3 black-and-white photo exhibitions offer testament to 20th-century world history

Arno Fischer's "East Berlin, New Year's Eve" (1989-1990) shows the first celebration of New Year's Eve after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Courtesy of the Estate Arno Fischer, Institut fur Auslandsbeziehungen

Exhibitions feature works of 3 iconic European photographers

By Park Han-sol

In the 21st century, everyone with a smartphone is a photographer. Images captured through the camera lens are no longer recognized as a rare window to the exotic scenery of faraway lands.

However, revisiting early masters' black-and-white snapshots may render a fresh appreciation of photography's role in encapsulating bygone eras.

Such arresting visual testaments of 20th-century history are currently filling up Seoul, notably through exhibitions on three European icons: Henri Cartier-Bresson, Arno Fischer and Michael Kenna.

Henri Cartier-Bresson's 'The Decisive Moment'

During his lifetime, French photographer Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) was hailed as a maestro who turned candid photography into a recognized art form.

Never traveling without a Leica 35mm film camera in hand, he would wield the tool of his trade ever so discreetly that his subjects would often remain oblivious of his presence.

Considering it a sin for the photographer to interfere or stage any part of the event being unfolded ― including using flash, cropping or manipulating the images in the darkroom ― he only pressed the shutter when his subjects entered the frame and became the essence of that precise second.

His penchant for aesthetic perfection and everyday humanism in photography can be summed up in one single phrase ― "the decisive moment" ― which became the English title of his iconic photobook published in 1952.

Henri Cartier-Bresson's "Dessau, Germany, May-June 1945" captures the moment when a female gestapo informer who worked for Nazi Germany, front left, was publicly identified by another woman at the Dessau deportation camp in East Germany. Courtesy of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Magnum Photos

"To take photographs means to recognize ― simultaneously and within a fraction of a second ― both the fact itself and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that give it meaning," he wrote in "The Mind's Eye: Writings on Photography and Photographers."

"It is putting one's head, one's eye, and one's heart on the same axis."

In celebration of the 70th anniversary of the publication of "The Decisive Moment," which was described by Hungarian Jewish photojournalist Robert Capa as "a bible for photographers," the exhibition of the same title has brought over 70 original prints from the book's pages to Hangaram Art Museum.

Also on display are rare first editions of the photobook with jackets decorated with the art of Henri Matisse, plus an archive of Cartier-Bresson's personal correspondence with fellow artists and his treasured Leica camera.

"It's the first-ever camera used by the artist. Before he was taken as a prisoner of war by the Germans in 1940, he buried it deep underground. And following his miraculous escape three years later, he was able to reunite with it at the same spot," Kate Lee, CEO of the show's co-host, Kate Farm, told The Korea Times.

Also co-hosted by the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, the French photographer's series on view bears witness to many of the historically significant world events unfurled between 1932 and 1952 ― from the coronation of King George VI in London and the aftermath of World War II to Gandhi's funeral in India and the last days of Kuomintang before the founding of the communist People's Republic of China.

Henri Cartier-Bresson's "The Decisive Moment" (Verve, 1952), p. 99-100, "Gandhi's Funeral, Delhi, India" (1948) / Courtesy of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Magnum Photos

Notably, Cartier-Bresson is known to be the last person to photograph the Indian leader before his assassination. At the exhibition, viewers can retrace his steps of recording candidly the entire ritual, from the funeral and cremation to the transportation of his ashes to the River Ganges.

He also took portraits of era-defining cultural icons like Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Truman Capote and Jean-Paul Sartre in his usual style, placing them out of the spotlight and into their "natural habitat": in a corner of their studio, on their bed and in the middle of a lush garden.

"The Decisive Moment" runs until Oct. 2 at the Seoul Arts Center's Hangaram Art Museum.

Arno Fischer, documentarian of divided Berlin

One of the Berlin-based artists who rubbed elbows with Cartier-Bresson and other innovative creators at the time was Arno Fischer (1927-2011).

Sungkok Art Museum's "Arno Fischer ― A Photographer in East Berlin" is a retrospective curated by Matthias Flugge, a historian and a close friend of the artist, to revisit the legacy of the symbolic figure in the history of 20th-century German photography.

Among over 180 original vintage prints on view, the highlight of the exhibition materializes in the section titled, "Situation Berlin."

The series overlaps closely with the rise and collapse of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), or East Germany, that formed part of the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.

From his very first image of Berlin engulfed in flames, taken in 1943 at the age of 16, to the city's division in 1961 and the 1989 New Year's Eve following the fall of the Berlin Wall, Fischer has captured the spirit of the tumultuous times in his hometown beyond the confines of political ideologies.

Arno Fischer's "West Berlin, 1 May, Tiergarten" (1959) / Courtesy of Estate Arno Fischer, Institut fur Auslandsbeziehungen

He recorded East Berlin's street events held on Republic Day ― which commemorated the anniversary of the GDR's establishment ― as well as West Berlin's 1959 rallies held to claim "Berlin Bleibt Frei" (Berlin Remains Free) from four occupying powers: the United States, the United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union.

But he also followed the everyday lives of the crowds of workers and children in fairgrounds, construction sites along East Germany's Stalinallee and West Germany's leading commercial district, the Kurfurstendamm.

"As a vivid testimony to the lives of the German people and culture as witnessed by an artist who experienced the war, division and reunification of his country, Fischer's photographs breathe life into the history of a bygone era," Yoon Hyun-jung, an official of Sungkok Art Museum, noted.

"His pieces are also particularly evocative for Koreans, who continue to live in the state of the division of the two Koreas," she said.

Arno Fischer's "New York, Staten Island Ferry" (1978) / Courtesy of Estate Arno Fischer, Institut fur Auslandsbeziehungen

In addition to his "Situation Berlin" series, the show presents the artist's street photography series from the 1960s to the 1980s during his travels throughout the Eastern Bloc, Equatorial Guinea, India and New York City.

But because his overriding photographic focus was always on people and their subtle, everyday experiences, he would steer away from portraying scenes as exotic and artificially romantic, which, according to the museum, "renders the location of the shots almost irrelevant."

Fischer's retrospective at Sungkok Art Museum ends on Aug. 21.

Michael Kenna's haunting landscapes of France, Ukraine

While Cartier-Bresson and Fischer found their primary subjects to be humans, Kenna lets the deserted natural and urban landscapes do all the talking.

The British photographer is best known for capturing sceneries enveloped in darkness in the late hours of night or dawn through extremely long exposures ― sometimes up to 10 hours. The resulting shots, softly lit with not a living soul in sight, turn even the best-known sites around the world into ghostly and ethereal landscapes straight out of a gothic fairytale.

"Chateau de Versailles, Versailles, France" (1996), Copyright Michael Kenna / Courtesy of K.O.N.G Gallery

In Korea, the 68-year-old's name has been synonymous with Solseom (Pine Tree Island) in Samcheok, Gangwon Province. It was his haunting snapshot of a row of pine trees and their reflections on water in 2007 that drew renewed attention to the virtually overlooked isle at the time. In fact, his photo was what transformed the site into a popular tourist attraction, after it was once at risk of disappearing due to the nearby construction of a liquefied natural gas plant.

"Michael Kenna: France, Ukraine" at K.O.N.G Gallery features some 60 photos of the two countries' landscapes taken between the 1980s and the early 2010s ― the majority of which have been unveiled to visitors in Korea for the first time.

On display are otherworldly shots of Versailles and the Chateau de Vaux-le-Vicomte, as well as the empty Mediterranean seashore in the French city of Nice.

His photos of the sea, foliage and cathedral of Kyiv present a world away from the war-ravaged Ukraine of today.

"Hunter's Moon over Black Sea, Odesa, Ukraine" (2013), Copyright Michael Kenna / Courtesy of K.O.N.G Gallery

The exhibition has been organized as a show with a lower threshold for all newcomers to the gallery, in time for the recent public opening of Cheong Wa Dae, according to gallery director Grace K. H. Kong.

The K.O.N.G Gallery is just a minute's walk from Cheong Wa Dae's Chunchu Gate and has been seeing a flood of new profiles of visitors since the former presidential office began greeting tourists for the first time in 74 years.

"There is a crowd of visitors who would make a stop at the gallery after their tour of Cheong Wa Dae. The show has also drawn the attention of amateur photographers, who carry their cameras to the former presidential residence," she told The Korea Times.

"Michael Kenna: France, Ukraine" runs at K.O.N.G Gallery through Aug. 7.