Sixty years of career summarized in 320 photographs. It is the proposal of KBr space to present to one of the greats behind the camera, to “a key figure in 20th century photography, there is a before and after of characters like him and his way of looking at photography & rdquor ;. The master is Lee Friedlander (Aberdeen, USA, 1934), who at the age of 88 continues to capture images, there is his 2011 self-portrait taken in the hospital bed after a delicate operation. “The first thing he did when he woke up was to ask for his camera, he does it compulsively, it’s his way of connecting with the world & rdquor ;. The explanations are by Carlos Gollonet, art historian and curator of the exhibition (until May 8). It is not the first monograph to land in Barcelona dedicated to this creator who has followed his career defying tradition, in 2007 the one dedicated to him by Moma in 2005 could be seen in the city.
The Holy Family
Then one of the images of the current sample did not look: a holy family that is hard to see, hidden in a second or third plane and in dispute with the vegetation and various souvenirs to achieve prominence. The image is a rarity and an example at the same time. The uniqueness arises from how anecdotal it is that Friedlander includes snapshots of his travels in the exhibitions: he does not like to photograph what is alien to him, not in vain defines his photography as “the American social landscape & rdquor ;. And the normality of the image is defined because it condenses the essence of his work: nothing linked to the tradition of art or his aesthetic will but to capture reality just as it is Photography, furthermore, is directly related to one of his best-known and most recognized series ‘The American Monument’, in which he portrays significant pieces of his country but does not do so as usual: the works are never in the center or identified.
His thing -in addition to irony, humor and visual games- It is the “perfect framing & rdquor ;, says the commissioner. If for Henri Cartier-Bresson the important thing was ‘the decisive moment’, the scene would not be the same one taken a second before or a second after, for Friedlander time does not matter. for the american artist the vital thing is the composition. There is ‘Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1972’, a compositionally perfect image in which nothing is expendable: the dog, the traffic light, the fire hydrant, the house… The photograph would have been the same one taken a second before or one after, but it would not hold without any of the elements that appear in it. There is more: it does not crop the negatives, what is framed is what ends up appearing on the paper copy. Whether in the nudes – totally stripped of a ‘voyeur’ or romantic look – or in the self-portraits – her image ends up being a part of the composition when projected as a shadow or as a reflection on glass.
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Uncle Vern and his car
Something almost natural in someone who discovered photography as a teenager and almost by accident: “I just wanted to take Uncle Vern out with his new car on a clear day. I got him and the car out. Also some laundry from my Aunt Mary and Beau Jack the dog peeing on the fence and a row of potted Begonias on the porch and 78 trees and a million pebbles in the driveway and more.” Come on, “Friedlander is able to build a work of art from photographing those elements that are not likely to be photographed a priori”. Commissioner’s word.