It shows Francisco Goya’s The Disasters of War, a series of 82 prints believed to be a protest against the violence of the 1808 Dos de Mayo Uprising and the Peninsular War of 1808–14. The prints tell of several aspects of war, and are in this exhibition grouped into themes such as the front, executions and looting.

Plate 3: Lo mismo (The same) from Francisco Goya's The Disasters of War

By telling individual stories of war in all its terrible detail, Goya can be said to be one of the fathers of modern – or now classic – war photography. And while the main attraction of this exhibition is the Goya prints, what will perhaps interest the photographer more is the slide show playing in the second room. Los herederos de Goya, the heirs of Goya, tells the history of war photography from the earliest pictures of battlegrounds to classic in-the-action photographs taken by the likes of Robert Capa.

But this exhibition of the disasters of war also tells of the disaster of today’s war photography. The Goya prints show the ultimate loss of humanity caused by war; the dismembered bodies and the advanced cruelty that is the result of an armed conflict. And the classic war photographs from the 1900s show the systematic madness of concentration camps and fire bombings.

In comparison, modern day news images are far too clean. The subject matter is still there, the willingness to print and publish is not.

Details

Goya, Chronicler of All Wars
August 27-November 14, 2010
Free entrance

Instituto Cervantes
A1 Gongti Nanlu
工体南路甲1号

Michio Yamauchi’s Nikon FM3a. Michio Yamauchi has published 10 photo books.

“Mr. Yamuchi shoots black and white film with manual focus Nikons and wears the leather covering down through to the chassis of his camera. Photographically the 35mm f2.8 you see here is as basic as dirt on a farm.

Some people use $10,000 worth of camera and lenses and computers to shoot HDR snaps of an old barn which they toss on Flickr. (shrunk to 500 pixels across, of course).”

A book I really like is Garry Winogrand’s Arrivals and Departures, a selection of his photographs taken while traveling for assignments or other series he was working on. The work in the book spans some 25 years, with the first frame being from 1958. The photographs show airports much different from the ones we see today; there are no security checkpoints or stern-looking guards. They don’t make travelers feel guilty about going from one place to another. But many other things we see in Winogrand’s photographs from then can be seen today. Travel is still much the same.

I’d like to see a similar book about Chinese airports today. So many scenes there would be worth keeping; the first-time travelers struggling through security, the clearly oversized carry-ons, the frantic texting just seconds after the aircraft touches the runway and the stressed-out business travelers in the frequent traveler lounges.

Who will shoot that book, if it has not already been done?

(Photos below are my own. Too few for a book, unfortunately.)

Health check. A health inspector measures the body temperature of every passenger arriving on an Air China flight to Beijing. Beijing, May 30, 2009.

Leaving. Beijing Capital International Airport. January, 2009.

Miniature. A passenger waits at check-in with a case containing a miniature of a city. Beijing Capital International Airport, spring 2010.

Shoe check. Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport, spring 2010.

1. Kazuo Kitai at Zen Foto Gallery. The exhibition will show photos of China taken by Japanese photographer Kazuo Kitai during the 70s, a time when Chinese photography was a tool for propaganda, and should offer an outside view of the country at that time. The Zen Foto Gallery website doesn’t list this yet, but City Weekend does. Starts September 9th.

2. “I’m” at Beijing Center for the Arts. A collection of photographs from some of China’s most prominent, cutting-edge artists. Ends August 26th.

3. Goya, Chronicler of All Wars at Instituto Cervantes. Francisco Goya was a painter and printmaker, but his works showing the devastating consequences of war has inspired and been carried forward by modern day war photographers such as Robert Capa. Some photographs from the Spanish Civil War will be shown alongside Goya’s works. Starts August 27th.

Erwin Olaf at Galerie Paris-Beijing (exhibition ends September 24th)

The most noteworthy of the two is the Erwin Olaf exhibition at Galerie Paris-Beijing, showing pictures from his Grief, Rain and Hotel series. The photos are set in perfect mid-1900s indoor environments, and the people inhabiting them – mostly women – are all slightly discomforting. Their poses and expressions tell loneliness, loss and sadness. And a little bit of hope. Where is the man that should be sitting at the perfectly set dinner table in the Sarah (Grief) photograph? Who left the half-naked women in the hotel rooms?

There is a male teacher, standing by a picture showing the stages of pregnancy, looking over his shoulder at the back of a lone female student. Why are they there? And what is written on her hand?

Erwin Olaf’s pictures will leave you thinking.

More information at the Galerie Paris-Beijing website.

Qiu Zhen’s “Satan’s wedding” at 798 Photo Gallery

Qiu Zhen’s photos are less subtle than the ones of Erwin Olaf, but contain a myriad of references to modern society. His series “My bride and I – Satan’s wedding” shows the wedding ceremony, dinner, wedding night, chaotic life as parents and old age of the unlikely couple of a man and his all-plastic bride.

Spend some time on each photo and discover the details; the burning newspaper with the title “Copenhagen”, Osama bin Laden speaking from the television set, the knife casually placed in one of the scenes and the unlikely book choice of the priest at the wedding ceremony.

Bonus: Some of the props are on display. You can take a picture of yourself sitting at the dinner table with the plastic bride if you wish.

More information at the 798 Photo Gallery website.

Jonathan’s book reminded me to revisit Lu Guang’s photos of pollution in China. Lu Guang received last year’s W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography for his unsettling account of the people living in some of China’s most polluted areas.

The stories he tells are rather gloomy. Let’s hope Jonathan Watts was right when he said that while China’s environmental problems are worse than we think, they are also doing more about them than most countries.

Lu Guang’s photos as well as an interview with him can be found on China Hush.

There seem to be an abundance of this in China.

Company. Beijing, October 2009. Minolta AL-F and Ilford HP5.

When watching the crowds, I get an impression similar to the one I got at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. The same scenes repeat themselves; the anxious waiting at the security checkpoint, the hurried steps to reach the exhibitions, and the proud and excited people having their pictures taken.

Beijing Olympics. August 23, 2008.

Expo 2010 in Shanghai. May 13, 2010.

Shot with the broken Minolta AL-F on Ektar 100 film.