Welcome to at least one fantastic present, the place Observer highlights a just lately opened present at a museum exterior New York Metropolis, a spot we all know and love that already receives loads of consideration.
Those that have had the distinctive pleasure of seeing a film by Federico Fellini with me have already heard this spiel: I imagine that Italians have a genetic trait that makes them higher at filmmaking than different nationalities. It must be genetic as a result of Martin Scorsese was born in Flushing however shares the ability with the language of movie seen within the work of Pier Paolo Pasolini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Sergio Leone, Bernardo Bertolucci and Paolo Sorrentino, amongst others. How else to elucidate all this expertise?
A associated however much less insane principle is put forth by “American, born Hungary: Kertész, Capa and the Hungarian American Photographic Legacy,” a just-opened present on the Virginia Museum of Fantastic Arts. The present options over 170 pictures from André Kertész, László Moholy-Nagy, Martin Munkácsi, Robert Capa and György Kepes, all of whom reinvented themselves in America and helped outline the medium with photographs that may very well be surreal, documentary, emotional and compositionally radical all on the similar time. These outcomes emerged from being on the entrance traces of the trendy world’s start, however that and an eye fixed can’t clarify their impeccable batting averages. As Capa as soon as mentioned: “It’s not sufficient to have expertise; you additionally should be Hungarian.”
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For proof of the collective expertise on show, look no additional than André de Dienes’ portrait of Marilyn Monroe from 1949. Have you learnt how laborious it’s to {photograph} Marilyn Monroe? De Dienes’s portrait has one thing of the corporeal earthiness seen in Capa’s Close to Cerro Muriano (Cordoba entrance) (c.1936), which might be probably the most well-known work within the present and depicts a soldier within the Spanish Civil Battle, collapsing after being shot within the head. Each our bodies have tales to inform, however they don’t appear to be talking a language identified to any of us.
There are some good images of presidents right here—Franklin Delano Roosevelt (c. 1939) by Marcel Sternberger and JFK Campaigning (1960) by Cornell Capa—however presidents are actually solely compelling in the way in which that they merge the physique with structure. The our bodies of these two failed them quite publicly; the photographs of precise structure on this exhibition diagram perfection. André Kertész was the grasp of this. His hearth escapes and skyscrapers provide uncannily complementary angles, with nothing out of order, not even their shadows. Misplaced Cloud (1937) exhibits even the water vapor displaying off, kinking a hindpart so it doesn’t duck behind the constructing. It is a cloud doing its greatest to assimilate.
Moholy-Nagy is likely one of the older and extra avant-garde artists on show. His work is pure experiments in type with none ties to actuality. There appears to be a dreamlike high quality throughout all these pictures. Coming to America from Hungary again then in all probability did really feel like coming into a dream, with loads of skyscrapers and Marilyn Monroe to go round.
“American, born Hungary: Kertész, Capa and the Hungarian American Photographic Legacy” is on view on the Virginia Museum of Fantastic Arts by means of January 26, 2026.
