Henri Cartier-Bresson
The Centre Pompidou, Paris
12
February – 9 June 2014
By CHRISTIANA SPENS
Approaching
the vast exhibition at the Centre Pompidou this Spring, with waiting times of
over an hour and rooms packed with people looking closely and intently at the
many photographs, films and paintings on show, it is clear that Cartier-Bresson
is a much loved figure in the capital of his country. Highly respected by the
people as well as the critics, there is an interestingly serious, even studious
atmosphere to the rooms, one that is as sombrely respectful as it is excited. Capturing
over 500 of Cartier-Bresson’s ‘decisive moments’, the exhibition is almost
overwhelmingly substantial and worthwhile. After only one room, I am certain I
will revisit many times over the next few months that it is on.
A
sense of nostalgia exists not only in relation to the images of times now past,
but also in connection to the ideals with which photography, and especially
photojournalism, were tied up. Each phase of Cartier-Bresson’s life and career
(which forms the structure of the exhibition) notes a significant part of his
vision. The first phase (1926 to 1935) is concerned with Surrealism, and is
presumably as good a place as any to start a photographic voyage. As Susan Sontag
wrote in On Photography:
“Surrealism lies at the heart of the
photographic enterprise: in the very creation of a duplicate world, of a
reality in the second degree, narrower but more dramatic than the one perceived
by natural vision.” (Sontag, 1979, 52)
By
starting with Surrealism, however, Cartier-Bresson provided a foundation of
ideas and images that make his later photographer seem somehow more ‘real’ for
being implicitly compared to these early photographs of entangled bodies and
limbs, grotesque forms, and confusing effects. Although there are some
interesting consistencies, and some later images retain the complex patterns
and ideas of the earlier, there is nevertheless is clear shift between what
looks like a dream, and what looks like ‘reality’ (a clever trick of
presentation, at the very least). This was in line with the fate of Surrealism
itself, which hardly survived the war.
The
second phase, 1936 to 1946, was the beginning of Cartier-Bresson’s political
era, when he worked for the Communist press and traveled widely. From 1947 to
1970, he created the cooperative Magnum Photos. From this brief history, but
more importantly from the exhibition, and the many rooms of very different
styles and phases, it is clear that, “there was not just one but several
Cartier-Bressons”. (Centre Pomidou, 2014) What emerges most dramatically,
however, is the sense of history recorded (perhaps because the exhibition is
after all a retrospective and the photographs presented chronologically). Not
one history, but several.
The clearest,
perhaps, is the history of France (and its relation to other countries): a
careful, studied, and seemingly impassioned one. It is a subjective one, of
course – a history of what Cartier-Bresson saw, as much as what happened, but
that is important in itself. As Mitchell explains:
“Every history
is really two histories, the story of what happened and the story of the
perception of what happened, its representation in verbal and visual
narratives, punctuated by iconic moments...” (Mitchell, 2012, 161)
Cartier-Bresson’s
history is interesting also because it is a dominant narrative, or perception,
of French history and people, partly because of a political and public will for
that to be so.
“A photograph … cannot make a dent
in public opinion unless there is an appropriate context of feeling and
attitude.” Photos of Vietnam had an effect in America, but only because there
was already an anti-war sentiment. Journalists felt supported in their efforts.
But there was little similar feeling around the Korean War, so there weren’t
the same kinds of photos published. (Sontag, 1979, 17-18)
To
study the Cartier-Bresson legacy, and the enthusiasm of the people seeing the
exhibition, is to pick up on that public mood, and the revived identification
with the images and history that he depicted many decades ago. At the
exhibition, there are crowds around “Libération de Paris, France” (1944) for
example, which shows a chaos of flags, barricades being taken down, and shaky,
out of focus snapshots of Paris, still damaged with rubble and confused
soldiers.
There is
laughter around the photos of the Coronation of King George VI in London
(1937), showing the ordinary Londoners in curious states of both interest and
alienation: a child screaming on his father’s shoulders; a drunk or asleep man
passed out in a bed of newspapers, below scaffolding on which rows of people
look out for the King. The camera, at all times, is pointed towards the people
rather than the new King. (Perhaps this is a very French or Socialist
perspective of England – which, according to the laughter, is no past
sentiment.)
There are
startling shots of wartime France, including Nazi rallies and bizarrely forced
cheerfulness of wartime films (with a full audience), are strangely moving and
sad, especially with titles such as, “The Amazing New Film from Spain: Return
to Life” – with a note explaining that the film is an “aid to Spanish
Democracy”. The political context seems oddly familiar.
In the
photographs taken during a year in Africa meanwhile, (shortly after his
military service ended), he shows children playing in the street, fishermen,
rowers, and everyday life along the Ivory Coast – with the contradiction of
‘everyday’ and ‘sublime’ that characterises the best of Cartier-Bresson’s
shots.
These “decisive
moments” affect a real intensity in the exhibition – hundreds of brilliant,
piercing shots, fascinating in so many ways. The experimental, Surrealist
forms, the exploratory series of Africa, the tragic-comic scenes of British
society… Time slips away with each new photo. All that has gone – ideals,
people, politics, and even a mood of innovation and revolution that existed
when the photos were taken. Now, many decades later, they seem like sudden
flashbacks to another time – strangely familiar (partly because some of the
images are familiar, and others refer to familiar events) as well as strange.
“All photographs are
memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or
thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this
moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.”
(Susan Sontag, 1979, 16)
Perhaps this is
the gentler side of voyeurism. To walk through hundreds of photographs by
Cartier-Bresson is to walk through his life, and that of France. As a visitor,
somewhere between tourist, student and immigrant, it is to stumble into a world
that is within view but will always be someone else’s, which is perhaps the
essence of all photography. It feels particularly so with these photographs.
There is such a sense of life and grounding in them, of discovery and
enlightenment, that it is difficult not to think, at times, that you have lived
in these moments too. And that is what makes Cartier-Bresson such a brilliant
and accomplished photographer: he has opened up a world of people, ideas and
life that are so clear and direct that empathy with them is tangible and
unforgettable.
Sometimes,
people still consider photography as a secondary art. Even Cartier-Bresson said
that the camera did everything, rather than himself. Perhaps he was exposing
the art of photography by saying something so absurd, since his vision and
attention to other people is present and discernable, even to the most cynical
critic. It would be difficult to see this exhibition, anyway, to witness so
many frames of evidence of that spark that drives people to announce “this is
art!” – That magic, or empathy, or brilliance in a “decisive moment” to use the
photographer’s language. To see so many people intently admiring and engaging
with rooms and rooms of black and white photography is outstanding in itself.
Though there is a nostalgia that comes from seeing old ideals and times now
gone, the exhibition is fresh evidence, nevertheless, that the effects and
power of Cartier-Bresson’s vision is alive and well.
Bibliography:
Sontag, Susan (1979): On Photography. Penguin Books.
Mitchell, W. J. T. (2012): Cloning Terror: The War of Images, 9/11 to
the Present, Chicago &
London: The University of Chicago Press
Centre Pompidou (2014): Notes in the exhibition
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