Robert Capa. L’Opera 1932-1954, at Palazzo Roverella, from 8 October 2022 to 29 January 2023, curated by Gabriel Bauret, is the new appointment with international photography proposed by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Padova e Rovigo, once again supported by the Municipality of Rovigo and the Accademia dei Concordi.
The exhibition - which follows the recent event on Robert Doisneau in terms of quality and originality - consists of 366 photographs selected from the Magnum Photos archives and retraces the main stages of his career, giving the right space to some of the most iconic works that have embodied the 20th-century history of photography.
However, the exhibition is not conceived only as a retrospective of the work of Robert Capa, but rather aims to reveal through the images proposed the facets and the minimal folds of a passionate and ultimately elusive character, insatiable and perhaps never fully satisfied, who does not hesitate to risk his life for his reports. In fact, Capa has always shown a player's temperament, but a free-player one. Showing something, he also tries to understand, he revolves around his subject, both literally and figuratively.
On different occasions, the exhibition brings together multiple points of view of the same event, as if to reproduce a shot-reverse shot movement, and restores a cinematic approach that is often perceptible in many of his sequences. «For me, Capa wore the light dress of a great bullfighter, but he did not kill; as a good player, he fought generously for himself and for others in a whirlwind. Fate wanted him to be struck at the height of his glory ” - wrote about him Henry Cartier-Bresson.
The exhibition will not be limited to war representations that forged the legend of Capa. In the photographer's reportage, as in all of his work, exist what Raymond Depardon calls "moments of weakness", as opposed to the strong tempos that characterize the actions; weak moments bring us back to the man André Friedmann, to his sensitivity towards the victims and the underprivileged, to what in the end was his personal journey, from Hungary onwards.
The exhibition will be divided into 9 thematic sections:
First photographs, 1932 – 1935
The hope for a more just society, 1936
Spain: engagement, 1936 – 1939
China under fire from Japan, 1938
Alongside the American Army, 1943 – 1945
Peace restored, 1944 – 1954
Journeys to the East, 1947 – 1948
Israel, the promised land, 1948 – 1950
Return to Asia: a fight that is not his, 1954
Browse the gallery
The public will also be able to admire the publications of Robert Capa's reportage in the French and American press of the time, and extracts from his texts on photography, which, among other things, touch topics such as blur, distance, work, political commitment, and war. In addition, excerpts from a film by Patrick Jeudy on Robert Capa in which John G. Morris emotionally comments on documents showing Capa in action, and - lastly - the audio recording of an interview with Capa on Radio Canada will be available for the audience.
Robert Capa was born in 1913 in Budapest; in his youth he moved to Berlin, where he began his great career as a photojournalist that would lead him to travel all over the world. In 1947 he founded the famous Magnum Photos with Henri Cartier-Bresson and David Seymour. He died in Indochina in 1954, wounded by a land mine while documenting the front line war.
EXHIBITION CATALOGUE
Robert Capa
The Work 1932-1954
INFORMATION
Palazzo Roverella, Rovigo
8 October 2022 - 29 January 2023
Timetable
Monday-Friday: 09.00 – 19.00
Saturday, Sunday, Holidays: 9.00 – 20.00
For additional infos:
Monday to Friday 9.30 - 18.30
Saturday 9.30 - 13.30
tel. 0425 460093
info@palazzoroverella.com
Press Office for the Exhibition
Studio ESSECI
tel. +049 663499