ICP: Walking through History
Photography is a coexistence of remembrance and reminiscence in our lives. Like the old black and white photos, memory and history are fused together to project moment through a unique angle. International Center of Photography serves as a storage of various moments of history: it collects and combines different perspectives altogether. The exhibition that I went last Thursday was “The Mexican Suitcase: Rediscovered Spanish Civil War Negatives by Capa, Chim, and Taro” and “Cuba in Revolution.” These photography exhibitions showed how media utilizes photography to control public opinion and manipulate prejudice.
Upon entering the center, we were greeted by a huge image of film rolls showed in a sectored box called “the Mexican Suitcase” in front the main entrance of ICP. The first exhibition contained photos taken by Chim (David Seymour) and other renowned war photographers, such as Gerda Taro, and Robert Capa, who eventually developed war photography as an independent genre. Their tiny suitcases were filled with more than 4,500 35mm negatives of the photos taken during the Spanish Civil War. This was the first time that they were openly exhibited after the films and negatives were lost and found few decades ago.
The most interesting perspective of this exhibition was that it put an emphasis on the influence of using photographs in media. Of course, some of the photos contained horrifying scene of violence, but most of them were depicting the people’s reactions toward the war. The original films and negatives were on the upper wall. Underneath them, there was a collection of magazines from different countries that used one photo to trigger different reactions from people.
Chim (David Seymour), [Two Republican soldiers carrying a crucifix, Madrid], October– November 1936. © Estate of David Seymour / Magnum. International Center of Photography. <http://www.icp.org/museum/exhibitions/mexican-suitcase>
One sector of the exhibition contained a photo, which depicted the Nazi German soldiers forcefully removing the treasures and art pieces from the Spanish Palace claiming that they can preserve them in a better condition. By using the same photo, German magazine praised their government’s generosity and respect toward Spanish culture, while Regards, the French magazine accuses the Nazis of robbery. Even though, the same picture was used for both media, the title and article generated entirely different atmosphere. Media kindly blocked the people’s vision to generate their own interpretation on the photo.
Osvaldo Salas, Comandante Camillo Cienfuegos and Captain Rafael Ochoa at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC, 1959. © The Osvaldo & Roberto Salas Estate, Havana, Cuba, Courtesy The International Art Heritage Foundation. < http://www.icp.org/museum/exhibitions/cuba>
Downstairs, there was an exhibition about Cuban Revolution. Most of the photos were of portraits of the two leaders of Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. There were two photos stuck in my mind. One was of two Cuban officials, Commandant Cienfuegos and Captain Ochoa arrogantly standing in front of the statue of Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in their Cuban military uniforms. This uneasy juxtaposition of “the martyrs of communism” standing in front of one of the founding fathers of American democracy was both ironic and amusing at the same time.
Another photo was of Che Guevara’s stunned face with his eyes and mouth wide open. Before I read the credit and information below the photo, I didn’t know this photo was taken after his death. His expression was blank, but it was extremely hard to detect any sign of death in the photo itself. It was the moment when I felt the perception of reality was becoming vague. A photo, which is considered to be the most vivid record of history, could not explain the entire history by itself.
Throughout history, photographs were used as a dominant tool for polarizing opinions in favor of one side. That was my initial preconception toward photography. However, ICP exhibitions made me to redefine the role of photographs in our lives. If capturing the moment is a photographer’s duty, we, as viewers, are in charge of developing our own interpretation with open mind. We can either like it or hate it, but should not disregard the fact that there are always some emotions in our mind evoked by photographs. We should treasure such emotions and insights to avoid perceiving bias from the media.
