We'll end the first year of the Magnum Blog with some New Year's Eve impressions by Bruce Gilden. We wish you a healthy, peaceful and happy New Year! Thank's a lot for your support during 2007! And here is a link to our Happy New Year wishes from Magnum In Motion.
Any exciting New Year's wishes out there that you'd like to share?
It has been a busy month in Cambodia. Things around and at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal itself have taken an accelerated pace with the arrests of Ieng Sary and his wife Ieng Thirith, of Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea and probably others in the pipeline. But most of all the first public hearings took place regarding the appeal against his detention of Kang Guek Eav, alias Duch, in charge of the S21 interrogation center during the Pol Pot regime.
It is the first time Duch appeared in public since over 8 years, and there was a long line of people at the entrance of the courtroom. They filled the hall where two big screens showed what happened in the crammed pretrial chambers nearby. Press photographers and cameramen were alllowed five minutes at the beginning of two hearings. The first time we were about sixty and inevitably there was some pushing and shoving. Luckily it was in my back... The second time, before the judges would tell Duch he would stay in prison, things were better organised and only five photographers were allowed in, pooling for those who had to stay outside. The light in the pretrial chamber was kind of gloomy neon. It was a weird impression to stand two or three meters from someone who is tried for crimes against humanity and who is accused of being responsible for the death of some 15000 people. It is weird because he is just an old man, with glassy eyes looking at us, late at standing up when the judges come in, but seemingly healthier looking than eight years ago. It is as if the monster has disappeared with the system which created it...
I like the idea that Antoine d'Agata is part of the 'Magnum family', because there is nothing more stimulating than trying to make photographers fit in who don't conform to the usual image of our venerable agency. Nothing could be more boring than accepting a new photographer who is a clone of ourselves.
When I saw Antoine's work for the first time, I had a shock. I had become saturated with photography in general, which I found repetitive and limited. I had tried other formats - square, panoramic, colour, then cinema - all in an attempt to escape boredom or repetition. Suddenly, Antoine's work proved to me that with photography you could still surprise and move people.
I really loved these photos that brought me into the world of the night.
I found them unique, moving, sensual, brutal, sometimes even shocking, wavering between desire, pleasure and suffering - one moment attracting us to desirable bodies or exciting situations, and the next to something we have no reason to desire.
D'Agata spares us nothing, and he spares himself nothing. He seems to photograph everything he experiences, in its entirety, to excess. He puts himself in danger and takes photos at moments when most of us would have given up. You cannot tell where the private ends and the professional begins. This is what drives most photographers, in a constant to and fro between the inner world and the outer world. His work shows a need to speak, to show, to reveal oneself, to cry out - a sense of urgency, as if our existence was threatened.
Henri Cartier-Bresson claimed that one has to step back from reality and become invisible. Robert Capa said you have to get so close to your subject that you feel fear. As for D'Agata, while he belongs perfectly properly to the tradition of reportage, he gets close enough to his subjects to make them blurred, and even includes himself in some pictures, as if to show that to leave oneself out would be a delusion.
Whether it is the work of a photographer, painter or film-maker, a work of art makes sense and touches me when it bears traces of the artist's self-portrait. Patrick Zachmann
With the publishing of Magnum's latest book "Magnum Magnum" (see Martin Parr's introduction) we present you three sample chapters of this epic 6,5kg book on the Magnum Blog. In this book each Magnum photographer is represented by six works chosen by, and accompanied by a critical text from, another member. We started with Chien-Chi Chang by Bruce Davidson and continue our presentation today with Eve Arnold by Elliott Erwitt.
If you were asked to conjure up a seasoned journalist-photographer who has travelled extensively, worked in the most difficult and remote parts of our globe, managed to penetrate and be accepted in exotic cultures at one time, and then average or even banal, familiar ones right afterward, all the while observing and recording with great heart and sympathy the manifestations of our human condition, you would surely come up with the legendary Eve Arnold ... a very big person in a very compact package.
Eve Arnold is the quintessential journalist. Or better, she is what the quintessential photojournalist should be. That is, a curious, visual person, the inconspicuous fly on the wall observing situations without participating in them or attracting attention, opinionated but not judgmental.
I have known Eve as a suburban wife and doting mother in the Long Island exurbs fifty miles from New York City, where she lived years ago, and as a literary person and author of many fine works, now based in her sublime, book-lined London apartment. But I know her especially as the intrepid, highly energetic photographer and colleague, producing picture story after picture story, and picture book after picture book, and as a pillar of our Magnum Photos cooperative. In all of Eve's work, as with her person, the special ability has been getting close to her subjects - often becoming a trusted friend, regardless of their caste or fame, while always maintaining the dignity that permeates her character.
Eve Arnold's legacy is as varied as it is fascinating. It is hard to fathom how one person's work can be so diverse. It covers the humblest to the most exalted, the meanest to the kindest, and everything in between. The subjects are all there in Eve Arnold's photographs and they are treated with intelligence, consideration and sympathy. Most important is Eve's ability to visually communicate her concerns directly, without fanfare or pretence, in the best humanistic tradition. Elliott Erwitt
With the publishing of Magnum's latest book "Magnum Magnum" (see Martin Parr's introduction) we will present you three sample chapters of this epic 6,5kg book on the Magnum Blog. In this book each Magnum photographer is represented by six works chosen by, and accompanied by a critical text from, another member. We start with Chien-Chi Chang by Bruce Davidson.
I got to know Chien-Chi Chang at a small dinner party given in his honour by a New York Times photographer. He stood there quiet, self-composed and observant, like a photo-Buddha, but not with a protruding belly. The gathering was held in a walk-up apartment in what is called 'Chinatown'. I never felt comfortable with its designation because it denotes the 'Other'. Chinatown is thought of as a place of secrets, suspicion and strangeness. Actually, it is all of the above, but it is also a place where Chinese medical doctors practice, of store front shops with goods from Asia, neighbourhood schools, and families surviving and thriving in a New York City community that is vibrant and visually interesting.
It is where Chien-Chi Chang explores aspect of the culture and the people living there. He uncovers the idea of 'Chinatown' in a way that is both lyrical and poetic. This is not an easy thing to do when people may be illegal immigrants, suspicious of outsiders, or where taking an image may be frowned upon for spiritual reasons. I think of his image of a man sitting on a 'flop house' fire escape in the dog days of summer. He is in what appear to be his underpants. He is taking in some fresh air and a sense of his own freedom high above the teeming streets. It would be interesting to know how Chien-Chi found his way into this tenement and gained the trust of its inhabitants.
Chien-Chi seems to connect to alienation. In his portrayal of patients in a Taiwanese mental institution, he chooses to photograph a group strung together with a chain. Here he chooses a formal straight-on view. At the Venice Biennale and other exhibitions, he chose to make these images life-size. Chien-Chi comes to grips with the concept of isolation. These photographs put the viewer into a powerful confrontation with the subject that is visually innovative.
Chien-Chi takes a close-up look at the abuse and banality of arranged marital unions. These marriages between naïve Vietnamese country girls and much older Taiwanese men show the incongruity and despair that is brought to the surface in Chien-Chi's exploration.
Chien-Chi Chang's inner eye goes beyond today's edicts of the media. One will not see sound-bite, fast-food photography in his work. He takes on subtle and difficult subjects that often go unnoticed and brings to light a vision that is passionate, penetrating and profound. Certainly, we can all learn from him. Bruce Davidson
It has been a busy month in Cambodia. Things around and at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal itself have taken an accelerated pace with the arrests of Ieng Sary and his wife Ieng Thirith, of Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea and probably others in the pipeline. But most of all the first public hearings took place regarding the appeal against his detention of Kang Guek Eav, alias Duch, in charge of the S21 interrogation center during the Pol Pot regime.
Magnum Magnum is a 564 pages, 13.3 pounds heavy book edited by Brigitte Lardinois. It was published in English by "
