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THE EYE OF PARIS
Moscow News
August 6, 2012 Monday
Russia
Through Oct. 7 at the Multimedia Art Museum Moscow, 16 Ul. Ostozhenka,
m. Kropotkinskaya, www.mamm-mdf.ruOpen Tue.-Sun. noon-9 pm, closed Mon.
George Brassai was a pioneer in photo-reportage on the Parisian
underworld. Like the renowned artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec before
him, he went strolling through the city at night, taking photos
of prostitutes, pimps, bar flys, rare gay clubs, transvestites,
or simply couples dating in the middle of the night.
This August, the Multimedia Art Museum, with the support of the Estate
Brassai in France, brings to Moscow a retrospective exhibition of
Brassai's selected works. The show consists of three parts: photos
of Paris in the 1930s; portraits of Brassai's friends, Pablo Picasso
and Salvador Dali, in their studios; and surrealistic experimental
photography. Among the items on display are also photos of graffiti
on Parisian streets that look like cave art, nudes, the famous
albums 'Paris at Night' (which was called 'the eye of Paris' by the
writer Henry Miller) and 'Mysteries of Paris,' graphic drawings by
the photographer, a 1948 sculpture of Picasso's head, and a movie
directed by Brassai 'Tant qu'il y aura des bêtes' (As long as
there are beasts), awarded 'The Most Original Film' in Cannes in 1956.
A sculptor, photographer and artist, Brassai was one of several of the
world's most influential photographers who happened to be working in
Paris from the 1920s to the 1960s (among them Henri Cartier-Bresson,
'the father of modern photo reportage'). Most of Brassai's works were
dedicated to Paris; he lived and worked in the city, so he is often
named among the great photographers of the socalled French school.
Origins
George Brassai was a pseudonym of Gyula Halasz, meaning 'from Brasso'.
The son of a Hungarian professor of French literature and an Armenian
mother, Halasz was born in Brasso, Transylvania (then within the
Kingdom of Hungary). Leaving it in 1920 to work as a journalist in
Berlin and Paris, he never returned to his fatherland, and stayed in
France from 1924 till his death in 1984.
Working as a journalist, Brassai often asked his friends to
provide photos for his articles, among them another Hungarian-born
photographer, Andre Kertesz, a celebrated master of photographic
composition. A trained artist, Brassai reportedly didn't initially
respect the new art of photography, considering it a craft. However,
upon borrowing a camera from Kertesz, he realized that 'the thing
that is magnificent about photography is that it can produce images
that incite emotion based on the subject matter alone,' and started
taking photos himself, capturing mysteriously lit streets of the city
and its insomniac, shadowy inhabitants.
No ordinary eyes
Brassai's works in many ways differ from those of his contemporary
fellow Parisians. Most of them photographed romantic or funny scenes
of the city, usually in daytime. Brassai chose a more complicated way,
waiting for the sunset like some kind of a vampire photographer, and
using any light he could find outside, car headlights or street lights.
'Night does not show things, it suggests them,' he said. 'It disturbs
and surprises us with its strangeness. It liberates forces within us
which are dominated by our reason during the daytime.'
Along with the Parisian underground, which he often explored with his
American friend Henry Miller, Brassai was acquainted with the city's
luckier citizens. He had friends among the city's high society and
intellectual elite, and captured their prosperous lives as well. 'When
you meet the man, you see at once that he is equipped with no ordinary
eyes,' Miller said of him.
Explaining the mystique and surrealism of his story-telling pictures,
Brassai used to say that his only aim was to show reality, which
was more surreal than anything else. 'If reality fails to fill us
with wonder, it is because we have fallen into the habit of seeing
it as ordinary,' he said. He also said that he can penetrate to the
extraordinary by 'capturing reality in the humblest, most sincere,
most everyday way.'
With his photos of street graffiti from 1933 to 1956, Brassai wanted
to show what worried and amused teenagers of his time: animals with
human heads, empty-eyed faces, love declarations, skulls and gibbets.
During World War II, Brassai stayed in France while many of his
colleagues fled. His kind of photography was restricted by the Nazis,
though, and meanwhile the streets changed, so Brassai went back to
drawing. Picasso never approved of him switching to photography from
his initial art. When the famous artist first saw Brassai's drawings,
he called him 'crazy' and said: 'You have a gold mine and you spend
your time exploiting a salt mine!'
In the 1940s and 1950s, Brassai worked for the American Harper's
Bazaar, and in 1948 he gained international acclaim with a solo
exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Moscow News
August 6, 2012 Monday
Russia
Through Oct. 7 at the Multimedia Art Museum Moscow, 16 Ul. Ostozhenka,
m. Kropotkinskaya, www.mamm-mdf.ruOpen Tue.-Sun. noon-9 pm, closed Mon.
George Brassai was a pioneer in photo-reportage on the Parisian
underworld. Like the renowned artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec before
him, he went strolling through the city at night, taking photos
of prostitutes, pimps, bar flys, rare gay clubs, transvestites,
or simply couples dating in the middle of the night.
This August, the Multimedia Art Museum, with the support of the Estate
Brassai in France, brings to Moscow a retrospective exhibition of
Brassai's selected works. The show consists of three parts: photos
of Paris in the 1930s; portraits of Brassai's friends, Pablo Picasso
and Salvador Dali, in their studios; and surrealistic experimental
photography. Among the items on display are also photos of graffiti
on Parisian streets that look like cave art, nudes, the famous
albums 'Paris at Night' (which was called 'the eye of Paris' by the
writer Henry Miller) and 'Mysteries of Paris,' graphic drawings by
the photographer, a 1948 sculpture of Picasso's head, and a movie
directed by Brassai 'Tant qu'il y aura des bêtes' (As long as
there are beasts), awarded 'The Most Original Film' in Cannes in 1956.
A sculptor, photographer and artist, Brassai was one of several of the
world's most influential photographers who happened to be working in
Paris from the 1920s to the 1960s (among them Henri Cartier-Bresson,
'the father of modern photo reportage'). Most of Brassai's works were
dedicated to Paris; he lived and worked in the city, so he is often
named among the great photographers of the socalled French school.
Origins
George Brassai was a pseudonym of Gyula Halasz, meaning 'from Brasso'.
The son of a Hungarian professor of French literature and an Armenian
mother, Halasz was born in Brasso, Transylvania (then within the
Kingdom of Hungary). Leaving it in 1920 to work as a journalist in
Berlin and Paris, he never returned to his fatherland, and stayed in
France from 1924 till his death in 1984.
Working as a journalist, Brassai often asked his friends to
provide photos for his articles, among them another Hungarian-born
photographer, Andre Kertesz, a celebrated master of photographic
composition. A trained artist, Brassai reportedly didn't initially
respect the new art of photography, considering it a craft. However,
upon borrowing a camera from Kertesz, he realized that 'the thing
that is magnificent about photography is that it can produce images
that incite emotion based on the subject matter alone,' and started
taking photos himself, capturing mysteriously lit streets of the city
and its insomniac, shadowy inhabitants.
No ordinary eyes
Brassai's works in many ways differ from those of his contemporary
fellow Parisians. Most of them photographed romantic or funny scenes
of the city, usually in daytime. Brassai chose a more complicated way,
waiting for the sunset like some kind of a vampire photographer, and
using any light he could find outside, car headlights or street lights.
'Night does not show things, it suggests them,' he said. 'It disturbs
and surprises us with its strangeness. It liberates forces within us
which are dominated by our reason during the daytime.'
Along with the Parisian underground, which he often explored with his
American friend Henry Miller, Brassai was acquainted with the city's
luckier citizens. He had friends among the city's high society and
intellectual elite, and captured their prosperous lives as well. 'When
you meet the man, you see at once that he is equipped with no ordinary
eyes,' Miller said of him.
Explaining the mystique and surrealism of his story-telling pictures,
Brassai used to say that his only aim was to show reality, which
was more surreal than anything else. 'If reality fails to fill us
with wonder, it is because we have fallen into the habit of seeing
it as ordinary,' he said. He also said that he can penetrate to the
extraordinary by 'capturing reality in the humblest, most sincere,
most everyday way.'
With his photos of street graffiti from 1933 to 1956, Brassai wanted
to show what worried and amused teenagers of his time: animals with
human heads, empty-eyed faces, love declarations, skulls and gibbets.
During World War II, Brassai stayed in France while many of his
colleagues fled. His kind of photography was restricted by the Nazis,
though, and meanwhile the streets changed, so Brassai went back to
drawing. Picasso never approved of him switching to photography from
his initial art. When the famous artist first saw Brassai's drawings,
he called him 'crazy' and said: 'You have a gold mine and you spend
your time exploiting a salt mine!'
In the 1940s and 1950s, Brassai worked for the American Harper's
Bazaar, and in 1948 he gained international acclaim with a solo
exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.