The Magnum Digest: August 21, 2020
Moises Saman in The New York Times, Magnum’s portraits of artists in The Times, formerly unseen work by Ernest Cole, plus more
Moises Saman’s work from Iraq in The New York Times
Moises Saman’s photographs accompany a long-read investigation, by journalist Robert F. Worth, into how US policy in post-war Iraq has led the nation toward kleptocracy, with a shadowy array of militias and terrorist groups using extortion and intimidation to influence business in the country. You can read the feature and see Saman’s photographs here.
Magnum portraits of artists in The Times
The forthcoming photobook, Magnum Artists – When Great Photographers Meet Great Artists, has been featured in The Times. The book brings together more than 200 images from the Magnum archive of artists around the world, spanning candid images of them at work, as well as formal and collaborative portraits.
An online feature is accompanied by an 8-page spread in The Sunday Times Magazine, depicting few of the great names depicted in the book, including Frida Kahlo, Salvador Dali, Francis Bacon, Jean Arp and Henri Matisse. You can read The Times’ piece online here, and see more on artists in their places of work via the ‘In the Studio’ series on Magnum.
Formerly unseen images by Ernest Cole
Continuing their series documenting the life and works of black South African photographer Ernest Cole, New Frame has published a gallery of photographs Cole took on commission for the Ford Foundation, exploring the experiences of African Americans. See the images here.
The gallery is accompanied by a second installment of their documentation of the journey of Cole’s family to secure ownership of the photographer’s works, which includes 60,000 negatives, colour transparencies, letters, notes, and more. Read that here, and see the first installment here.
Find out more about the Ernest Cole archive on Magnum here.
Nanna Heitmann’s Covid-19 work on National Geographic
Magnum nominee Nanna Heitmann has, over recent months, been documenting Moscow’s ongoing battle to contain its Covid-19 outbreak. As her hometown changed in the face of the pandemic she photographed in hospitals, public spaces, parades, and at religious festivals. You can see Heitmann’s work, alongside her own text in which she asks: ‘How do you photograph a danger you can’t see?’ here, on Nat Geo. You can see Heitmann’s fantastical personal work made throughout Moscow’s lockdown here, on Magnum.
Sohrab Hura to appear in MoMA show
Next month’s photography exhibition at MoMA — Companion Pieces: New Photography 2020— is set to feature Magnum photographer Sohrab Hura. Companion Pieces is the latest iteration of the institution’s yearly showcase of new work by international visual artists: previously on physical display in the museum, this year’s curation will take the shape of an digital programme featured on MoMA’s online magazine. Hura will join a series of artists including David Alekhuogie, Özlem Altın, Maria Antelman , Iñaki Bonillas, Dionne Lee, Zora J Murff, Irina Rozovsky. Read more here.
Annie Leibowitz on the influence of Henri Cartier-Bresson
In a new feature on Wallpaper, photographer Annie Leibowitz reflects on the influence of Henri Cartier-Bresson on her own practice. “Seeing Cartier-Bresson’s work made me want to become a photographer,” she says. “The idea that a photographer could travel with a camera to different places, see how other people lived, make looking a mission — that that could be your life was an amazing, thrilling idea.” The feature coincides with a new exhibition at the Palazzo Grazzi, Italy, in which Cartier-Bresson’s images are selected by five curators: art historian Sylvie Aubenas, writer Javier Cercas, collector François Pinault, film director Wim Wenders, and Leibowitz herself. Read the piece here.
Latest installment of Patrick Zachmann’s work at Notre Dame
Le Monde has recently featured images from Patrick Zachmann’s ongoing project documenting the renovation of Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral following the devastation caused by fire damage last year. His images feature inside, and on the cover of, the French newspaper’s August 13 print edition, and can be seen online here.
