Piemonte

by Josef Koudelka

"If humans are largely absent from [Josef Koudelka's] pictures, it is because the main protagonist is the land itself. In some of his images, the construction sites appear as if they had been abandoned after some catastrophic event such as the one inferred by Cormac McCarthy in his masterpiece "The Road." It is almost as if Koudelka, through his camera lens, had already seen nature slowly beginning to heal its wounds by reclaiming what humans have taken away from it."--Giuseppe Culicchia

This is the last photographic essay by Josef Koudelka, one of the most renowned photographers of the world, about the Piedmont region in Italy.

Genres: Photography

164 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2010

About the author

Josef Koudelka was born in Czechoslovakia in 1938. He began his career as an aeronautical engineer, and started photographing gypsies in his spare time in 1962, before turning full-time to photography in the late 1960s. In 1968 Koudelka photographed the Soviet invasion of Prague, publishing his photographs under the initials P.P. (Prague photographer). In 1969, he was anonymously awarded the Overseas Press Club’s Robert Capa Gold Medal for the photographs. Koudelka left Czechoslovakia seeking political asylum in 1970, and shortly thereafter he joined Magnum Photos.

In 1975 his first book, Gypsies, was published by Aperture, and subsequent titles include Exiles (1988), Chaos (1999), Invasion 68: Prague (2008), and Wall (2013) and, most recently Ruines (2020). Koudelka has won major awards, such as the Prix Nadar (1978), Grand Prix National de la Photographie (1989), Grand Prix Cartier-Bresson (1991), and the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography (1992).

Exhibitions of his work have been held at The Museum of Modern Art and the International Center of Photography, New York; Hayward Gallery, London; Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art, Amsterdam; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Art Institute of Chicago; and Museum of Decorative Arts and the National Gallery, Prague. In 2012, he was named Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture and Communication. He is currently based in Paris and Prague.

Reviews

[Philippe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Without wanting to be condescending, it seems that Koudelka's creative powers are on the wane.

Some may like his earliest, photojournalistic work most: the Prague 68 uprising, the raw, visceral studies of gypsies, his early wanderings (Exiles). I personally find his pictures from the 1990s a most impressive body of work: epic and gloomy panoramic studies of mutilated landscapes in the Czech Republic (Black Triangle), in other post-Soviet territories (Chaos), in Wales, on (former) industrial sites (Limestone, the Paris Grands Moulins). His book on Rome (Theater of Time, 2003) - sumptuously, darkly romantic - marked the end of this period.

Then came his study of the Camargue area in the south of France, which was a disappointment. All power seemed spent. A lacklustre portfolio. "Piedmont" is better, returns to an extent to the earlier work - and does that very often quite literally in the choice of motives and settings. In that sense an air of valediction hovers over the book. It comes across as a long, sad finale. The quality of the portfolio is more even than in the case of Camargue. Only a few images seem trite, misplaced. There are some very strong pictures, a flourish of Koudelka's former self and proof that he still is a master in the panoramic format (all images have a 1:3 aspect ratio, likely from a film-based 6x17 camera).

However, what kills this book is the printing. The images are rendered in a very heavy, oppressive kind of toning, pulling the pictures as it were into the pages. I always feel compelled to look at this book under a very strong light source. Indeed, there is no sparkle at all in these images. Also their texture looks vaguely strange, as if they have been postprocessed to give them a rather artificial air of HDR (high dynamic range) pictures. I may be completely mistaken here as we can assume that Koudelka, if he still clings to a complete film-based workflow, can rely on the best printers around.

Finally, it's not clear what the book wants to tell us either. A backward glance on a long career is the only rationale that for me keeps together the rather bewildering mix of motives. The tough, unrelenting focus so distinctive for his earlier work is not here. And the rambling introduction by Italian writer Giuseppe Culicchia doesn't help us any further either.

It's good to have in the library. I would still give 4 stars for the pictures, but the abysmal printing quality only justifies a 3 star rating.