HCB exhibition in Amsterdam

RML · 12-30-2005

I went to see the HCB exhibition in FOAM in Amsterdam today. In general an impressive exhibition. Personally I was a little disappointed with it, but then I never understood why people find HCB's photos so great. It's just me, I guess. Anyway, i wrote a little about my visit on my blog:

http://shardsofphotography.blogspot....xhibition.html

Anyway, if you're in Amsterdam and have some time to kill, go and see it. Even for me it was a must-see.

thmk · 12-30-2005

Hey, Amsterdam is less than 7 hours away

So there should be a chance to get there until April and visit the exhibition. Thanks for the hint, I will keep it in mind.

Cheers
Thomas-Michael

Bertram2 · 12-30-2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by RML

I went to see the HCB exhibition in FOAM in Amsterdam today. In general an impressive exhibition. Personally I was a little disappointed with it, but then I never understood why people find HCB's photos so great. It's just me, I guess. Anyway, i wrote a little about my visit on my blog:

http://shardsofphotography.blogspot....xhibition.html

Anyway, if you're in Amsterdam and have some time to kill, go and see it. Even for me it was a must-see.

Remy,
this link does not work !? My fault ? I am thinking about visiting this exhibition, it is said to be the original retrospective from Paris 2003, which I missed unfortunately.
HCB is not one of my heroes, I respect and admire his work, to which I sometimes cannot find any access tho. Maybe because I wasn't ever educated as a painter. My heroes are Doisneau, Ronis, Brassai and Kertesz, they speak that clear language which artistical parvenus like me prefer.

What made YOU feel disappointed watching his pics ? Did you already know them , or did you find them trivial, or having no clear vision ? Some of his pics simply do not touch my soul, some do, there is no emotional continuity , at least in my personal perception.

Regards,
bertram

RML · 12-31-2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bertram2

Remy, this link does not work !?

This link is working: http://shardsofphotography.blogspot....xhibition.html .

wilt · 12-31-2005

Speaking of Brassai, Louisiana just outside Copenhagen shows his work now.

Bertram2 · 12-31-2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by RML

This link is working: http://shardsofphotography.blogspot....xhibition.html .

Thanks, this one does work. Must think about it, he's been a true master, that's for sure , and if the exhibition is that large it could contain photos I haven't seen before.
On the other hand there is a exhibition of Ronis at the time in Paris..............
Vivre, c'est choisir..

bertram

RML · 12-31-2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bertram2

I am thinking about visiting this exhibition, it is said to be the original retrospective from Paris 2003, which I missed unfortunately.
HCB is not one of my heroes, I respect and admire his work, to which I sometimes cannot find any access tho. Maybe because I wasn't ever educated as a painter. My heroes are Doisneau, Ronis, Brassai and Kertesz, they speak that clear language which artistical parvenus like me prefer.

What made YOU feel disappointed watching his pics ? Did you already know them , or did you find them trivial, or having no clear vision ? Some of his pics simply do not touch my soul, some do, there is no emotional continuity , at least in my personal perception.

Bertram, I think you're right about the origins of the exhibition.

Brassai and Kertesz are also some of my favourites, as is Atget. I can't explain why but their photos tell more of a story to me or simply appeal more to me. But there are others too.

The disappointment was more in that seeing the photos in real life didn't make me like them more. I had an entirely different experience when I saw the Winogrand exhibition "Women are beautiful" in FOAM. In the books these photos didn't speak much to me; in real life they blew me away with their depth, their oddness, their angles, etc. No such experience with the HCB photos.

I do like some of the HCB photos. There are a handful at least that I like very much, and there are others that are educational in that they teach me to see in a different way or from a different angle. But in general I don't get much of a buzz from seeing the HCB photos.

Another thing that struck me was how poorly focused many of HCB's photos are. Motion blur is fine but many shots are simply not focused at all. If that would add to the shot then that would be fine but IMO in most cases it doesn't add at all, just distracts. Combined with a scene that I find uninteresting, this makes for nothing more than a snap shot. Harsh critique for an HCB photo from an unknown and possibly less-than-mediocre photographer like me? Perhaps so, but it's the way I feel and see it.

The exhibition wasn't a waste of money or time. It's always educational to see other photographers'work in real life. But I did find it quite disappointing. The work was not up to the expectations I had from hearing years and years of laudations for HCB's work. As I wrote in my blog, perhaps I was born in the wrong era. Being a child from the 70s, I'm probably too spoilt already for images to see the greatness of HCB's work.

Bertram2 · 12-31-2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by RML

I do like some of the HCB photos. There are a handful at least that I like very much, and there are others that are educational in that they teach me to see in a different way or from a different angle. But in general I don't get much of a buzz from seeing the HCB photos.
Another thing that struck me was how poorly focused many of HCB's photos are. Motion blur is fine but many shots are simply not focused at all..

My perception is similar. He was a painter more than a photog always, he came from painting and went back there at the end, and for me he is a painter who used a camera more than a photog who was educated as a painter.

His statement "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept" is not that pure joke as I kept it first. At least he must have meant that it is not at all "decisive" for keeping and publishing a pic This attitude is obvious from the beginning of his work on.
My POV is tho if blur is not part of the concept then it's just blur and a photographical fault. I am not an artist , and so I can afford such a philistine POV

Nonetheless this does not make me beeing a bourgeois, one of those who keep everything beeing "art" wht they cannot understand .

HCB has been undoubtedly an artist tho, and whatever one will think and feel about his work, it earns respect in any case. All the derisive and big-mouthed comments I've read in several forums say a lot about the big-mouth and nothing about HCB

Regards,
Bertram

RML · 12-31-2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bertram2

HCB has been undoubtedly an artist tho, and whatever one will think and feel about his work, it earns respect in any case. All the derisive and big-mouthed comments I've read in several forums say a lot about the big-mouth and nothing about HCB

No doubt he's an artist. He did have a fabulous eye, and a nack for catching that fleeting moment (I personally hate the term "decisive moment"). His background in art, like others of his time, made him see in quite special and specific ways, and that is why his photos for me are a source of education.

I wish, though, I could understand why his work is so highly regarded even today. In the 1930s it must have been quite new and advanced, perhaps even provocative, but others were doing similar things or things that were even more avant-garde and ground-breaking. Moholy-Nage (sp?) comes to mind.

I think nowadays we hardly appreciate how much art has influenced photography: surrealism, cubism, realism, Bauhaus, etc. have all left there marks on the photographers living during those art trends. Those photographers have (had) a lasting effect on later photographers, and on us. I'm returning more and more to those art trends just to find out what they are, how they "see" the world, how they've influenced photography and how I can get to grips with them and consciously include them in my own photography. Anyone who followed my blog a bit would have read about my recent forays into the art of Magritte and Picasso. I still have much to learn. Maybe one day I'll also understand why HCB's work is so highly regarded.

J. Borger · 12-31-2005

I will not go into the discussion of HCB "greatness", which will always be subjective.
But i will make a remark about pictures falling apart in print because of printsize.
I was at an Elliot Erwitt exhibit this year ........... dissapointing.
World Press PHoto ........... VERY dissapointing.
When i watch the Magnum website i can watch many pictures in awe on screen...... but when i see those same pictures printed in a book they often just do not cut it ... i do not like them half as much. Bookformat, paper, size of print all have a lot to do with it.
Some pictures fall apart printed larger, others do not work small but are oberwhelming when printed huge ( A Gursky picture for instance, which looks very ordinary in a book).
THe HCB pictures do not have the technical quality (blur) mentioned, because they were never taken with exhibition in a museum in mind .... they were shot for magazines.
And they are sharp enough for print at those sizes.
The same with prints at World -Press Photo ......... a lot of those pictures fall apart compositionwise and technicaly on a musem wall because of larger printsize as intended.

When you think about it ..i am not surprised Winogrand Pictures gain from a larger print .. because there is a lot going on in these images which you do not notice in a smaller print.

I have been to many exhibitions where i left with the feeling i did not like the pictures as much as before (from book or otherwise).
The opposite can also happen (i had that experience with Gursky & Bettina Reims)

Han

Bertram2 · 12-31-2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by J. Borger

THe HCB pictures do not have the technical quality (blur) mentioned, because they were never taken with exhibition in a museum in mind .... they were shot for magazines.
Han

Maybe you are rigt , sounds plausible, I haven't thought ever about this beeing the reason for that gap between print and book.
I haven't ever understood why in a gallery exhibition often all prints have the same size, that's simply insane in my eyes.

bertram

thmk · 02-28-2006

Yeah, finally it is settled to take a visit to the FOAM next week

Can't wait... Only problem is which camera to take with me for the trip