By Matthew Russell Lee, Review
NEW YORK, November 13 -- Even undoctored photographs can serve as propaganda. The Spanish Civil War photographs of Robert Capa, Chim (David “Seymour” Szymin) and Gerda Taro on display in Manhattan's International Center of Photograph through January 9 show heroic Republicans fighting Franco's fascists, shot for Leftist magazines in France, the UK and even Germany.
The captions make clear how the photos were intended. Chim shot a series about Republicans trying to save Spanish and Catholic art words from fascist attacks -- to counter the idea, the caption says, that the Republicans were anti-Catholic, barbarians who would destroy Spain's cultural patrimony.
Taro, in the battle of Brunete she would die in, took photos to show Republican victories “when written reports were discredited.” But did people, even then, believe their eyes?
Chim took a photograph of a woman breastfeeding her baby, looking up at the sky. Later a magazine called Madrid published it with airplanes arranged above, and it became known as a photo of a air raid. But it was not.
The French weekly Regards sent a letter of introduction for Capa, saying “you know our magazine, we will use this to serve the Spanish people.” One imagines applications today to the government of Sudan to cover the war in Darfur, or to Sri Lanka to cover the shattered Tamil areas. “Our photos can help you” -- but will they?
Chim's photo on Madrid -- but the planes weren't there. (c) MRLee
Capa documented French run camps for refugee Republicans on their way to Mexico. The camps were surrounded by barbed wire and soldiers, like the internment camps for Tamils at Vavuniya in Sri Lanka. There, the government barred journalists for months, as it has now denied visas to media which showed pictures of the dead.
The exhibit is called “The Mexican Suitcase” -- in which the three photographers' 4500 negatives were found in 2007 -- and runs through January 9, the day scheduled for the South Sudan referendum. There are photos, too, from there. Plus ca change.
