ICP: Cuba in Revolution
Photography is a unique art in several respects. For one, it has the ability to capture a single moment in time unlike any other medium of fine art; a capability that comes especially handy in moments of historical importance. Thursday’s trip to the ‘International Center of Photography’ highlighted two uses of photography during moments of historical significance. In the lower of two exhibits at the Center was Cuba in Revolution, a gallery comprised of nearly thirty different photographers’ work chronicling Cuba from pre-Revolutionary (~1950s) to the death of Che Guevara.
One of the most unexpected political episodes of the Cold War, the Cuban Revolution showed the rest of the world the power that a faction of young Communist rebels could wield. So powerful in fact that the group, led by Fidel Castro overthrew then President Fulgencio Batista of Cuba on January 1st, 1959. If nothing else, the Revolution highlighted the willpower and strength of the young men in Cuba.
Regardless of the photographer, the location, or the date of the photograph, each framed print invariably focused on young male faces, more often then not holding some type of firearm. This particular ‘theme’ lasted throughout the gallery and could not have better captured the events that were taking place in Cuba at the time. The black and white prints, many of which were vintage from the 1960s, also were unique in that a good majority of them possessed a great deal of detail in the background of the photos. Certainly video could have captured the main focus of what was going on in each particular picture, but only a photograph could have assembled the amount of detail that each shot had, essentially freezing a moment in time. And perhaps that is my favorite part of photography, the photographer’s ability to save an instant never to happen again.
Raul Corrales’ ‘La Caballeria’
Several of the photos that were on display were simply astonishing to say the very least. The ‘feature’ photo of the exhibit was Raul Corrales’ La Caballeria, a shot of the mass of horse riding, flag-waving members of the rebel’s cavalry. The shot itself is special as well; as from left to right, perhaps by design, it fails to contain the (perceived) enormity of the number of ‘soldiers,’ another interesting aspect is the great contrast between the white horse leading out in front of primarily darker horses. In a black-and-white print, the contrast stood out even more so because of the large disparity in the colors. My particular favorite of the show happened to be Alberto Korda’s Quixote of the Lamp Post. The photograph gained my liking particularly for its simplicity. It does not use odd angling or false lighting or any other technique rather it relies solely on the photograph’s subject, which is of a man smoking while sitting high atop a lamppost, above seemingly thousands and thousands of people, listening to a speech given by Fidel Castro. The simplicity in Korda’s picture however is not the exception to the set though, but for the most part, the rule. Nearly, if not, all of the photographs on display were of historically significant people or events; that being said, it is likely that each and every one of them were shot in natural conditions, which very well could have been unfavorable towards the photographer. Understanding this only calls for a greater appreciation of the resulting products, which were and still are important in fully understanding the events that transpired in Cuba over the years of the Revolution.
Alberto Korda’s ‘Quixote on Lamppost’
One of the focuses of the exhibit was on Marxist revolutionary, Che Guevara. In many of the photos presented of him, Guevara displayed an almost absence of emotion, whether it be in his military garb in public, or ‘relaxing’ on his own, he consistently and notably expressed a face of indifference. In fact, he was so emotionless that had one not been informed that one wing of photos of him was of him dead; it would be difficult to tell the difference. Perhaps though the most notable of all photos at the exhibit was Alberto Korda’s “Guerrillero Heroico,” a stoic portrait of Guevara, which has famously come to represent ‘rebels’ worldwide. The photo, which has been called one of the greatest of all-time (by some) possesses little by way of artistic technique, rather it merely captures Guevara in a moment of time; therefore it is the subject of the photo which has become renowned as opposed to its technique.
In reality, that same principle held true for just about every other photo on presentation, the greatest photographs on display were not those that were shot with special lenses or those that utilized different techniques; instead they were those whose subject matter meant the most. Considering the purpose of the photos as being documentation of historical events, fortunately they are viewed more so for their subject value as opposed to their skill, which nevertheless was very good.
