Harry Gruyaert: Between Worlds

Product Information

He photographs things we’ve all seen – think about TV Shots, his documentary/commentary on British society made of photographs of television screens – but never seen quite the way he does. His powers of persuasion clearly exceeded those of Colonel Baker, who seemed the personification of Victorian solidity until that embarrassing incident in the sealed railway compartment, where he failed to entice Miss Dickinson to join in his bit of fun, and afterwards had to try and explain his conduct to the High Court, with the whole nation hanging on his every word. There is so much going on in all these images and the result is not confusion as much as a nuanced and sophisticated complexity.

A Magnum photographer and renowned colorist, Harry Gruyaert has been traveling the world for over forty years. A note from FRAMES: if you have a forthcoming or recently published book of photography, please let us know. Renato Cisneros digs into his own family history to understand and demystify the figure of ‘El Gaucho’: the controversial Secretary during the regime of Francisco Morales Bermúdez and, shortly after, the country’s Minister of War. In his new book Between Worlds, the artist assembles his archives to deliver the essence of his visual writing: a luminous alchemy at the service of immersion in the image. Magnum photographer Harry Gruyaert’s work has always been thrilling in the way it articulates a particular way of seeing.Another image from is from Madrid in 1993 and appears to be taken outside a subway car, through a sheet of glass to a man and a woman sitting inside the car.

As a Senior Curator at Tate, Dr Chris Stephens knew Smith well, and he contributes a wide-ranging introduction to Smith’s art and life. The green walls the red chair are a compositionally wonderful pairing, the frame within a frame of the glassless window isolates the narrative outside.

Over the past century, Cuban music has produced a seemingly endless variety of styles―rumba, mambo, son, salsa―at a dizzyingly fast rate. The artwork here reflects both the cultural and musical depth of Cuba as well as the political influence of revolutionary communism. It is impossible, looking at this picture, to confidently place where everything in the image is in relationship to each other. With a historical gazetteer, chronology of major events, index, bibliography and historical and contemporary maps, this book is an invaluable companion to students or visitors to the island.

And we also have in the window the reflection of what is behind the photographer – trees and cars and street signs. Other images range from New York City to Israel to Belgium to Paris to Tokyo, Istanbul, Madrid, the Dominican Republic, Tunis. If These Apples Should Fall: Cezanne and the Present looks back on Cezanne from a moment – our own – when such judgments may seem to need justifying. And after the initial joy of growing comfortable with many layers of content, the question becomes: What is the relationship of all these layers to each other and then to us? One of the things that’s fascinating about this collection is the way every image has multiple narrative lines.But the idea of holding multiple levels of now as being simultaneously present is fascinating and maddening and finally deeply rewarding in a way that is impossible to reduce to a single topic or thesis statement.