BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Embassy of Spain -- Spain Arts & Culture -- Fence Exhibit: 50 Fotografias con Historia

DC -- Embassy of Spain -- Spain Arts & Culture -- Fence Exhibit: 50 Fotografias con Historia:

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Description of Pictures: 50 fotografías con historia
“50 Fotografías con Historia,” an open air-exhibition at our Cultural Center’s exterior fence, reviews the history of photography in the last 80 years in Spain.

50 fotografías con historia takes a look at the last 80 years of this discipline in Spain through its key participants: 50 images. Each of the selected photographs reflects an era, a way of understanding photography and, of course, its corresponding social and human burden.

Our visual journey will begin with the outbreak of the Civil War, when photojournalists such as Agustí Centelles and Martín Santos Yubero became the eyes and chroniclers of the conflict. In the post-war period and the years that followed, Ricard Terré, Ramón Masats or Joan Colom made a name for themselves as they began using photography in a wide variety of ways: through documentary photography, satirical portraits, photojournalism and street photography. The exhibition will then take us through a period in Spain that marked a necessary evolution in visual language as well: the Spanish Transition.

This was a time when photography started being used in different ways and new voices emerged —Alberto García-Alix, Chema Madoz, Pablo Juliá and Marisa Flórez, among others— with new discourses that were necessary for a society in full effervescence. We will then explore the boom in popularity of documentary photography and the lenses of Spanish authors who gazed abroad, which began in the 1990s and still continues today thanks to key authors such as Cristina García Rodero, Navia, Isabel Muñoz and Sandra Balsells. We cannot leave out the gazes of those who are now shaping the current photographic landscape of our country. A narrative wealth that is the result of our history and that we now invite you to discover with 50 photographs which tell us fifty different stories.

The selection of photographers includes 17 National Photography Award winners and 2 National Fine Art Photography Award winners. The exhibition in Washington, D.C. will be divided into two phases: 25 photographs will be shown during the spring/summer season, and the rest 25 in the fall/winter.

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. 50FOTO_220216_001.JPG: Author: Fernando Maquieira Description: Worker at Salinas Grandes Year: 2006 By © Fernando Maquieira, VEGAP, Madrid, 2019 In mid-2006, Fernando Maquieira traveled along Route 40, the legendary road that crosses Argentina from South to North stretching out over 5,000 kilometers. At the time, the photographer was focused on stories about the European colonization of America. He imagined what the first Europeans who had traveled those lands had felt and experienced. When he was passing through the province of Jujuy, he decided to stay a few days in the mining town of Aires del Salar: the perfect place to explore Salinas Grandes –the great salt flats– located right in the middle of the Puna region, at an altitude of 3,400 meters above sea level and with an extremely clean light. One day, while exploring this wasteland, he heard a voice behind him that startled him. He turned around and came face to face with a man wearing a mask. Fernando Maquieira Puertollano, Ciudad Real, 1966 At the age of fifteen Fernando Maquieira began working as an apprentice and assistant in Fernando Gordillo’s studio. For seven years he photographed art galleries all over the world when they were closed to the public and night fell over them. He carried out his sessions in cultural centers such as the Metropolitan in New York, the Tate Gallery in London and the Prado Museum in Madrid. He has participated in numerous exhibitions and has published several books.
2. 50FOTO_220216_005.JPG: Author: Navia Description: Caconda School Year: 1996 By © Navia, 2019 There is an intimate connection between photography and other artistic disciplines. As if their similar composition –memory, imagination, humanism– were stronger than the differences of their format and they were inevitably destined to embrace each other. Navia’s work is strongly liked to literature, which is reflected in the way he represents the world. The Madrid-born photographer traveled to Angola with Action Against Hunger in 1996, at a time when the former Portuguese colony was in the midst of a civil war. Under those circumstances, he traveled to Caconda, a poverty-stricken region in west central Angola. A setback caused them to be “trapped” in Caconda longer than expected. Navia used this circumstance as an opportunity to photograph what happens when nothing particularly relevant happens: life itself. The author realized that the weight of history is carried by those who survive the news events. Silent men and women who keep getting up every day to make the world go round. This work, Caconda School, exposes our fellow human beings, nothing simpler than life itself unfolding. José Manuel Navia Madrid, 1957 José Manuel Navia is one of the most literary photographers on the contemporary Spanish scene. Throughout his career he has traveled to many places in the world where Iberians left their mark. He seeks to capture timeless atmospheres and is an advocate of small cameras and fixed lenses of between 35 and 50 millimeters, which is why he never uses flash or tripods. He has admitted that the artist from whom he has learned the most is photographer Diane Arbus.
3. 50FOTO_220216_009.JPG: Author: Eduardo Nave Description: 4:50 pm. July 12, 1997 Year: 1997 By © Eduardo Nave, VEGAP, Madrid, 2019 On the morning of January 16, 1992, when he was only 15 years old, Eduardo Nave was on his way to pay his condolences to a schoolmate whose father had died in an attack perpetrated by ETA. When passing in front of the place where the attack had taken place, the photographer was deeply shocked. The same place, and that feeling of alienation caused by places marked by absence. His work En la hora, en el lugar (At the time and place) shows those unremarkable corners that are marked by terrorist attacks perpetrated by ETA in Spain and France. Landscapes that no longer belong to the present, eaten away by oblivion and where only a deep void remains to be filled by the recent memory of our country. The photographer uses a large-format camera and a neutral-density filter. This type of filter is used to reduce the intensity of light entering the lens, allowing for longer exposure times. We also need to create a distance to look at heartbreaking realities, a necessary filter that protects us from pain. In each of his works, Nave seeks to find an explanation for the human condition, taking historical events as the backdrop for his work. Eduardo Nave Valencia, 1976 Starting from a traditional documentary style, this Valencian photographer analyses scenes that are important from a historical or social point of view and reinvents them by proposing new narratives. The possibility of spaces holding memories of what happened in them is one of the constants in his work, which focuses on exploring the landscape. In 2005, together with 13 other photographers, he founded the contemporary photography collective NOPHOTO.
4. 50FOTO_220216_012.JPG: Author: Alberto Schommer Description: Levitation of the Infanta Year: 2001 By © Fundación Alberto Schommer, VEGAP, Madrid, 2019 Alberto Schommer’s connection with photography comes from the cradle. His father, Albrecht Schommer Koch, a doctor by profession, portrayed the life of the city, becoming one of the best photographers of the 1940s and 1950s in Spain. Thanks to ABC’s series Psychological Portraits, Schommer earned a professional status that was admired and envied in equal measure. His portraits, far from seeking visual complacency, explored aspects, concepts and paradoxes that invited reflection and debate. His was a very personal style, which he called Masks: faces in the foreground, with overhead lighting, the look in their eyes shadowed by their eye sockets. His models at that time were bankers, ministers and powerful people. Thanks to the freedom offered by distance, and well aware that his photograph would have made the great painter smile, Schommer used the setting of Las Meninas –the famous painting by Velazquez– to compose his work Levitación de la Infanta. The flowing gowns inspired him to recreate his own scene where the little blonde princess seems to float in the center. Naturally, this work by Schommer has been retouched. With the help of Martin Sampedro, his confidant, the photographer became a technology enthusiast. Alberto Schommer Vitoria, 1928 — San Sebastián, 2015 Son of photographer Alberto Schommer Koch, he began his career as a painter and then devoted himself to photography for more than five decades. Renowned for his psychological portraits, he also witnessed the cultural and social transformation of Spain. For Schommer, photography is the way to show the world as it is. In 2014, he became the first photographer to exhibit at the Prado Museum and, in 2013, he won Spain’s National Photography Award.
5. 50FOTO_220216_018.JPG: Author: Ángel Marcos Description: The Black Sea 11 Year: 2006 By © Ángel Marcos, Madrid, 2019 In Ángel Marcos’s work, staging and representation are two elements that are just as important as his photographs. Because the way in which we own the space and present the story to the audience is also part of the dialog: that highly nuanced paralanguage that we all make use of. This work belongs to the project titled La mar negra (The Black Sea), which Marcos developed on the occasion of the First Architecture, Art and Landscape Biennial of the Canary Islands, held in 2006. His proposal consisted of an intervention in the Castillo de Santa Barbara (St. Barbara Castle), not far from the town of Teguise in the island of Lanzarote. Those were the years when a growing number of cayuco boats started to reach the Spanish coasts and Ángel Marcos saw a parallel between the emigrants from the Canary Islands who had to move to America, and the African migrants who were then arriving in our country. He photographed the faces of those who reached the Puerto de los Cristianos in Tenerife. He also moved to the other shore, more specifically to Senegal, where he continued photographing those in search of a different future. More than 250 wooden signs were created with the resulting portraits from his compilation and the faces were also printed on acrylic glass and placed in the castle’s loopholes. Those being watched by our society are now watching us. A silent story that invites us to reflect. Ángel Marcos Medina del Campo, Valladolid, 1955 In his early days, Ángel Marcos worked in the field of advertising and industrial photography, but since the late nineties he has focused his work on artistic photography, with his sights set on landscape. His photographs are closely linked to the idea of travel and the dialog with the territory he has passed through. In his most recent works, he moves away from Spain and travels to different places to address phenomena such as globalization.
6. 50FOTO_220216_022.JPG: Author: Sergio Belinchón Description: Goodbye friend Year: 2011 By © Sergio Belinchón, VEGAP, 2019 Sergio Belinchón is a contemporary photographer and graphic artist who feels completely at home in open environments where the natural and the artificial go hand in hand. Part of his work reflects Europe’s vision of the Far West, influenced by the entertainment culture. Spaghetti Westerns –low-budget European productions that were all the rage in the 1960s and 1970s– became very popular on the big screen. Some of them were filmed in Huesca, where Belinchón traveled to talk with some of the extras and check the scars left by the passage of time and the human hand in this land. In this scene, he follows in the footsteps of a wandering horseman looking for a place to water his horse and perhaps settle down, a man who has no trouble crossing highways or watching airplane contrails in the sky as he continues on his way. Belinchón also works with video as a form of expression, carrying out projects in which both media complement each other. One of them is the remake he made of Sergio Leone’s original film The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. One hundred and sixty-four minutes positioning the tripod exactly to the millimeter just where it was placed in the original film, using the same optics, framing and camera movements. Sergio Belinchón Valencia, 1971 A photographer and visual artist, Sergio Belinchón has focused his work on the city as a living space for its inhabitants, the transformation of urban spaces and places where the real and the artificial become indistinguishable. Since 2003 he has also been working with video as a form of expression. He lives in Berlin, where he founded the Invaliden1 Galerie, a platform he uses to showcase his work and that of the international community of artists based in the city.
7. 50FOTO_220216_029.JPG: Author: Ricardo Cases Description: Dove to the skies Year: 2010 By © Ricardo Cases, 2019 The recognition of who we are and the places we come from are fuel for the way we look at things. In Ricardo Cases’ photography, there is a constant search for his own origins and those of the universe. This photograph is part of a work dedicated to colombiculture, a unique form of pigeon racing that is popular in the Spanish Levante, and which takes place usually during the last two hours of daylight. It consists in releasing one female pigeon that male pigeons chase to get her attention. The winner is the one that spends the most time close to her during the competition. A referee is in charge of choosing the winner, while participants enthusiastically watch the scene. This practice serves as a scaled stage to recreate a whole life vision. The activity of the pigeon fanciers brings into play elements such as sex, competition, hope, gambling, triumph or failure. The book Dove to the skies (dove to the skies), the result of his exploration, became a bestseller in 2011, and was shown at the Rencontres d’Arles festival, where it received very good reviews. Ricardo’s interests lie in that old tribal attitude, the same one that runs through and is the focus of his work: a kind of anthropological recognition that portrays ancient practices that are far from contemporary times. Ricardo Cases Orihuela, Alicante, 1971 The Alicante-born photographer’s career as a photojournalist has focused on human beings and their yearnings in the midst of a mass society, as well as on the traditions of contemporary Spain. His work, marked by irony with very personal surrealist touches, has earned him awards such as the FNAC New Talent Award. He is the author of the books Belleza de barrio, La caza del lobo congelado and Dove to the skies.
8. 50FOTO_220216_033.JPG: Author: César Lucas Description: Che Guevara in Madrid Year: 1959 By © César Lucas, VEGAP, Madrid, 2019 Sometimes photography serves as a graphic encyclopedia for the events that are part of history. It attests to the facts. Cesar Lucas has developed his work as a photographer with this idea in mind. In 1959, journalist Antonio Olano was working at the Diario Pueblo. A few months earlier, he had covered the siege of Havana from Sierra Maestra. When he learned that Che Guevara was going to spend a few hours in Madrid, his journalistic instinct sharpened. To provide a graphic document of such a visit, he called a young Cesar Lucas –aged 18– who worked for the Europa Press agency. The government wanted the guerrilla leader’s visit to be invisible and, at the same time, to prevent him from meeting with any opponent of the regime, so only the journalist and the photographer documented his visit. On June 13th, 1959, Olano and Cesar Lucas escorted Guevara during his visit to the capital: Ciudad Universitaria (Madrid’s university district), the Faculty of Medicine, the Plaza de Toros de Vistalegre and other emblematic buildings rounded off their tour, during which there was also time for some shopping at Galerias Preciados, the famous Spanish department stores. The story received minimal media attention, although years later it was rescued as valuable documentation of Che Guevara’s visit to Madrid. Cesar Lucas Cantiveros, Avila, 1941 Considered one of the photographers of the Transition, Cesar Lucas, a self-taught photographer, started out at the age of seventeen as a press photographer as part of the staff of the Europa Press news agency. Celebrities such as Katherine Hepburn, Brigitte Bardot, Sean Connery, John Lennon, Billy Wilder and Clint Eastwood have stepped in front of his camera. For many, his most important work was the exclusive photograph he took of Che Guevara when he visited Madrid in 1959.
9. 50FOTO_220216_036.JPG: Author: Ouka Leele Description: Rapelle-toi, Bárbara Year: 1987 By © Ouka Leele, VEGAP, Madrid, 2019 The lions pulling the chariot of the famous Madrid fountain dedicated to the goddess Cybele do not look at each other, they carry the heavy burden of having offended the Greek goddess with their love. This fountain, an icon of the Spanish capital, is watched by thousands of citizens and visitors every day. It is photographed. It is contemplated. It is admired. Each viewer, led by his or her own imagination, will wonder –or maybe not– about certain issues regarding the statue. Ouka Leele, winner of the National Photography Award in 2005, has the ability to imagine with her eyes open. Her photographs translate the images she creates in her mind. This photograph shows the myth of Atalanta and Hippomenes, according to which Hippomenes fell in love with the nymph Atalanta, who boasted that she was the best hunter and the fastest and swiftest of all. She challenged her suitors to a race in which the winner would become her lover. Hippomenes achieved this feat with the help of Aphrodite and three golden apples that distracted her during the race. In order to carry out such a major work, the collaboration of Juan Barranco, then Mayor of Madrid, was necessary. He granted her the corresponding licenses and offered her financial support for the project. The result justifies this complex creation: rarely can we see the world from the dreamlike perspective of another person. Because to reinvent the world all you need is an awakened imagination. Ouka Leele Madrid, 1957 Ouka Leele began her self-taught career at a very young age and with a great creative capacity that has also made her stand out as a painter and poet. This Madrid-born photographer understands photography as “visual poetry, a way of speaking without using words.” Her famous and distinctive colored images are the result of the fusion of painting and photography. Her work has been exhibited in numerous cities, and in 2005 she won Spain’s National Photography Award.
10. 50FOTO_220216_040.JPG: Author: Chema Madoz Description: S/T Year: 1985 By © Chema Madoz, VEGAP, Madrid, 2019 In essence, photography is used to show things. And each of those things has a meaning, accepted by all, which endows it with sense. We could say that things exist to the extent that they can be defined. Chema Madoz does not follow this universally accepted norm in his photographs. He imagines new meanings. All kinds of labels have been used to define the Madrid-born photographer over the years. But he flees from those labels, because his work consists precisely in transmuting the common meaning of things. By changing the concept that defines an object, the photographer ultimately gives it a new life. That is why Madoz’s photography is so evocative: it is written in the code that imagination itself is made of. And it is the viewer, upon looking at the image, who completes the narrative. The selected image is one of his most iconic photographs. The perspective used by the photographer makes the glass look like the pubis of the woman standing behind. Thus, we realize that we are in front of a nude, as Helmut Newton did upon contemplating the work, exclaiming: “the best nude I’ve ever seen.” It has been reproduced and reinterpreted on many occasions and for different purposes. Madoz’s insatiable imagination earned him the National Photography Award in 2000. Chema Madoz Madrid, 1958 His personal way of interpreting art through photography and the poetic vision that accompanies his work became trademarks of one of the most respected creators on the Spanish contemporary scene. His work focuses on analyzing the relationships between objects that are not visible to the naked eye and the tricks of vision. Among other awards, he won Spain’s National Photography Award in 2000.
11. 50FOTO_220216_043.JPG: Author: Luis Baylón Description: Madrid, anonymous, june 1990 / six months later, december 1990 Year: 1990 By © Baylon, VEGAP, 2019 The ecosystem in which Luis Baylón moves is the streets. And of all possible cities, his favorite one is Madrid, of which he knows almost every corner. Strolling around at his own pace, he portrays places on the verge of disappearing, couples, smokers and, in this work, unknown citizens. The city traps you –as Baylon would say– and he has let himself be seduced under the spell of passersby. On one of his walks, in the summer of 1990, he was drawn to the looks of an elderly woman sitting at an ATM on Atocha street, right next to the Mediodia Hotel. Dressed in black, her smile and her look were in stark contradiction to the place she was at. Fate, whimsical in its essence, set up a new encounter: Baylón photographed a woman curled up, she covered her face with a look of terror. When he developed the photographs, he realized that both portraits belonged to the same woman, the three rings on her hands gave her away. He has a good nose for the streets and has mastered the skill of taking great natural portraits from the side, without additives or prejudices that contaminate the story. Luis Baylón Madrid, 1958 Under the premise that “the street is life,” the Madrid-born photographer got hold of a Canon Ftb at the age of 18 and began to document the urban environment of Madrid, focusing his gaze on anonymous people. In the 1980s, now with his inseparable twin-lens Rolleiflex 2.8F, he began collaborating with publications such as El País Semanal, El Europeo, El Mundo Magazine and Tentaciones.
12. 50FOTO_220216_047.JPG: Author: Miguel Trillo Description: An afternoon at the fair Year: 1995 By © Miguel Trillo, VEGAP, Madrid, 2019 Miguel Trillo’s name always comes up in any gathering where the conversation centers on the so-called Movida Madrileña. As a lover of music rather than soundtracks, Trillo has spent four decades adding verses to a visual work with a chorus where urban tribes and street art resonate loudly throughout. All his photographs boast a style of their own: straightforward portraits of a new generation with a strong personality. He prefers peace and quiet to noise and his works move between passion, concept and document. The serenity conveyed in his photographs is a faithful reflection of his idiosyncrasy. A calmness that he was able to keep that day in August 1999, when he was taking photographs at the Malaga Fair. His expensive equipment was rendered useless when he was thrown into the water while taking photographs of three young men doing acrobatic tricks on a boat mooring rope. In his portraits, subjects pose in front of the camera in a natural-looking way, aware that the social group to which they belong will be made immortal. He compiled all this material in a fanzine named Rockoco. Its pages are filled with mods, rappers, goths, punks, metalheads… The full spectrum of the youth of the time. Because Trillo keeps an attentive eye on what being modern means, and in his search, he is indefatigable, no matter how much time goes by. Miguel Trillo Jimena de la Frontera, Cádiz, 1953 Miguel Trillo’s work, somewhere between document, concept and passion, has documented the evolution of young urban tribes from the Spanish transition to democracy up to the present day. He traveled around Spain to show that a new generation of mods, punks, goths, rappers and metalheads had left Franco’s regime behind. His photographs, included in some of the most innovative publications of the last quarter of a century, make up an essential collective portrait.
13. 50FOTO_220216_049.JPG: Author: Matías Costa Description: Cargo Year: 2007-2017 By © Matías Costa, 2019 The creative process is similar to a journey. In search of our own voice, we set out on the road to meet everything that is capable of moving us head on. At first, we walk through it intuitively, but as we move forward, we can catch a glimpse of what we are made of. Matias Costa’s projects are imbued with a deep reflection on identity, memory (or oblivion) and land; he has received many awards including two World Press Photo Awards in 2000 and 2002. Cargo is a good example of this. In 2007 he began to take an interest in the fishing fleet of the former Soviet Union, which, after the collapse of the country, was abandoned in various ports around the world. In particular, he focused his attention on the ships stranded in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. For more than a decade, Costa made several trips during which he met the people who lived in those metallic wastelands that became stranded ships. This is not just about getting documentation. This project is a reflection on memory and how rust grows in us over time just as it happened to those boats that lost their meaning. Matías Costa Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1973 Based in Spain since he was a child, the work of this Argentinean photographer explores memory, loss and the search for family identity through notions such as history and maps. For his photographs, he looks for places with an atmosphere of uprootedness and melancholy. He began his professional career in photojournalism, but then gradually moved towards documentary photography. He is the founder of the NOPHOTO collective and contributes to numerous publications and media.
14. 50FOTO_220216_053.JPG: Author: Pierre Gonnord Description: Antonio Year: 2004 By © Pierre Gonnord, VEGAP, Madrid, 2019 The face of others is a mystery, an enigma of a story hidden in each of us that Pierre Gonnord questions daily beneath its surface. Antonio came into Pierre’s life in 2004 –an encounter that would have a special significance in the photographer’s path. At that time, the big, bearded man lived in the same neighborhood and used to call out to passersby to talk and sometimes beg. The two began to share numerous coffees and chats and Pierre heard many of his stories: traveling, boxing, defiance and a strength that was trapped in his eyes, in his hands. During one of his visits, Antonio made a suggestion to Pierre: “And why don’t you make a portrait photo of me? That way, I will be remembered when I am dead.” The artist was moved and agreed, because they both knew that photography sometimes plays God. With his medium-format camera, Pierre exhausted his film while Antonio looked straight at him. And then, it happened: Antonio turned his face towards the street, his gaze lost in a horizon only he could see. Pierre took the shot, thus ensuring that Antonio’s face and the story he tells us will live forever in our memory. Pierre Gonnord Cholet, France, 1963 A self-taught photographer with an unmistakable style, he has been based in Madrid since the late 1980s. Pierre Gonnord has focused his career in the field of portraiture, masterfully capturing the diversity of nuances of different social groups. The emphasis of his work always lies in the naked and powerful gaze of the people he has met. The psychological depth of his images is one of the trademarks of his work.
15. 50FOTO_220216_059.JPG: Author: Sandra Balsells Description: Amra Efica Year: 1993 By © Sandra Balsells, 2019 Sandra Balsells photographed Amra Efica on August 26th, 1993 in a gloomy public health institute in Mostar, at the height of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The young woman was the spitting image of a badly wounded Madonna, so Balsells approached her in search of her complicity before taking the picture. At the time, Sandra was being held hostage together with a small group of journalists who had entered Mostar in a Spanish military convoy to provide humanitarian aid. The civilian population, in a desperate attempt to stop the attacks against them, held both the military and journalists. The stills she obtained from Amra remained forgotten in the photographer’s files for years: the lack of light caused a technical imperfection. When she was working on her book Balkan in Memoriam, she retrieved that photograph and she felt as overwhelmed as she the day she took it. Thanks to a documentary project, ten years later Sandra was reunited with the woman in the photograph. She discovered that Amra had clung to life despite the ravages of war. This work says a lot about the way Sandra approaches reality: getting to know her main subjects, with the utmost respect for the facts, always in search of the other person’s complicity. That is what fuels her. Sandra Balsells Barcelona, 1966 Sandra Balsells graduated in Journalism from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, and after completing a postgraduate degree in photojournalism in London, she started working as a freelancer, covering war conflicts such as the one in Yugoslavia. Her work on the war and post-war period in this area won her the 2006 Ortega y Gasset Award for Best Informative Work. Balsells has combined her work as photojournalist with teaching at the Ramón Llull University in Barcelona and has participated in dozens of solo and group exhibitions.
16. 50FOTO_220216_064.JPG: Author: Marisa Florez Description: Dolores Ibarruri, La Pasionaria and Rafael Alberti Year: 1977 By © Marisa Florez, 2019 The Transition was a time of profound changes, with main characters such as Carrillo, Fraga or La Pasionaria, who became legends. In this context, the photographer’s job is as simple as being in the right place while things unfold according to the script. And that is precisely what Marisa Florez did: she captured a moment that encapsulated well the profound transformation that was certain to shake up Spanish society. First day at the Cortes Democraticas –the Spanish General Courts– on July 13th, 1977. Rafael Alberti and Dolores Ibarruri –known as La Pasionaria– arm in arm, walk down the stairs of Congress. It was not even a year ago that these two people were persecuted for their political ideology. Dolores Ibarruri was to preside over the interim bureau that would provisionally oversee the first Democratic General Courts. Meanwhile, Rafael Alberti was at that time a member of the congress representing the communist party, which had obtained twenty-four seats during the first election. It was the start of the Spanish democracy, and the images left a good legacy which can be used to evaluate their intentions. Marisa Flórez León, 1948 Marisa Flórez captured the evolution of Spain for El País, during the Transition, a period of profound changes with key players such as Carrillo, Fraga and La Pasionaria, who became legends. She is the author of iconic images such as the solitude of President Adolfo Suárez in the hemicycle. Flórez was one of the first photojournalists in the history of Spain. She became an essential piece for understanding the current affairs of those years. In 1979 she won Spain’s National Journalism Award.
17. 50FOTO_220216_067.JPG: Author: Juan Manuel Díaz Burgos Description: El niño de la maleta Year: 1993 By © Juan Manuel Díaz Burgos, 2019 When looking at photographs, many viewers are used to those photographs being interpreted quite literally. Faced with this collective need, some photographers use their images to show things just as they are to the world. Others, however, show the universe by first introducing a meaning and placing it before the audience’s eyes. Juan Manuel Díaz Burgos prefers this second interpretation, thus going beyond what is shown explicitly. His first project on American soil, Raíz de sueños (Root of dreams) took him to the Dominican Republic with the aim of giving a broad view of how life is in that country. This work focuses on a Batey, where sugarcane workers are housed. It was there that he met Enó. The combination of the road, the suitcase and the child ignited Juan Manuel’s imagination, and provided the image with a meaning that went beyond its literal reading: a reflection of his feelings about photography. During the following years he went back to the same place bringing toys that he distributed among the children. All except Enó, who had emigrated to his country of origin, Haiti, only to be imprisoned a few years later in Santo Domingo. Díaz Burgos is the author of several photography books such as Historias de płaya, Piel Canela, Deseo, Malecón de La Habana, Trópico de Cáncer, Calle del Angel, Crónica de seis días, Dios Iberoamericano or Raiz de sueños. Juan Manuel Díaz Burgos Cartagena, Murcia, 1951 With his first camera, a Kodak Retinette, he started photographing his surroundings at the age of eight. In 1976, with a Canon FTb, he began to freely explore the world of photography. His work has focused on Latin American countries, mainly Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Peru. He is the author of the books Historias de playa, Piel Canela, El Deseo, Malecón de La Habana, El Perú de Vargas Llosa and Raíz de sueños.
18. 50FOTO_220216_070.JPG: Author: Isabel Muñoz Description: Khmer dance Year: 1996 By © Isabel Muñoz, 2019 Isabel Muñoz, winner of the National Photography Award in 2016, aims for her photographs to be a bridge, an embrace. And if humanity is the epicenter of her work, the body is the temple on which every emotion we carry is built. Her photograph Khmer dance is open to multiple layers of interpretation. The first and most obvious is the body of a female Khmer dancer, which is shown moving through space, bearer of an ancient tradition from Cambodia. Secondly, the story that lies behind the image. The woman portrayed is Piseth Pilika, who was the prima ballerina (principal female dancer) of the Royal Ballet when Isabel Muñoz visited Cambodia in 1996. It is important to note that this culture almost disappeared during the Khmer Rouge regime, a genocide that led to the death of 1.7 million people. In 1999, Piseth was murdered by a gunman. The wife of the prime minister, Hun Sen, is thought by many to be behind the attack, as her husband had forced the dancer to become his mistress. And as if it had always been there, a third reading of this photograph of the Khmer dance emerges before our eyes, the most important of all, one that only the viewer can complete: all the beauty and sadness of this world can be contained in one hand that rises against injustice. Isabel Muñoz Barcelona, 1951 Isabel Muñoz has traveled halfway around the world exploring her interest in the human side through themes such as the body, rituals and cultural diversity. She claims that she photographs nudes because they are “the purity of human beings,” and in her eagerness to find the ideal medium to reproduce the texture of the skin, she learned the platinum printing technique in New York. Her career earned her Spain’s National Photography Award in 2016.
19. 50FOTO_220216_076.JPG: Author: Joan Fontcuberta Description: Sputnik Year: 1997 By © Joan Fontcuberta, VEGAP, Madrid, 2019 Ivan Istochnikov, the subject of this photograph, was a Soviet cosmonaut who disappeared in 1968 during a space mission aboard the Soyuz 2 spacecraft. He was erased from official history because the authorities were unable to explain his disappearance. This account was rescued from oblivion by journalist Mike Arena, who had access to declassified documents from the former Soviet Union. Can you really always believe your eyes? The man in the photograph is not Istochnikov, but Joan Fontcuberta, photographer and creator of this fabricated story of the dematerialized Russian cosmonaut. For decades, Fontcuberta has been questioning the fact that photography proves that something is real. He questions such a universal concept through works that challenge his viewers’ credibility. Thus, photography is shown as fiction posing as truth, an authenticating tool of an author’s inventions. Thanks to his questioning of the objectivity of photographs and his unmistakable style when developing his projects, Fontcuberta received the National Photography Award in 1998, as well as the prestigious Hasselblad Award in 2013. Joan Fontcuberta Barcelona, 1955 For forty years the work of Joan Fontcuberta focused on questioning the role of authenticity given to photographic images, something he fully achieved with works such as Sputnik and Sirenas. Considered by many as the Spanish photographer with the greatest international visibility, Fontcuberta insists that the clichés that photography has constructed are completely rooted in our cultural atavisms, and that is why he questions them. He won Spain’s National Photography Award in 1998 and the Hasselblad International Photography Award in 2013.
20. 50FOTO_220216_082.JPG: 50 fotografías con historia #50FotosConHistoriaExpo takes a look at the last 80 years of this discipline in Spain through its key participants: 50 images. Each of the selected photographs reflects an era, a way of understanding photography and, of course, its corresponding social and human burden. Our visual journey will begin with the outbreak of the Civil War, when photojournalists such as Agustí Centelles and Martín Santos Yubero became the eyes and chroniclers of the conflict. In the post-war period and the years that followed, Ricard Terré, Ramón Masats or Joan Colom made a name for themselves as they began using photography in a wide variety of ways: through documentary photography, satirical portraits, photojournalism and street photography. The exhibition will then take us through a period in Spain that marked a necessary evolution in visual language as well: the Spanish Transition. This was a time when photography started being used in different ways and new voices emerged —Alberto García-Alix, Chema Madoz, Pablo Juliá and Marisa Flórez, among others— with new discourses that were necessary for a society in full effervescence. We will then explore the boom in popularity of documentary photography and the lenses of Spanish authors who gazed abroad, which began in the 1990s and still continues today thanks to key authors such as Cristina García Rodero, Navia, Isabel Muñoz and Sandra Balsells. We cannot leave out the gazes of those who are now shaping the current photographic landscape of our country. A narrative wealth that is the result of our history and that we now invite you to discover with 50 photographs which tell us fifty different stories. The selection of photographers includes 17 National Photography Award winners and 2 National Fine Art Photography Award winners. The exhibition in Washington, D.C. will be divided into two phases: 25 photographs will be shown during the spring/summer season, and the rest 25 in the fall/winter.
21. 50FOTO_220216_089.JPG: Author: Gerardo Vielba Description: Florist in Saint-Lazare Year: 1962 By © Gerardo Vielva, 2019 Turning the ordinary into something extraordinary is a prodigious feat. And for such an arduous task, one essential prerequisite is the way you look at things. Vielba had an intuitive, sensitive way of looking at things. He was capable of showing the world what seems invisible to the eyes of others. In the spring of 1962, Vielba traveled to Paris —a symbol of European modernity— to document the École Nationale Supérieure de L’Aeronautique in the capital city. He took that opportunity to wander through its streets in search of any evocative scene that he could capture for eternity with his TLR Rollei camera. This portrait of a florist in Saint-Lazare is a perfect example of an exercise in empathy, of his need to find what moves him. In 1954, he joined the Royal Photographic Society of Madrid, of which he was president from 1964 until he died in 1992. The evolution of photography in Spain cannot be understood without the figure of Vielba. An author who rightly understood the potential of photography as a means of communication and also an independent form of artistic expression. Vielba received the National Fine Arts Award in 1962, right after his trip to Paris. His work is ripe with emotion: there is serenity, tenderness, friendship, nostalgia, innocence and peace. It is a product of his deep respect for the art of photography. Gerardo Vielba Madrid, 1921 — Madrid, 1992 Gerardo Vielba combined his profession as an aeronautical engineer with his passion for photography. He was an active figure in the renewal of this discipline from 1950 onwards and president of the Royal Photographic Society between 1964 and 1992. From the 1970s, he organized exhibitions and courses aimed at promoting the language of photography. His most iconic images belong to a trip to Paris. He received the Premio Nacional de Bellas Artes (Spain’s National Award for Fine Arts) in 1962.
22. 50FOTO_220216_091.JPG: Author: Ricard Terré Description: Sant Boi de Llobregat Year: 1958 By © Ricard Terré, 2019 Ricard Terré is particularly known for his photograph of a girl receiving her first communion, an image that managed to condense all his personality as a photographer. The strength it conveys is not an achievement of its aesthetics, but of ethics: the courage to look at reality without prejudice in order to make tenderness and beauty visible. This work shows the contrast between the happiness of the celebratory moment and the physical defect of the girl portrayed. Those who first saw the photograph in the 1950s felt pity and shame, but also recognized its iconic grandeur. But Terré wanted to show that another way of interpreting reality, free from prejudice and pity, was possible. Despite the scandal it could cause, Terré insisted on showing a full-scale reproduction of the photograph in the Terré / Miserachs / Masats exhibition at the Sala Aixela in Barcelona (1959). On the opening day of the exhibition, he was approached by a doctor who had understood the sensibility shown in that photograph. And to show his trust in him, he asked Terré to photograph her niece, who had Down syndrome, on the day of her first communion. Terré agreed and as payment he asked him to perform the required surgery on Isabelita Clemente, the girl from Sant Boi. A year later, cured of her strabismus, the girl gratefully paid the photographer a visit. Ricard Terré Sant Boi de Llobregat, Barcelona, 1928 — Vigo, Pontevedra, 2009 Ricard Terré began as a painter and cartoonist, but in 1955 he took up photography. He was a member of the AFAL group and produced his best-known works between 1955 and 1960, before going into a 20-year creative silence. In 1982, after retiring, he resumed his photographic activity and his work began to receive important recognition. His aim was to show the transcendence of human beings, a quest that made him one of the great photographers of the 20th century.
23. 50FOTO_220216_098.JPG: Author: Oriol Maspons Description: The first bikini in Ibiza Year: 1953 By © Oriol Maspons, VEGAP, Madrid, 2019 To renovate a language, it is necessary, at the very least, to introduce unique elements that alter its formula. For Oriol Maspons, creative freedom and a sense of humor —both inextricably linked to his photographic creation— are what gave him access to the world. The first bikini in Ibiza is a good example of his character. In the middle of Franco’s dictatorship, Maspons photographed Monique Koller on the beach, a picture that was perhaps intended to complete the model’s portfolio, as it was not published. Monique brought her own bikini from France. When a couple of civil guards passed by, they looked at her and laughed. “A girl in a bikini? It was unthinkable! She would have been kicked out from any beach in Spain,” explained Oriol, “it clashed completely with Christian morality.” This image highlights the double standards that existed on the island and throughout Spain in the 1950s. Maspons worked for some of the most important magazines of his time, such as Gaceta Ilustrada, Paris Match, Elle, Interviú or Boccacio. He also illustrated some books such as Poet in New York by Federico García Lorca or La caza de la perdiz roja (Hunting the red partridge) by Miguel Delibes. In addition, part of his work is exhibited at the MoMa in New York. Maspons knew how to keep his distance from correctness and conservatism with a special sensitivity for portraits. And that is how he contributed to the renovation of the photographic language that took place in Spain in the 1950s and 1960s. Oriol Maspons Barcelona, 1928 — Barcelona, 2013 Oriol Maspons was member of the aesthetic and intellectual renewal group known as Gauche Divine, a space of freedom and creativity on the fringes of Franco’s Spain. During the 1950s he portrayed the post-war period and the subsequent economic boom in Spain. Later, with his Leicas and Pentax, he carried out his photographic work in the fields of fashion, architecture, advertising, graphic illustration and portraiture.
24. 50FOTO_220216_101.JPG: Author: Joan Colom Description: “The streets” series Year: 1958 By © Joan Colom, VEGAP, Madrid, 2019 Joan Colom knew that in order to photograph the streets, you need to be part of it. The neighborhood of El Raval in Barcelona in the 1950s became the main focus of his work —an area beset by destitute characters, prostitution and the harshness of life. He explored this reality without judging what he saw but rather blending into the bustle of the streets. Attempting to capture that which does not exist is no easy task in times of censorship. Therefore, Colom perfected a method of shooting his Leica M2 —which he strapped to his wrist and placed next to his thigh or resting on his lape— without looking through the viewfinder. He produced a work of unquestionable documentary value, originally titled La Calle, which in 1964 became the book Izas, rabizas y colipoterras with texts by Camilo José Cela. After it was published, a woman portrayed in the book named Eloísa Sánchez sued Cela, Colom and the publishing house for publishing her image without her consent. Although the lawsuit was unsuccessful, this incident led Colom to quit photography until the 1990s. Looking at Colom’s work, and Colom himself as some kind of recorder of his time, one cannot help thinking how lucky it was that an amateur photographer took his passion so seriously, driven only by the need to capture what moved him. His commitment earned him a National Photography Award in 2002. Joan Colom Barcelona, 1921 — Barcelona, 2017 This self-taught accountant took up photography in his thirties. He is considered a pioneer in the composition of photographic series and one of the greatest post-war photographers. One of his most renowned works is his series entitled La calle, which contains photographs of prostitutes in Barcelona’s Chinatown, and which would later illustrate Camilo José Cela’s book Izas, rabizas y colipoterras. He won Spain’s National Photography Award in 2002.
25. 50FOTO_220216_107.JPG: Author: Ramón Masats Description: Seminarians playing football Year: 1959 By © Ramón Masats, VEGAP, Madrid, 2019 The artist has turned his medium of expression into a basic need, which is why for Ramón Masats —winner of the 2004 National Photography Prize— photography has become an extension of himself. This photographer from Catalonia became a member of the Agrupació Fotográfica de Catalunya where he met Terre, Maspons and Miserachs, among others. When he was twenty-six, he set off for Madrid and decided to take the streets as his playground. To photograph the streets, you need to tramp the sidewalks and go looking for others relentlessly. This work is part of a report commissioned by Gaceta Ilustrada in 1959. Lino Hernando is the name of the goalkeeper defending the goal with such determination. The striker was Mariano Enamorado, who hung up his cassock after ten years as a priest. Five decades later, both photographer and priest met to remember the photograph during a report by Chema Conesa. Masats’ work finds a great ally in proportion and geometry. It is the result of a watchful eye, the same one that clearly shows us an essential way of thinking with our eyes. Ramón Masats Caldes de Montbui, Barcelona, 1931 Ramón Masats is one of the greatest Spanish photographers, member of an inimitable generation that brought Spanish photography into the modern age in the 1950s. He is known for his sharp eye, for capturing iconic moments. He was Catalan by birth, but Madrid is his adoptive city. Masats considers himself an “image-stealer,” passionate about making the most of clichés and traditions. He won Spain’s National Photography Award in 2004.
26. 50FOTO_220216_114.JPG: Author: Martín Santos Yubero Description: A street box photographer takes a picture of a group of soldiers during the Spanish Civil War Year: 1937 By © Archivo Regional de la Comunidad de Madrid. Fondo Martín Santos Yubero The dailiness of everyday life can hide in the most unsuspected contexts. This photograph taken by Santo Cubero depicts a group of soldiers posing for a street box photographer in the midst of the Spanish Civil War. The ordinary and the extraordinary go hand in hand in an image that mesmerizes the viewer. Street box photography was born at the end of the 19th century as an alternative to studio photography, which was more expensive and only accessible to the wealthy class. Thus, these professionals became portrait photographers for the less well-off social classes. In this image, Santos Yubero managed to capture that (profoundly human) need to be remembered forever, which sometimes photography makes possible. While we are left with a graphic record of that moment, the people posing become part of the recent history of our country. This Madrid-born photographer was a member of the second generation of Spanish press photographers. He worked for publications such as La Nación, ABC, Ahora or Diario de Madrid, portraying the onset of the Civil War and the post-war period for the society of the twenties until he retired in 1973. His work is an essential source of documentation that help us understand the identity and the society of the first decades of the 20th century. Martín Santos Yubero MADRID, 1903 — MADRID, 1994 At the age of 17, he bought his first camera, a Kodak box camera, and began taking photos at amateur level. In 1927 he received his official press card as a photojournalist and from then on he began to publish in media such as La Nación, Ahora, ABC, Estampa, La Tierra and Ya. He captured the first decades of the 20th century, the Spanish Civil War and the post-war period, becoming one of the most remarkable members of the second generation of Madrid photojournalists.
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