William Klein's street photography stays until November

[dropcap letter="E"]

n times of pandemic, art becomes all the more necessary. We are not just thinking about its occasionally balsamic effect, but about the agitation that has accompanied it since the late 19th century, opening spaces for free thought. For a perspective, non-dogmatic view of reality. Equally relevant, because it is symptomatic, is its function as a "double mirror": by showing us ourselves in the act of looking, it brings to light the responsibility for everything we project into the world, with or without consciousness.

1. William Klein, the shock of the instant

Ernst Jung warned that what we do not make conscious reappears sooner or later in the form of destiny. Although there is no guarantee that the consumption of art will lead to effective and profitable self-knowledge, there is also no doubt that it allows us to confront certainties. Losing track of time again in museums is comparable to embracing a confinement of the inverse order, a kind of reclusion that helps to break down mental walls, the most entrenched beliefs or prejudices. The myth that Plato very didactically conceived in Book VII of the Republic already referred to that turn of the gaze, followed by the "exit from the cave" that enables a clear vision. Updating the message, we can understand it as an emancipation from the stereotypical way of perceiving reality, which is characteristic of romantic art and, of course, of photography, capable of eternalizing the instant.

Born in New York in 1928, William Klein has transcended for his skill in capturing "street" reality, the physical and emotional fluctuation, falsely controllable, that occurs in a metropolis. Until November 1, an exhibition titled Manifesto, with some of his most representative works, can be visited at La Pedrera. Snapshots with inspired framing, which stop movement at the critical moment, by juxtaposing irreconcilable elements. The false objectivity of the lens provokes a no less subjective reaction. The viewer is disoriented in front of Gun 1, New York, perceiving the clash between pure aggression and stillness—or even admiration—in the gazes of the children who star in his most iconic image. This exhibition, which brings together more than 200 works, reveals other lesser-known facets of Klein, who was also a painter and filmmaker.

This exhibition was initially scheduled between March 6 and July 30, but as a consequence of the pandemic, it was closed for a good part of this time. Given the public success it has received, the Fundació Catalunya La Pedrera has now decided to extend the exhibition until November 1.

2. Daido Moriyama or the spectral everyday

Until October 7, the exhibition A Diary by Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama, who in 2019 was awarded the Hasselblad Prize, one of the most prestigious in his artistic discipline, can be visited at the Fundació Colectania. The exhibition offers a selection of images captured over almost 50 years, without a strictly chronological order. The provocation of his beginnings as an urban photographer earned him the reputation of a transgressive artist, which infiltrates other moments of his career with a sensibility not without rawness. In conversation with Ivan Vartanian, he stated that "taking photos according to the expository purpose of language makes no sense to me, generally. Rather, photography provokes language."

His compositions, many of them in black and white, do not reproduce reality, but rather elicit new ways of conceiving it. The contrast between light and shadow, dazzling, awakens a halo of unreality, like a hallucinating vision. It questions the plane of reality of the reproduced object or subject, fantastic despite its everyday nature. The absolutely deliberate framing helps to relate stories that amaze with their casual character. The image of a young man in a tie, lost in his phone screen while smoking, the back of a woman covered by her messy hair, or a string of translucent octopuses drying in the sun are some of the themes that make up the spectrum of the real.