Cartier-Bresson - Surrealism and communism!

[airfrogusmc]

Cameras might not lie but photographs do.
"What the photographer taking the picture and the historian viewing it must understand is that while the camera deals with recording factual things and events that form the subject of the photograph, it only produces a perceived reality that is remembered after the thing or event has passed. While people believe that photographs do not lie, this is an illusion caused by the mistaken belief that the subject and the picture of the subject is the same thing." -John Szarkowski

"Because we see reality in different ways, we must understand that we are looking at different truths rather than the truth and that, therefore, all photographs lie in one way or another. Today's technological advances in digital manipulation of images that the public sees regularly in photographs and films now only makes it easier to understand what has always been true". John Szarkowski

"All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth." - Richard Avedon

"The minute you relate this thing (a photograph) to what was photographed it's a lie. It's two dimensional, it's an illusion of a literal description." -Garry Winogrand

 

[Rodchenko]

Where did Szarkowski stand on patisserie products?

Hold on - that would be messy.

 

[David Hughes]

Interesting that we've no digressed into the usual half full or half empty mode only as half true and half lies.

Remember the half truth is like the half brick it goes further and can be aimed more accurately.

Of course, surrealists never do anything by halves...

Regards, David

 

[Rodchenko]

Half a loaf is better than none.

Especially pain de campagne

 

[Sparrow]

Interesting that we've no digressed into the usual half full or half empty mode only as half true and half lies.

Remember the half truth is like the half brick it goes further and can be aimed more accurately.

Of course, surrealists never do anything by halves...

Regards, David

... by Vladimir Kush

 

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

Where did Szarkowski stand on patisserie products?

Probably a croisant half-buttered man.

All three of those quotes discuss only a very narrow view of photography. In the far bigger worlds of science, law and people who take pictures for their snap books, they are, in my opinion, quite wrong. As with any medium, the image can be distorted but the importance of photography is that the image can be shown, by using the appropriate procedures and tools, to be objectively correct.

 

[Roger Hicks]

. . . Remember the half truth is like the half brick it goes further and can be aimed more accurately. . .

Dear David,

I'd never heard that before. Brilliant! Thanks.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Rodchenko]

Bourgeois patisserie. Not a croissant in sight.


P2283540 by TJ Clarion, on Flickr

 

[Sparrow]

Bourgeois patisserie. Not a croissant in sight.
P2283540 by TJ Clarion, on Flickr

... is that really a patisserie? ... I don't think so, it looks like a confectioners to me

 

[Rodchenko]

http://www.patisserie-valerie.co.uk/

 

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

Would a Konditorei be appropriate here?

 

[telenous]

The Sean O'Hagan piece makes a bit more sense if you take into account the fact that the Cartier-Bresson retrospective runs parallel to "Surrealism and the Object", another exhibition in Centre Pompidou. That exhibition highlights a rift in surrealism between an earlier, somewhat apolitical period and a later one, where surrealists tried to get in line with the communist aesthetic prerogatives, which up to that point were incompatible with their own. For all that, I agree with Roger, the relation between surrealism and communism is tenuous. (It was possible to be a surrealist and yet not be a communist after all.) But that's just commenting from our point of view: it's debatable whether any of this mattered to the surrealists at all, as they were often inviting inconsistencies and self-serving controversies.

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[Ansel]

The Sean O'Hagan piece makes a bit more sense if you take into account the fact that the Cartier-Bresson retrospective runs parallel to "Surrealism and the Object", another exhibition in Centre Pompidou. That exhibition highlights a rift in surrealism between an earlier, somewhat apolitical period and a later one, where surrealists tried to get in line with the communist aesthetic prerogatives, which up to that point were incompatible with their own. For all that, I agree with Roger, the relation between surrealism and communism is tenuous. (It was possible to be a surrealist and yet not be a communist after all.) But that's just commenting from our point of view: it's debatable whether any of this mattered to the surrealists at all, as they were often inviting inconsistencies and self-serving controversies.

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It depends where you look, what period and country.

The relationship and alignment between the surrealists (led by Andre Breton) and the communists/anarchists is a historical fact. Yes, it did not last forever but they were aligned for a period in history none the less.

As has been widely recorded "The [surrealist] group aimed to revolutionize human experience, including its personal, cultural, social, and political aspects, by freeing people from what they saw as false rationality, and restrictive customs and structures. Breton proclaimed, the true aim of Surrealism was "long live the social revolution, and it alone! To this goal, at various times surrealists aligned with communism and anarchism."

"In 1924 they declared their intents and philosophy with the issuance of the first Surrealist Manifesto. That same year they established the Bureau of Surrealist Research, and began publishing the journal La Révolution surréaliste."

But later on, let us not forget how Salvador Dali sucked up to General Franco for the sake of $$$$.

Regarding Cartier Bresson himself, the new retrospective in Paris takes a more complete look at the full range of his career and shows how:

"Transitioning his early Surrealist aesthetic into his work as a politically-engaged journalist, the exhibition dissolves from a series of images of sleeping individuals into a series of tragic impoverished figures slumped over in similar postures. During this period, Cartier-Bresson’s staunchly leftist leanings sharpened, and he began working regularly for Ce Soir, an evening paper with Communist politics headed by Louis Aragon. For a story about the coronation of King George VI in 1935, Cartier-Bresson rather notably took zero pictures of the monarch. Instead he snapped the English throngs eagerly trying to catch sight of the king. One particularly arresting shot depicts a crowd in Trafalgar Square gaping at the [invisible] charade; below the ledge on which they’re perched, a homeless man sleeps indifferently in a pile of newspapers."

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/13/the-true-henri-cartier-bresson.html

I think a lot of comments in this thread are missing the point of the exhibition, as the article points out: "Whereas previous Cartier-Bresson exhibitions have tried to show the unity of the photographer’s vision, the Centre Pompidou argues that his career should be understood through the evolution and range of his work, rather than as a cohesive whole"

The exhibition is "Organized chronologically—and then thematically within those groupings—the circuit is structured around Cartier-Bresson’s early days (1926-1935), his rising political commitment (1936-1946), and the creation of Magnum and its aftermath (1947-1970s)."

I for one cant wait to see it.
see>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo0uOf68NdI

 

[Sparrow]

ζαχαροπλαστείο


page 49 par Sparrow ... Stewart Mcbride, on ipernity

... all Greek to me eh?

 

[telenous]

It depends where you look, what period and country.

The relationship and alignment between the surrealists (led by Andre Breton) and the communists/anarchists is a historical fact. Yes, it did not last forever but they were aligned for a period in history none the less.

It's not the historical facts that are contended (let's say we all agree to what is publicly available to us), rather the alleged necessary connection between surrealism and communism. (If such an allegation is indeed made?) Compare that with particular strands of psychoanalytic theory. Take these away from surrealism and what is it that you are left with? Arguably, nothing.

But yes, a lot depends on period, milieu, even national context. Surrealism came in many flavours, shapes and forms.

As for the curatorial position on Cartier-Bresson, forgive me, but I don't see it as particularly enlightening in a new way. It's common knowledge that Cartier-Bresson transitioned to a more intensely politically informed photography in his later phase. As is true that he never quite relinquished his earlier aesthetic allegiances. So, on my view, there is an underlying unity in his work that is not really incompatible, either to the possibility of his evolution, or his expanding range.

Don't take me wrong though. I also welcome the opportunity for a (massive) retrospective. 🙂

PS. Stewart, you are killing me, and I am on diet you know. 😀
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[David Hughes]

Hmmm, so when the USSR's copy of the Leica II, meaning the FED 1, was commissioned by Stalin was that surrealism or communism or a fusion?

I wonder what HCB thought of the FED; surely he would have used one...

Regards, David

 

[Ansel]

It's not the historical facts that are contended (let's say we all agree to what is publicly available to us), rather the alleged necessary connection between surrealism and communism. (If such an allegation is indeed made?)

Well if the historical facts about the connection/allegiance between communism and surrealism at that time are not contended I am not sure what is left to contend? The facts speak for themselves surely.

 

[telenous]

Well if the historical facts about the connection/allegiance between communism and surrealism at that time are not contended I am not sure what is left to contend? The facts speak for themselves surely.

There's a historical connection of surrealism with communism (a lot of surrealists converted or identified or... with communism) but you could be a surrealist without being a communist. Your example about Dali is a case in point. What that means is that communism is not really an essential ingredient of surrealism. Were you to attempt a definition of what it is to be a surrealist, you could do so without saying in the end "...and they were communists". Because, obviously, not all of them were, nor did they have to be. Their political leanings were incidental and did not form an intractable element of their aesthetics. (And, if you ask me, the reason they sympathized so strongly with communism was their predilection for revolution, by which, however, they probably meant something distinct than the communists did. But here I am skating on thin ice, I am far from a communism scholar.)

I'll stop here, else Stewart will present me a picture of a baklava.😀

 

[RichC]

There's a historical connection of surrealism with communism (a lot of surrealists converted or identified or... with communism) but you could be a surrealist without being a communist [...] (And, if you ask me, the reason they sympathized so strongly with communism was their predilection for revolution.)

I'll stop here, else Stewart will present me a picture of a baklava.😀

Breton, in the Second Surrealist Manifesto, said "the simplest surrealist act consists of going into the street, revolvers in hand, and firing at random, as fast as possible, into a crowd". So, yes, I'd say that revolutionary communism was attractive to some surrealists.

Stepping away from Cartier-Bresson specifically, photography and surrealism have always been intimately intertwined - think of the pre-war surrealists Man Ray, Maurice Tabard, Hans Bellmer. Rene Magritte - though best known for his paintings, also took photographs.

It has been argued that photography itself is a violent/sexual act (example). I'm off to shoot some people now...

 

[Ansel]

. What that means is that communism is not really an essential ingredient of surrealism.

I agree, and can't see anybody arguing otherwise.