Retrospective
René Burri. Che Guevara with a cigar. From the series ‘Interview with the Minister of Industry for the Magazine Look’. Havana, 1963. Gelatin silver print
René Burri. Ernesto Che Guevara. From the series ‘Interview with the Minister of Industry for Look Magazine’. Havana, 1963. Contact prints. Gelatin silver print
René Burri. Ernesto Che Guevara. From the series ‘Interview with the Minister of Industry for the Magazine Look’. Havana, 1963. Gelatin silver print
René Burri. Ernesto Che Guevara. In memory of Che 8.10.1967. La Higuera, Bolivia, 1993. Gelatin silver print
René Burri. Kunming Lake. Summer Palace. Beijing, China, 1964. Gelatin silver print
René Burri. Rio de Janeiro. Brazil, 1960. Gelatin silver print
René Burri. West Berlin, Soviet War Memorial in Treptower Park. West Germany, Berlin, 1959. Gelatin silver print
René Burri. Architect Oscar Niemeyer with colleagues. Brazil, 1960. Gelatin silver print
René Burri. West Berlin, building the Wall. West Germany, 1961. Gelatin silver print
René Burri. Rohtas Fort. West Pakistan, 1963. Gelatin silver print
Moscow, 2.04.2014—18.05.2014
exhibition is over
Central exhibition hall Manege
1, Manege Square (
www.moscowmanege.ru
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As part of the 10th International Month of Photography MAMM presents a comprehensive exhibition showcasing the work of photographer René Burri (b. 1933), full member of the Magnum photo agency.
René Burri was born in Zurich in 1933. He studied art at the School of Arts and Crafts in Zurich and began making documentary films in 1953 before developing an interest in photography. As a young man he dreamed of seeing the world: ‘I was always consumed by curiosity, and in Switzerland I felt trapped,’ he recalled later. ‘I climbed clifftops to see the horizon, but all around there were just more cliffs.’
René Burri achieved success quite quickly — his first reportage about deaf-mute children was published in Life and other European magazines. In 1954 Werner Bischof asked him to join the Magnum photo agency, the renowned association of documentary photographers, and the agency’s director David Seymour immediately sent the young photographer to Czechoslovakia and the Middle East. ’He threw me into the world,’ Burri recounted many years later, ’... and I surprised myself by becoming a photojournalist.’
René Burri attained worldwide recognition after publication of his first photo album ’Die Deutschen’ (The Germans) in 1962, which was followed by more than ten other books. In 1959 he became a full member of Magnum. Many of his images are recognised as masterpieces of photographic art, icons of the 20th century, although nobody now remembers who took them: his portrait of the young Che Guevara with a cigar between his teeth, a group of people on the roof of a skyscraper, portraits of Le Corbusier and Pablo Picasso. He has travelled extensively all over the world, reporting on major events in the history of the second half of the 20th century and early 21st. Among the photographer’s works are series taken in Vietnam, Cambodia, Beirut, Cuba, China and Cyprus.
A brilliant photojournalist, Burri has brought history closer to man: his images for prominent magazines graphically visualize a reality that by his endeavour becomes more than a distant abstraction on the pages of printed media and turns into an essential emotional experience, an incredibly vital and physically palpable actuality.
From the collection of the Westlicht Photo Museum, Vienna
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Official guide of the "Photobiennale 2014"
