BRASSAÏ, KOUDELKA, GIACOMELLI
ROMANTIC MELANCHOLY
CO-CURATED BY SON YOUNGJOO & KIM SUNYOUNG
Brassaï began taking pictures because, as a reporter in 1930s Paris, he earned more if a story had photos to go with it. He didn't at first consider photography as art. But the Paris he loved best, at night and often soaked with rain, populated by streetwalkers, toughs and tramps, was most beautifully captured by photography.
It was the music, plaintive and dark, that in 1962 led Josef Koudelka to begin photographing the Gypsies of his native Czechoslovakia. His images depict the poverty and isolation of Gypsy life, he shows the Gypsies as perpetual outsiders, and their life as a mix of wonder, sorrow and mystery.
Mario Giacomelli never left his hometown of Senigallia, a small city on the Adriatic Coast. He developed an abstract style in which landscapes became both depictions of land use in Italy and actual photographic ‘paintings’ with abstract signs. His series “On Being Aware of Nature“ captures the morphological change imposed by intensive agriculture: his landscapes/bodies show scars, wrinkles and curves.
These three photographers’ series, part of the collections of The Museum of Photography, Seoul, share one common feature: they blend the melancholic with the romantic, gloominess and beauty.
In partnership with The Museum of Photography, Seoul.
Brassaï, Streetwalker, Quartier Italie, Paris, c. 1932. Gelatin silver print, 29.5 x 22 cm. Courtesy of The Museum of Photography, Seoul.
Brassaï, Toughs in Big Albert's Gang, c. 1931-1932. Gelatin silver print, 30.1 x 23.3 cm. Courtesy of MoPS
Josef Koudelka, Slovakia, 1963. Gelatin silver print, 40.6 x 30.2 cm. © Josef Koudelka / Magnum Photo. Courtesy of The Museum of Photography, Seoul.
Mario Giacomelli, On Being Aware of Nature, 1980s, Gelatin silver print, 29 x 39 cm. © Archivio Mario Giacomelli - Rita Giacomelli. Courtesy of The Museum of Photography, Seoul.
Mario Giacomelli, December 31, 1997. Gelatin silver print, 29.5 x 39.6 cm. © Archivio Mario Giacomelli - Rita Giacomelli. Courtesy of The Museum of Photography, Seoul.
Josef Koudelka, Slovakia, 1963. Gelatin silver print, 40.5 x 50.5 cm. © Josef Koudelka / Magnum Photo. Courtesy of The Museum of Photography, Seoul.