Sabine Weiss, Paris (Vers La Lumiere)

JUNE 3 – JULY 18, 2017

Remembrances of Things Past is an intimate survey of classic photography from the 1950s and 1960s. Whether living in post-war Europe or the United States, humanity experienced a time of economic expansion and the rebuilding of cities and livelihoods of many individuals. Throughout history, photography has been the medium to directly communicate fragments of reality from all over the world, creating global connections and a collective memory. Photographers such as André Kertész, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Brassaï, Sabine Weiss, and Robert Doisneau in Paris and Bruce Davidson in the United States have all played a significant role in making history visible through their nostalgic views of cities and the people that populate them.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Remembrances of Things Past is an intimate survey of classic photography from the 1950s and 1960s. Whether living in post-war Europe or the United States, humanity experienced a time of economic expansion and the rebuilding of cities and livelihoods of many individuals. Throughout history, photography has been the medium to directly communicate fragments of reality from all over the world, creating global connections and a collective memory. Photographers such as André Kertész, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Brassaï, Sabine Weiss, and Robert Doisneau in Paris and Bruce Davidson in the United States have all played a significant role in making history visible through their nostalgic views of cities and the people that populate them.

André Kertész, a modernist and one of the most notable photographers of the 20th century, made photographs to resemble a “reflection in a mirror, unmanipulated and direct as in life.” Henri Cartier-Bresson, following in the footsteps of Kertész, and inspired by Cubism and Surrealism, believed in the “significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which gave that event its proper expression.” Sabine Weiss, a french humanist, is praised for her photographs that encompass an array of personalities on the streets of Paris in which the simple pleasures of life are deftly emphasized. Her influencer, Robert Doisneau, was notorious for his poetic approach to street photography, creating perfect vignettes of the city of light. Brassaï, a Hungarian-French photographer, sculptor, writer, and filmmaker, photographed Paris at night, using long exposures to depict the dark romance that is deeply ingrained in the city. In the United States, Bruce Davidson, with a photojournalistic approach to photography became immersed in every facet of life that he chose to document, usually following his subjects for months on end, creating series after series that tell stories through their raw yet refined aesthetic.

Remembrances of Things Past exposes the roots of the photographic image and brings together a group of artists whose imagery defined the post-war era.