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PORTFOLIOS:

ALBERTO GARCIA - ALIX

JEAN-CHRISTOPHE BECHET

RICHARD FLEISCHHUT

PHOTO METROPOLIS MADRID

10 YEARS OF PHOTOESPAÑA

LEICA OSKAR BARNACK AWARD:

JULIO BITTENCOURT

JOSE CENDON

MARGARET M. DE L ANGE

LEICA M8 IN PROFESSIONAL HANDS:

MARTINE FRANCK

THOMAS HÖPKER

CONSTANTINE MANOS

TOMAS MUNITA

J IM RAKETE

‘ VU’ MAGAZINE

INDEX 1996–2006

1/2007 Leica World 31

S P E C I A L M A D R I D

Photo - Metropolis Madrid

FROM HERE TO HEAVEN

Madrid is booming. Economically and culturally, Spain’s capital is undergoing a remarkable upswing,

from which photography is benefiting in no small way. ‘Leica World’ author Moritz Neumüller

writes of a flourishing photo scene that includes museums, art spaces, galleries and what has long

been one of the world’s most interesting annual festivals.

WHE N THE SUN SETS ON MADRID and the steel-blue sky above thecity is shot through with delicate shades of pink, it brings to mind thetapestry cartoons at the Prado by the Spanish court painter FranciscoGoya. And you sense the significance of the Madrilene motto “deMadrid al cielo”: from Madrid it’s a straight road to heaven. The empireon which the sun never set ended long ago and the legendary Armadawas lost for ever, but in the Spanish capital people still like to reach forthe stars. European development grants and the involvement of Span-ish companies in Latin-America have strengthened the country’s econ-omy and it is looking confidently to the future. In the Madrid metro-politan area, economic output and the population levels have trebledin the last decade. Similar heights have been achieved in the culturalsector, too, as the recent extension to the Reina Sofía National Museumby French star architect Jean Nouvel and the success of the interna-tional ARCO art fair so impressively demonstrate. And in the field ofphotography, Madrid has also moved up into the first league, thanksespecially to its annual PHotoEspaña Festival, celebrating its tenthanniversary this year.

Another photo institution has a special anniversary to celebratethis year as well: it was on February 19, 1907 that the photographicsociety of Madrid was awarded its royal title by decree and from thenon was allowed to call itself the ‘Real Sociedad Fotográfica’. But thegreat times of the ‘Real’ (not to be confused with the football clubfounded in 1902, which was not awarded the royal privilege until 1920)are long gone. Whereas the first members of the society had beeninfluential citizens and members of the nobility, today it is no morethan a nostalgic amateur club. The photo veterans have striven in vainto persuade the postal authorities to issue a special commemorativestamp for the society’s one hundredth anniversary. After all, the associ-ation can pride itself on having played a major role in Spanish photog-raphy in the past. This is especially true of the early years, whencourtly portraits, allegories and travel photography filled the salons.The period of the republic and the civil war saw the emergence of anumber of magazines and propaganda material whose new photo-graphic outlook and avant-garde design were in no way inferior totheir Russian and German models. After the seizure of power by the

fascists, however, Spanish photography finally fell back into pictorial-ism, from which it could not free itself until the Fifties.

Along with the Catalan photographers, a driving force in this catch-ing-up process was the Madrid School. Who did and did not belong toit is still a highly controversial topic – at least in the Real SociedadFotográfica. Whereas ninety-three-year-old Vincente Nieto (an RSFmember since 1955) favours a broad interpretation of the term, his col-league Gregorio Merino (the society’s treasurer), who is almost asadvanced in years, insists on the historical facts: after all, the most dis-tinguished representatives of this new aesthetic came, not from therather loosely aligned group of artists ‘La Colmena’, of which Nieto wasalso a member, but from the more exclusive association ‘La Palangana’.Whether beehive or washing trough (so the respective translations),the hard core of the Madrid School – at least in the estimation of therenowned photo historian Publio López Mondéjar – is formed by thephotographers Rafael Sanz Lobato, Paco Gómez, Gerardo Vielba, Fer-nando Gordillo, Juan Dolcet, Carlos H. Corcho and Gabriel Cuallardó.Incidentally, the last of these was also a haulage contractor, whichenabled him to supply the group with international photo books andmagazines. The influence of their approach – which is akin to Italianneo-realism – was felt for a long time: a good example can be seen inthe early works of photographer Cristina García Rodero, who wasrecently the first Spanish woman to be admitted to the renowned Mag-num agency. Her legendary series ‘España oscura’ shows religious cus-toms and the traditional village life still to be found everywhere in therural Spain of the Seventies.

New rooms for artFor Madrid, the end of Franco’s dictatorship in the middle of the Nine-teen Seventies marks the beginning of that era of new cultural depar-tures, summed up today in the term ‘La Movida’. The protagonists ofthis scene were film-makers, musicians, poets, artists and devotees ofdiverse forms of youth and popular culture. In photography this erawas reflected in the publication of new magazines like ‘Nueva Lente’or ‘Poptografía’ that broke with the prevailing model of the ‘Familyof Man’ aesthetic. But the publications were for the most past just as

The Spanish Movida has effectively laid the foundations and has drawn the attention of the international photo scene to a country which until then had beenassociated mainly with a rather dated form of art photography. Meanwhile photo art in particular is booming. One of the promising talents is, for example, Carlos Lujan, member of the NOPHOTO artists’ group. Here he portrays young toreros at the bullfighting schools in Valencia and Madrid

1/2007 Leica World 33

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32 Leica World 1/2007

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fast-moving as the period itself. In the Eighties photography started tobecome institutionalised: 1985 was the year of the establishment ofthe FOCO photo festival (which stands for Fotografía Contemporánea,that is, contemporary photography) that brought artists of the calibreof a Garry Winogrand, Lee Friedlander, Ralph Gibson or Eikoh Hosoeto Madrid for exhibitions and workshops. This was also when the pho-tography department of the Círculo de Bellas Artes, the Madrid artsociety, was established. Without further ado, the Sala Minerva, dedi-cated exclusively to the photographic medium, was established in thebasement of the building. The Kodak Company was acquired as spon-sor. The squat exhibition room soon became the synonym for smallbut exquisite individual exhibitions by national and international pho-tographers: Here, for the first time, Oscar Molina, Juan Manuel CastroPrieto and Chema Madoz, today fixed stars in the Spanish photo-graphers’ firmament, were able to present their work to a broader art-loving public.

The last decade of the previous century saw the beginning of theprocess that finally established Madrid as a capital of photography:Madrid’s municipal government created a new space for photographyin the form of the ‘Canal de Isabel II’ water tower, which was convertedinto an exhibition centre. It was a double success, because not onlycould artists exhibit here but its curators (such as Lola Garrido, OlivaMaria Rubio and Rafa Doctor) were given the unique opportunity touse the new space in accordance with their own ideas. The generalsurge of interest is also reflected in the creation of the national photog-raphy prize, awarded since 1995. But the impulses also came via the artmarket, because the gallery owners also began to acquire a taste for thephotographic medium. The Eighties had been the time of the ‘Redor’and ‘Image’ photo galleries, but these were only projects staged byenthusiasts for a limited period without the necessary market impact.When influential galleries like those of Soledad Alonso, Oliva Araunaand Helga de Alvear decided to extend their programme in the direc-tion of contemporary photography, the scenario changed. Significantin this context is the amalgamation of the art and photography seg-ments (whose separation many regard as artificial anyway). CarlosUrroz, until recently deputy director of the ARCO art fair, was formany years also in charge of the Gallery Helga de Alvear. During thattime, Urroz was after all responsible for exhibitions of internationallyacknowledged artists like Thomas Demand, Boris Mikhailov, ThomasRuff or Jeff Wall, but he also helped native talents to achieve interna-tional success, for example, Eulália Valldosera and Javier Vallhonrat. Tostart with, the integration of contemporary photography into thegallery’s programme was met with scepticism: “The collectors keptasking me questions about the exact number of copies, the durabilityof the material and similar technical factors. This hardly ever happenstoday”, says Urroz with a smile.

Passion and disciplineThe market success of this ‘new’ medium also opened new doors thathad long been closed to Spanish photographers. “Before that time youwere not even allowed in to present your portfolio to the gallery own-ers or museum curators”, curator Alejandro Castellote recalls. Castel-lote, who started out as a photographer, later changed to the professionof curator –at the time they numbered only a few – and thanks to hisexecutive work with FOCO and the Circulo de Bellas Artes has becomeone of the country’s leading experts on photography. In this capacity,he was approached in 1997 by Alberto Anaut, the founder of ‘LaFábrica’. At the time the Fábrica (not to be confused with Benetton’screative workshop of the same name in Treviso) had existed only for ashort while, but had already made a name for itself internationallythrough the large-format culture magazine ‘Matador’. Anaut’s idea wasboth simple and compelling: the medium of photography, which wason its way up in the international art and exhibition market, was to bemade the draw card for a joint initiative by the Madrilene exhibitionhouses. Thus PHotoEspaña was created, today one of the most impor-tant stops on the international festival circuit, with dozens of exhi-bitions and a lavish fringe programme. “In the year before the firstPHotoEspaña there were altogether perhaps six photo exhibitions inMadrid”, Anaut recalls, “our festival alone, however, brought together

more than 40. Of course, the institutions, as well as the potential finan-cial backers, were already there. What was missing was somebody totake a firm hold of things.”

This form of festival organisation led to a change of paradigm inMadrid’s cultural industry. Whereas previously the orientation hadbeen on the (state-organised) French model this initiative now camefrom a private enterprise. This is also reflected in the festival’s financ-ing structure: the ratio of corporate sponsoring to public funds (city,province and ministry of culture) is approximately 70 : 30 and all cul-tural institutions wishing to take part in the hurly-burly of the festivalactivities also have to pay the commensurate price.

In the wake of ‘Matador’ and PHotoEspaña, La Fábrica developedfurther photography projects like the pocketbook series ‘FotoBolsillo’– the Spanish version of Photopoche, which is completely devoted tonational photography – and ‘Conversaciones con fotógrafos’ (Conver-sations with Photographers) that are published jointly with the Tele-fónica Foundation. Castellote’s successor, Oliva Maria Rubio, took overas art director of the PHotoEspaña for three years and after that theexhibition section of the Fábrica. An extra gallery was also opened inorder to extend the market presence, especially in the photographyand video segment. The most recent grand coup was the integration ofthe magazine ‘Ojo de Pez’, run by Frank Kalero and specialising in doc-umentary photography by young talents. Recently Kalero, an electiveBerliner, has also relied more on guest editors from Germany, and theproduct looks all set to become a cult magazine like ‘Matador’.

Of course this aggressive market strategy has not only made Anautfriends in the local art scene. But the international success of the festi-val and the perfect integration of the art factory into the Madrilene cul-ture industry, so profuse in institutional and political pitfalls, are prov-ing him right. The decisive factor in the success story of the Fábrica is,so Anaut, “a successful mixture of passion and discipline”, constantrenewal, an immaculate design and a durability often missing inSpain.

A firm fixture in the art calendarThe PHotoEspaña is celebrating its tenth anniversary in a big way. Thelast three years under Horacio Fernández have given the festival thenecessary theoretical stringency. This year, on the other hand, it is theartists themselves who will be the centre of attention, without atheme, without an art director. It is planned to hold individual exhibi-tions by Andrés Serrano, Raymond Depardon, Sylvia Plachy andZhang Huan, an exhibition by crowd puller Sebastião Salgado and aMan Ray retrospective. The curators, who have put the special finish-ing touches to the festival, will also have an opportunity to contribute:Enrica Viganó even has two projects, one about Italian neo-realism andanother on the subject ‘Unexpected photographers’, with pictures by agood two dozen non-photographers, among them Magritte, Cocteau,Brancusi, Visconti, Allen Ginsberg, Gina Lollobrigida, Wim Wenders,Lou Reed, Bryan Adams, Richard Gere, film-maker Pedro Almodóvaror rock singer Patti Smith. In addition to the large-scale Serrano show,

The PHotoEspaña 2007 will be presenting Andrés Serrano, one of the mostdiscussed American artists. On show at the Círculo de Bellas Artes are hiscycles ‘Nomades’, ‘El Klan’, ‘Budapest’ and ‘La Morgue’ © Andrés Serrano/Paula Cooper Gallery, New York

The Italian Massimo Vitali (our photo) is represented at the PHotoEspaña as part of a group exhibition with the surprising title ‘The End of Globalisation’ at theSala Canal de Isabel II © Massimo Vitali/Stephan Fruehauf, Berlin

42 Leica World 1/2007

A L B E R T O G A R C I A - A L I X

part of an elite. We scarcely had a clue about the consequences. All wehad to go by was William S. Burroughs’ novel Junkie. It was only whenthe first of us died from taking the drug that we realised what we hadlet ourselves in for. But, by then, it was already too late for many of us.The photos do not always show this explicitly, but you can still see it,for example, in the raddled face of a twenty-three-year-old, or a coupletotally annihilated by the drug. Another photo is called ‘Esperando eldealer’ (‘Waiting for the Dealer’), and that is exactly what it shows:somebody standing in the street eagerly awaiting the person who’sgoing to bring him his next dose.MN : How did you manage to escape this death-trap?AGA : Everyone has a personal limit that forces him to change his ways.Some get there faster, others more slowly, and some only when they’vearrived at the border between life and death. But until you havereached the point when you say: “Here and no further. Enough isenough”, you will never stop. I even sold my cameras just to get hold ofthis poison. But there were also many phases when I stopped takingheroin, mainly owing to shattering experiences like the death of afriend, or when the police were getting too close for comfort. Thosewere the phases when photography helped me to change from being adealer into a mere addict, or even to stop completely for a few months.In this sense, photography was what saved me. I went back to my par-

ents’ home, where I had set up a small darkroom. I was also givensomething to cope with my withdrawal symptoms there. But, some-how, heroin was always present, even the first time I worked in myown darkroom.MN : So photography went hand in hand with drug consumption. Butwasn’t photography also the life-belt that saved you from drowning?AGA : I was not really aware of all this. From today’s point of view,things are completely different, but in those days we used to live fromone day to the next, never thinking of the consequences. I had no pho-tographic awareness either. I simply recorded what was happeningaround me. Apart from that, the camera gave me a sense of power.I was not a photographer who had made it his aim to live from his art.I was not interested in picture stories either, but only in recording whatwas going on around me in a private and personal way. Today I mightsay, “Oh, if only I’d taken that photo!” But I don’t. I was self-taught andthings just happened of their own accord.MN : And when did you change from being a drug addict with a cam-era into a photographer?AGA : In 1986: My brother had died two years earlier, and the policewere after me. I had no flat, no job, no girlfriend, nothing. I told agallery owner my story and he said to me: You can hold an exhibitionin my gallery, but you’ve only got two months to get it ready. So I shut

“I was a rocker, with hair cream in my hair and a knife in my pocket.

We were wild, completely inexperienced and thirsting for life.”

ALBERTO GARCIA-ALIX

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Leica Oskar Barnack Award

EMOTION AND ENLIGHTENMENT

Photographers are pursuing new paths. Classic reporting is searching for an intellectual

foundation and an artistic orientation. A good barometer for moods and trends is the

annual Leica Oskar Barnack Award. This time, three international photographers succeeded

in convincing the jury with their unusual projects.

PHOTO G R APHY AWARDS always point in two directions. They saysomething about the contents that are of interest to committed pho-tographers and they say something about their aesthetic orientations.And they bear out the expectations of a – usually well-informed – jurythat, in passing its verdict, points the way, or provides examples of themedium’s artistic status, or simply specifies tendencies, or, by meansof its vote, is capable of initiating trends. Around 350 competitors par-ticipated in the Leica Oskar Barnack Award 2007. Slightly more than70 made it to the final elimination round, among them photographersfrom Brazil and South Africa, Australia and China, India and the USA.

In terms of formal aesthetics, colour is becoming increasingly impor-tant. In the sense used to describe a story fashioned according to therules of the press, the classic report is in the retreat. There is a very con-spicuous trend towards the conceptual, towards the well-conceivedessay in combination with a pictorial language that strives for a per-sonal trademark, more with a view to a portfolio or book, museum orgallery wall than a desire to seek and find its place in the classic illus-trated magazine. “Photography goes art” – this sentence is also, andespecially, true of those young documentary photographers of whomthe best succeed, compellingly, in combining human interest andform, commitment and an often courageous aesthetic.

Born in Brazil, 26-year-old Julio Bittencourt, who has been workingfor the past six years as a professional photographer based in SãoPaulo, is the winner of this year’s Leica Oscar Barnack Award. And ifthere is any cycle that confirms what was said at the beginning, then itis his series comprising twelve selected works with the title ‘In a win-dow of Prestes Maia 911 building’. Windows, says Bittencourt, havealways interested him. These translucent interfaces between theindoor and the outdoor world: isolation and communication at thesame time. ‘His’ house at the Prestes Maia 911 used to be one of themost modern buildings in Latin America. Much dilapidated in themeantime, it had become a squat for more than 460 families: a tempo-rary society whose daily life he had been eager to explore and whichmotivated him to create the present series. So as not to intrude, Bitten-court makes life come to the window, making visible what actuallytakes place inside the apartments, creating a set for social behaviourand photographing it from the window opposite. In doing so, Bitten-court pursues a clear concept that includes orthogonal access as well asconstant focal length (50 mm), the identical cropping that makes thepictures compatible, as it were, and the interest in basically banal activ-ities, which, taken together, add up to something akin to a grammar offundamentally human emotions. Bittencourt rejects both the notion of

being able to explain our world by means of ‘decisive moments’ andthe idea of unobserved participation. Bittencourt creates a stage. Heplainly enters the territory of conceptual camera art without giving uphis interest in exploring the political and social.

While Bittencourt literally takes a look at the world opposite, theNorwegian photographer Margaret M. De Lange turns something mostdefinitely private into something public. Born in Oslo in 1963, she grad-uated from photo school and since the beginning of the Nineties hasbeen working professionally for magazines, publishers or advertisingagencies. Parallel to this, she pursues her own projects, undeniably

influenced by the Scandina-vian School (Strömholm,Petersen). At the centre of herseries, which received an hon-ourable mention, are her owndaughters. ‘Daughters’, beguntwelve years ago, exploreschildhood and the process of

growing up with a rare brutal frankness: Youth, not as an enchantedGarden of Eden, but as a fairytale in which the grim, bizarre or darksides of life most definitely have a place. De Lange tells her story as if itwere a vague and distant dream. The content is reminiscent of SallyMann. But in terms of formal aesthetics De Lange definitely goes farbeyond her American counterpart.

The jury (Agnès Sire, Gaëlle Gouinguené, Gero Furchheim,François Hébel, Hans-Michael Koetzle, Brigitte Schaller) were particu-larly impressed by the work of Spanish photographer José Cendón(born 1974), for which he received an honourable mention. Afterstudying economics and journalism Cendon started to work free-lanceat the age of 28. In Africa he worked as an author and photographer forAP and AFP. His journalist’s interest is currently focused on the conflictbetween Ethiopia and Somalia. ‘Fear in the Great Lakes’ is part of alarger work about mental illness in East Africa – a theme that runscounter to the mainstream, because the usual topics covered by theinternational press are, so Cendon, the wars and the genocide there,and – admittedly – the bloodiest conflicts since World War II. Andthese overshadow the dismal fate of the many mentally ill, lookedafter, as best they can, by a Belgian brotherhood, the ‘Frères de la Char-ité’. Cendón’s approach comes closest to the concept of compassionatephotojournalism, although the Spaniard has committed himself to anemphatically subjective pictorial language: “I decided not to tell a storyin the traditional way”, says Cendon. “I just wanted to show madness,pain and fear. And, to be honest, I really wanted to hit the people wholook at the pictures.” hmk

The award winners will be officially announced at the 38th Rencontresd’Arles. Selected works from the Leica Oskar Barnack Award competitionwill be on display at the Leica stand in Arles every day during the openingweek (July 3–8) between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. Deadline for entries for the nextOskar Barnack Award is the end of January 2008.

1/2007 Leica World 47

J U L I O B I T T E N C O U R T

46 Leica World 1/2007

L E I C A O S K A R B A R N A C K A W A R D

“When I shot the pictures I decided not to tell a story in the traditional way, I just wanted to show madness,

pain and fear through the eyes of the inmates, to express the suffering of the region. To be honest, I really

wanted to hit the people who look at the pictures.” JOSE CENDON

62 Leica World 1/2007

L E I C A M 8

FIDELITY TO A GREAT TRADITIONLEICA PHOTOGRAPHER CONSTANTINE MANOS ON THE DIGITAL LEICA M8

When I received a Leica M8 test camera back in mid-August, I was delighted first of all to see and feel that, yes, it istruly an M camera – the digital descendant of the legendary M cameras. The size of the camera is related to the size ofthe sensor and to the fact that the camera can utilize all the existing great Leica lenses. A full-frame sensor, whichmany had hoped for, would have called for a larger camera and an entire set of new lenses. The M8 is a compromiseperhaps, but a brilliant compromise.

The camera worked perfectly for me from the beginning and produced high-quality images in all kinds of lightingconditions, without any filters. It was with some surprise that I learned later of an ultraviolet problem and the needfor a corrective filter. Even with the early software in my first test camera, I would only have to tweak the colors occa-sionally in Photoshop to get things right, something we often have to do with film images – which sometimes havegreen or blue or magenta casts, depending on the light and film batch. So, memory and Photoshop are often the bestresorts to getting honest color.

My favorite lens is the 28mm, which translates to 37 mm on the M8. The swish of the shutter is not the traditionalquiet click of yore, but it is certainly quiet enough – as I learned in the process of shooting many candid pictures ofpeople as close as three feet. And there is no visible shutter-lag with the M8, an important feature in split-second streetphotography.

When I first showed some 24"x36" prints from the M8 to a group of friends who teach digital photography,they were amazed at the quality. They said they had never seen digital pictures like this, even from full-frame cameraswith more megapixels. There are a roundness and depth to the M8 images, which are missing from other digitalcameras.

The bottom line is that Leica did a brilliant job with this camera. For me personally there is a sigh of relief that theLeica M lives on into the digital age in such a quality camera. The M8 disproves the myth that a full frame and moremegapixels necessarily produce higher quality. The M8’s success derives from a combination of factors – the quality ofconstruction, the sensor, the lenses, and a fidelity to tradition.

The American Constantine Manos, member of the renowned Magnum photo agency, is one of today’s most prominentcontemporary colour photographers. He was given a very early opportunity to familiarise himself with the LEICA M8. His spontaneous judgement: “The camera worked perfectly for me from the beginning and produced high-quality images in all kinds of lighting conditions.” The photos shown here were taken at night in Times Square, New York (above) and at a public festival in Massachusetts/USA (photos on right)