Harry Gruyaert "Retrospective" (MUFO-Antwerp) (Jun 2018)

The Antwerp photography museum, the FOMU, is staging a landmark exhibition devoted to the work of the celebrated Flemish Magnum photographer Harry Gruyaert.

Harry Gruyaert (born 1941 in Antwerp, Belgium) is a photographer known for his images of Morocco (1969), Belgium, New York, West/East (Las Vegas-LA / Moscow), France, Egypt (1987) and India (1976) and for his use of colour. He studied at the School for Photo and Cinema in Brussels from 1959 to 1962. He began freelance work in Paris, while working as a director of photography for Flemish television.

Ouarzazate, 1986

Istanbul, 2006

In the 70's and 80's, Guyvaert also photographed his homeland and produced two books, “Made in Belgium” and “Roots”.

Mechelen, 1988

Brussels Boom, 1988

Liege, 1981

Harry Gruyert’s personal visual style and feeling for colors carries the viewer with him on all his journeys. He acts as the observant passer-by, and as such maintains a certain remove. Gruyaert refrains from entering the personal sphere of his subjects and limits himself to public spaces. His interest is not humanistic. People are extras, apart of the composition, usually with their backs turned to us. And yet Gruyaert’s work is never cold or detached.

Rome, 2000

Estremadura, 1998

In the early 1970s, while he was living in London, he worked on a series of colour television screen shots (Summer Olympic Games in Munich and the first Apollo flights) later to become the “TV Shots”.

“Higher emotions cannot be communicated in color,” American photographer Paul Strand claimed – revealing the power of irrational beliefs to take root in the mind and spread like a virus through those who fear to question ideology in search of the truth. The decision to Harry Gruyaert to join Magnum Photos in 1982 caused dissent among the ranks. At that time Gruyaert had been working in color for two decades.

In 1981, Geo commissioned Gruyaert to photograph Las Vegas. Rather than provide his take on the tired tropes of the Strip, Gruyaert ventured off the beaten path on the Vegas where residents lived. The result was entirely too realistic; Vegas was not the place of fantasies and spectacle – it was a world where people eked out their existence on the margins. Photographs from Vegas have been paired with works he made in Los Angeles at that same time, in a volume titled West that encompasses one of two volumes in “East/West”. The photographs in East were made in the Soviet Union in 1989, just as the USSR was coming to the end of its iron-clad rule. Paired together we see portraits of two superpowers during the final decade of the Cold War. What is striking are not the differences but the similarities.

Los Angeles, 1982

With the benefit of the passage of decades, Gruyaert’s work takes on new resonance, not only for its exquisite formal qualities but also for his ability to share a truth about a people and a place that lay deep beneath the narratives we wish to believe.

Gruyaert is a populist in every sense of the word. There is no romanticism here, no sentimentality that bleeds from an ideology that warp the eye. Instead there simply are people going about their daily lives. Gruyaert’s gift lies in his ability to distill the beauty of the most mundane moments without falling into the trap that so many photographers have adopted in pursuing “the indecisive moment.”

Rather, Gruyaert’s photos are of a thing, a moment in time that is both small and large. The grandeur in his photographs can be found in his mindfulness, in his complete presence in the moment so that you can feel the sun on your face, the breeze in your hair, the breath you draw and exhale as you simply become aware. The magic comes from the familiarity, from the recognition of the subtle grandeur that exists wherever you are, of the mystery of life in and of itself.

“Like the other color masters of his generation who are still working (William Eggleston, Stephen Shore, Guido Guidi, Joel Sternfeld, and others), Gruyaert finds himself finds himself regarded as both a contemporary photographer and a figure from the medium’s rich and neglected recent past.

The Edges (Rivages) series is a fitting introduction to the exhibition. The sea and the shore, always in union, determine the tempo of the images. A mesmerizing calm prevails, both vast and subdued, interrupted only by solitary colors or figures.

Nice 1988

Penguin Books asked Gruyaert to provide images for the English translation of all 75 Maigret novels by Belgian author George Simenon. The pocket format demands extensive cropping, resulting at times in completely new images.

Alongside his personal work, Hruyaert has worked on commission for companies. The industrial world is rich in visual elements. Shiny aluminium and plastic, vast industrial landscapes, the play of light in towering flames… Gruyaert’s hand is clearly distinguishable in his commission work.

"Regards d'Acier" with Joseph Koudelka and Sebastiao Salgado, Sollac & Magnum, 1988

Duinkerke, 2000

FOMU has chosen an eclectic approach to presenting his long career. On the one hand, photographs are shown individually, with each picture containing its own layered universe, and on the other, the viewer is offered a glimpse of the diverse daily practice of an internationally acclaimed photographer: from small to large assignments, from early b&W work to family portraits.

Gruyaert’s father, who by the way was instrumental in the creation of the museum, worked at Gevaert.

Texts/extracts from: MUFO exhibition 2018, Deredactie.be (Colin David Clapson 2018), LensCulture (Sean Sheenan 2017).

Photos: Yves Lefebvre

I discovered Harry Gruyaert a few years ago thanks to a good friend of mine, Shane Gray, street photographer living in NY (www.shanegrayphotography.com). We visited the AIPAD photography show together at the Armory in NYC when he introduced me to some works from Harry Gruyaert.