Noorderlicht

The Homage

Anniversary exhibition

ancillary show / 7 sep 19 oct 2003

Eve Arnold

• MARILYN MONROE

  During the half-century that her career spanned, Eve Arnold did portraits of the most diverse personalities. By far and away the most famous is undoubtedly Marilyn Monroe. The two met each other early in the 1950s. As Arnold sketched the situation later: 'We were both at the beginning of our careers, and I believe that neither of us knew precisely what we were doing'. Like Monroe, Arnold, who in 1951 became the first woman to be nominated for membership in Magnum, was sharply aware of the effect that her being a woman had on the world around her. 'We could make use of it, or we could let it be'. That is one of the reasons why her photographs, for the most part made on or around the film set, are among the best ever made of Monroe. They do not show the 'sex object' but the personality, which generally remained out of the picture.

  

• MARILYN MONROE

  

Henri Cartier-Bresson

• MEXICO

  'In order to give meaning to the world, you have to be involved with what you see. That demands concentration, feeling, a disciplined mind and spatial insight.' Those are the words of Henri Cartier-Bresson, without doubt one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century. His photographs, although made from a journalistic perspective, have the specific gravity of art. Whether they are of people, cities or landscapes, Cartier-Bresson always seeks the 'decisive moment' - the fraction of a second in which the essence of the event becomes visible. It gives his photographs a universal appeal.
  
  Cartier-Bresson was among the founders of Magnum in 1947, and has photographed on every continent. He was in India during the decolonisation and in China when Mao Tse-tung assumed power. In 1954 he was the first foreign photographer allowed into the USSR.
  
  The Mexican photographs which are to be seen at Noorderlicht were made during two trips, the first in 1934, when he was still at the beginning of his career, and the second in 1964.

  

• MEXICO

  

Bruce Davidson

• BROOKLYN GANG

  After a short period as a freelancer for Life magazine, in 1958 Bruce Davidson was included in the Magnum collective. One of the first projects he carried out was making a photo documentary on The Jokers, a group of teenagers in Brooklyn. He hung around with them on the street, in the park, and on the beaches and boardwalks of Coney Island. The result was an intimate and revealing portrait of youth growing up in the 1950s. At the same time it visualised the bonds of friendship among men and women on the threshold of adulthood, a phase common to people of all cultures.
  
  Davidson (b. 1933) would later realise many more similar projects, among them on the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and on the residents of a block in East Harlem. Each time, on the basis of lives rooted in a particular time and place he produced a story with general human appeal, giving a unique modern interpretation to the values of Magnum's founders. Over forty years after it was made, Brooklyn Gang is still a document that speaks to the viewer.

  

• BROOKLYN GANG

  

Ed van der Elsken

• LOVE ON THE LEFT BANK

  Internationally Ed van der Elsken is one of the best known Dutch photographers. For almost forty years he recorded his encounters with people in a style that was just like him: direct and full of bravura. Wandering around in Paris, Hong Kong or Amsterdam, or travelling through Africa or Japan, his eye always fell on people who, just like himself, did not follow the beaten path. With that personal approach, given shape in over 20 photo books and dozens of television films, he inspired many young photographers.
  
  His first book, Love on the Left Bank, appeared in 1956 and made his name internationally. In the book he tells the story of his ramblings in Paris, where he lived for a number of years. He photographed everything he encountered there, and over a long period observed the life of a group of bohemians, idiosyncratic young people like the artist Vali Meyers. He arranged his photographs of them into a fictional love story, for which he himself wrote the texts. In cooperation with Jurriaan Schrofer he designed the book as a photographic novel, a revolutionary design at the time. Noorderlicht presents a selection from this pioneering publication as an ode to a photographer who lauded love and life.

  

Carl de Keyzer

• ZONA

  'Reality is one great spectrum, you can do with it what you want', says Carl de Keyzer. Starting out as a street photographer searching for the one perfect composition, he now prefers to distil almost theatrical scenes from everyday reality. But his commitment remains the same: getting a handle on great social phenomena such as religion, politics and the news.
  
  During Noorderlicht he is showing photographs he made in Russian penal colonies. The colonies are part of the network of 'correctional work camps' that were known in the West as the Gulag. Previously used primarily for confining political dissidents, today the camps accommodate convicted criminals.
  
  De Keyzer (b. 1958) began the reportage three years ago when he arrived at 'Re-education colony number 27' in Krasnoyarsk as a workshop instructor. There he saw the cheerful ironwork of the gate, a small wooden windmill, colourful wall murals - all right up his alley.

  

• ZONA

  

George Rodger

• THE NUBA

  

• THE NUBA

  'I had to get the filth of war out of my system, the screams of the wounded, the moans of the dying. I went in search of a place in the world that was clean.' That is how George Rodger once explained the time spent with the Nuba tribe in Sudan.
  
  From 1939 to 1945 George Rodger had worked as a war correspondent for Life. He photographed in Africa, witnessed the invasion of Normandy and the liberation of Paris. In April, 1945, he was the first photographer to see the horrors of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Sick of searching for 'good compositions of the dead', he decided to never again photograph violence or death.
  
  The first project that he carried out as a founder of Magnum was a 50,000 kilometre trip through North Africa. Eye to eye with the old civilisation, not affected by the recent modern war, he hoped to work through his personal experiences. This emotional commitment undoubtedly explains the exceptional quality of his reportage, which appeared for the first time in 1951 in the National Geographic.
  
  His book Village of the Nubas (1955) is still regarded as a classic. Rodger (1908-1995) made dozens of further trips through Africa.

  

Fernando Scianna

• SICILY

  Ferdinando Scianna was born and raised in Sicily and has pictured the culture of the island like no other. He has devoted various books to the land of his birth. His Les Siciliens, which appeared in 1977, and from which a wide selection is to be seen during Noorderlicht, is regarded as his magnum opus.
  
  In the book, through portraits, landscapes and street scenes Scianna shows a region that is permeated by tradition and religious culture, but at the same time adapts to modern times. His manner of working is characteristic of post-war humanistic reportage photography, while the baroque light and deep shadows of his photographs remind one of the neo-realist Italian cinema of the 1940s. Scianna studied literature and philosophy at the University of Palermo and was captivated by photography in the 1960s. Working in Paris for Le Monde Diplomatique and for various Italian periodicals, he met Henri Cartier-Bresson, who introduced him to Magnum. He became a nominee for membership in 1982 and a full member in 1989.
  
  Scianna (b. 1946) presently lives in Milan and divides his time among reportage, fashion photography and self-initiated book projects.

  

• SICILY

  

Chris Steele Perkins

• THE TEDS

  Chris Steele-Perkins is a multi-talented photographer who focuses on the most diverse subjects. Beginning as a photographer and picture editor for a student newspaper, over the course of the years he has been occupied with social documentary projects, foreign reportage, travel, architecture and landscape photography. He has repeatedly adapted his style and approach to his subjects.
  
  In the 1970s Steele-Perkins (b. 1947) was primarily involved with the social problems of the large British inner cities. At the same time he was working on an extensive project that in 1979 would result in his first book, The Teds. In it he offers a detailed picture of the last of the British Teddy Boys, the fashionably clad and provocative British subculture that arose in the 1950s. The book has long been regarded as the classic example of British post-war documentary photography.

  

• THE TEDS