the ones that seemed to fit were not so much associated to sex, as to a slight feeling of guilt, which I either remembered (when I could recall the circumstances of the shoot), or that resurfaced while looking at the contacts.
More like a short sting than like a lasting remorse for ‘having exploited other people's weaknesses’. And mainly because voyeurism is such a one-sided affair, in which one ignores the other party's inclinations (or disinclinations).
Would this world-famous fashion designer have liked to see himself in that feminine attitude? Or this fond Bengali father, to realise the fright of his little daughter (if indeed she was his daughter) resisting his embrace as if she feared being raped? Or this lady on Madison Avenue, who may have spent hours in front of her mirror, trying to restore the look of her youth, if she had seen her mask as it appeared in my viewfinder?
Not that I spend many sleepless nights pondering about these hypothetical reactions. But
voyeurism - like other obsessional pursuits - has its backlashes of remorse.
1958, Paris, advertisement for lingerie
When a person looks at my camera, I refrain from shooting - contrary to the widespread
belief about the eyes being a door to the soul (or something of the kind).
In the beginning, this came from Cartier-Bresson and his ideal of the invisible (or at least inobtrusive) photographer. The theory was to show das Ding an sich (the thing by itself), as Kant might have said. Of course this was a fiction and was to became just another convention, which William Klein broke by including, in some of his New York street scenes, one or two people looking straight at the lens - and demonstrating that their reaction to the photographer made the image look all the more believable.
Nevertheless I stuck to the theory, probably because it suited my temperament. Especially
when I got into fashion photography and found that the models’ passionate stare at the camera, far from being a door to their souls, was just the easiest and laziest of their routines.
On the other hand, I always knew that there were times when someone - out of surprise, or of fear, or of anger, or even of love - would suddenly look up at me. At me, not at my camera. And that if I succeeded in catching that moment, I could get a shot worth getting.
As with this close-up of Mate (pronounced Mah-tey).
It wasn't one of our best days. We had quarreled, as often. But I had to do a test with a new lens, and she agreed to pose. While still upset, and still looking at me with a mix of anger,
pain and affection.
Eventually we separated, and didn't see much of each other for years. At the end of her life, I visited her in hospital. Our son Marco had placed that print on one of the walls, so that the doctors and nurses could see what kind of a person their patient had been.
Still, images like this one are exceptions. Most of the time, I avoid photographing people who look at me. Because I believe that their attention to something else (or even a view of their profile or their back) can reveal a lot more about them. But then exceptions, as the saying goes, are the best proofs of a rule.
1953, New Delhi, Jantar Mantar, ancient astronomical device
A metaphor is an idea which stands for another idea - or for several, depending on how it is meant and understood.
A symbol is almost the same, but not quite. The turtle, for instance, is a symbol for slow motion, as in the famous paradox of its race against Achilles and in countless allegories, emblems, ads and icons. But the three turtles in my photograph are metaphors.
Metaphors for what? I won't tell you. By telling, I would spoil the game and deprive you of the pleasure of guessing. All I can say is that I have several answers in mind, and that I hope you will find others that I didn't think of. Even if they are far-fetched, or if they exclude each other.
Metaphors are what poetry is made of . ‘Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’ All the substance of Macbeth is in these lines.
But metaphors are also the substance of advertising, poetry's mercenary child. And of photography, which - at least as I practice it and contrary to a widespread and mistaken belief - is only a distant cousin to painting, and more like a kind of schizophrenic offspring of poetry and technique.
1984, Paris, Claude
In 1981, while following the trail of Goethe's sicilian journey, I drove through Monreale,
a small town where the illustrious traveller stopped to visit a curate who shared his interest
in geology and whose specimens Goethe describes at great length. What he doesn't mention (and what I therefore ignored), is that this town is famous for its byzantine basilica, almost as
impressive as San Marco in Venice, but irrilevant to a man of the Enlightement, to whom
the 1200 years between the Roman Empire and the Renaissance were nothing but an interval
of darkness.
A present-day Goethe wouldn't have such a blind spot, or would at least have googled up
Monreale before landing at Palermo Airport. Except that such a person is hard to imagine.
Since the 18th century, knowledge and the instruments for acquiring it have been immensely
extended, but something else has been lost.
I'm not complaining. After all, the extension of our knowledge allows me to see what was hidden to one of the greatest geniuses of all times, even though my vision, as a result of that
loss, has become a bit blurry.
This combination of progress and regression may be a way to describe culture in the age of
post-modernism. Nowadays, on our computer screens, all the separate and different approaches to art, from the Stone Age to Dokumenta, seem contemporary and comparable.
All can be downloaded and exploited for comment, quotation or association - within the
(all too narrow) limits of our curiosity, our awareness and our attention span.
All this comes to my mind when I try to explain what I mean by makes you think of...
Which of course is just one of my keys. In most cases, my first reason for pressing the
shutter is the light I see falling on a subject. Then, almost as an afterthought, come the
ideas, the feelings, the memories and the expectations - conscious or unconscious - that
I associate to what I see. Though my imaginary museum, as Malraux called it, is only a
fraction of that stock.
1959, Paris, Monique Dutto at métro exit
One goes with the first person singular.
One is like alone, apart, solitary, separated, unique.
Like the stranger in the crowd, the lonely wolf, the last cigarette,
the tree on top of the hill, the coq in the henhouse, the captain
on the sinking ship, the first love.
Like my nose, my mouth, my heart, my belly button, et coetera.
Like the Earth, the Sun, the Moon, the Universe. Like Jehova
(or Allah, if you prefer). Like the ace of spades.
Like my mother, like my father, like me.
2008, Venezia (Italy), illustration to the erotic poems of Giorgio Baffo
Two goes with the second person singular.
Two are your eyes, your ears, your breasts, your buttocks,
your hands and your feet.
Two are husband and wife, master and dog, day and night,
good and evil, Republicans and Democrats, yin and yang.
Two is what you need for dialogue, chess, equality,
similarity, difference, contrast, competition, friendship, war
- and of course for love: in order to say ‘two’ you have to
acknowledge the other, and whatever goes on between
you and the other.
1956, Paris, at the Sphynx
Many goes with the third person plural.
I must admit that I have problems with that person.
In school, they used to taunt me.
They. The others. The crowd. The people. The masses: asses.
Photographing them, for me, may have seemed a way to
get the upper hand: ‘I am the one who is pressing the shutter.’
But then, I wouldn't be an acceptable photographer, if I
couldn't bring up a warm feeling to them as individuals (or
at least to some).
1976,Paris (France), for Vogue France
Mind, this is not a key to my whole house. Only to a part of it, at a given period.
From my adolescence and through the first years of my adult life, the woman of my dreams
was the exact opposite to my mother (Dr. Freud wouldn't have been surprised). Which is to say slender, tall and not in the least intellectual.
So that getting into fashion photography was like entering a Promised Land, where all those
who presented themselves in front of my camera seemed to come from that mold.
Only they were loaded with scoriae. Some that I couldn't get rid of: such as the gowns, the suits, the overcoats, the hats and the various accessories they had to wear. Hardly to my taste - but after all I was paid to photograph them, and the girls to wear them.
Then there were the crutches they used (and misused) to improve what they had been given by nature. Such as lipstick, mascara, foundation, false eyelashes, nail polish and especially
wigs, which in those days where thought to be practical, because they replaced hairdressing. Some top models had dozens, which they carried to their sittings in special bags.
All that didn't fit my dreams. But even worse were their stereotypes: the ardent gaze,
the cheery smile, the dreamy look, the orgasmic half-opened mouth, the hysteric laugh, not
to forget the proud gait, the sexy hip, the sensuous throwing back of the head. They spoilt my
dream, making its objects less believable - and hence less lovable. So that in order to uncover the 'real' woman (or at least a trace of her), my fashion sittings became battles against windmills.
‘Wipe off that lipstick! Get rid of those false eye-lashes! Couldn't we try showing your own hair? For heaven’s sake stop smiling! And never look at the camera!’
They didn't like it. Neither the models, who had invested a lot of money in their wigs, nor the hairdressers and the make-up artists, whom I antagonised, nor the fashion editors, whom I made feel insecure.
But my photos got published, because ready-to-wear fashion needed a more realistic photography, and because the editors-in-chief knew it.
1962, Roma, for Herper's Bazar, Debora Dixon
What doesn't fit?
How did this young beauty get into that trunk? Why does the man on a chair turn his back to those three ghosts and to that tired warrior? What’s this embarrassed dandy waiting for, in the middle of those contemptuous gnomes?
Were they set up? And if not, how did they get there?
Reading the captions may provide some answers - but do you really need to know?
The main point is that everything doesn't always and necessarily fit. Possibly, this is what made me press the shutter at that instant. And that now intrigues you.
2006, Boulogne-Billancourt (France), mandarine peel
As Marc Riboud once said to me: "I prefer moving subjects, because photography is
mainly about capturing one instant rather than another, catching it when it's ripe,
freezing it at the right time. Like the right note in music, or the right balance in
architecture. The pleasure is all the greater when the challenge is tougher, for instance
when the elements to be assembled are more varied, more mobile or less predictable."
(From an interview in 1986, published in Entre-Vues, 1990)
I agree. It's when your subject is moving that you take the bull of photography by the horns. Or, as I sometimes put it more bluntly, to young people showing me their portfolios: if you only photograph what you have time to reconsider, you are copping out.
But then, some of my own photos seem to prove the opposite: these shoes in Milano, 63 years ago, where not running away from me (I don't remember that shooting, and only just rediscovered that image - but it looks as if I took the time to re-arrange them...).
Nevertheless the back-lighting (and also my knowledge of the way I use to work) makes me believe that it wasn't preconceived - but that the situation suddenly struck me, as when you recognize something you know from your experience, or from your dreams, or from your mental associations.
So it was, after all, a decisive moment. Not in the physical existence of those objects, but in the uninterrupted flow of my mind.
1950, Venezia (Italy), fashion show
The word 'dumb', for a photograph, may require some explaining - hence the inverted commas. But I would rather that you find out by yourself. If some of these ones make you smile, you are beginning to see what I mean and you may recognize a dumb photo when you meet it.
If I show them last, it's because I cherish them most. And if the term by which I call them sounds derogatory, it's like a French mother calling her baby ma petite crotte (‘my little shit’).
Take ‘1950, Venice’. The fashion show was no big deal, except for the palazzo, the gilded
stuccoes and the patrician names of the attending ladies. The model had nothing of a stunning
beauty, even if the gentleman on the sofa (probably the husband of one of the ladies) seems
more interested by her than by the dress she's wearing.
I was 22, shooting with a flash and doing my best to please the people who had hired me.
When I saw the frame on my contact sheets, I didn't think much of it and wouldn't have
kept the negative, had it not been for another shot, on the same film, that I liked. (That was how some photographs, in the age of analog, escaped the dust bin).
Then one day, while leafing through my files, I saw it with different eyes. What had seemed
banal became significant, conveying something I hadn't been aware of. Or had I conveyed it unwittingly? Was it the sequence of those five expressions - the model's and the four
spectators' - as they were lit up by the flash? But when I pressed the shutter they were in the dark!
This, in a nutshell, is the miracle of a dumb photo: there seems to be a meaning, but that
meaning couldn't have been intended by the photographer.
Édouard Boubat used to quote Borges (from I don't know which of his works): ‘A writer, who writes only what he thinks he is writing, cannot be a really great writer.’ Likewise, you don't go out to take a dumb photo: it comes as a gift, just as Saint-Augustine said about salvation.
1945, Lugano (Swizzerland), self-portrait
Self-portraiture is as legitimate as masturbation, with the additional advantage of being
irreproachable.
Think of Dürer, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Rubens, Rembrandt, Velasquez, Chardin,
Goya, Delacroix, Van Gogh, Cézanne, Picasso, Francis Bacon.
And of course of Montaigne: ‘Wherein, finding myself totally unprovided and empty of
other matter, I presented myself to myself as argument and subject. It is the only book
of its kind, and of a wild and extravagant design.’
Curiously, I cannot think of many self-portraits by photographers (except the few who
made self-portraiture their trade-mark). Maybe because most photographers prefer to look at what's around them.
Even in my own case, I only discovered it late in life: the great thing about self-portraiture is having a model who is always available and compliant.
Most of the problems that come with it are technical: not seeing what you get (if you direct the lens at yourself), inverting right and left (if you shoot through a mirror), having the camera in your picture (in the same case), needing a third hand to release the shutter (if you photograph your own hands).
The greatest is that looking at yourself can get boring. Which is why this chapter is shorter than the others.
