Magnum Photos: Euro Visions: The New Europeans By Ten Magnum Photographers

by Quentin Bajac, Peter Marlow (Photographer), Alex Majoli (Photographer)

When Magnum conceived an assignment on the theme of the "new Europeans," meaning the 10 countries that had all entered the European Union at once on May 1, 2004, 10 Magnum photographers volunteered, each for very personal reasons and with a very personal approach. The rules were rather than the misleadingly vain "portrait" of a country that this kind of short-term assignment often yields, each photographer was to give an account of his or her specific experience. In addition to photography, their means of exploration could include film, video, written notes and oral commentaries. Euro Visions surveys Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia in exceptional work from Peter Marlow, Donovan Wylie, Patrick Zachmann, Alex Majoli, Lise Sarfati, Carl De Keyzer, Mark Power, Martine Franck, Chris Steele-Perkins and Martin Parr.

208 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2006

About the author

Quentin Bajac is a French museum curator and art historian specialising in the history of photography. He is the director of the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris.
Bajac has held positions at the Musée d'Orsay (1995–2003), Centre Georges Pompidou (2003–2010), Musée National d'Art Moderne and École du Louvre (2010–2013) and Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) (2013–2018).
He has published a number of works on photography, most notably the three-volume series—La photographie—on the history of photography (2000–2010), which belongs to the collection Découvertes Gallimard, as well as Parr by Parr: Discussions with a Promiscuous Photographer (2011), Stephen Shore: Solving Pictures (2017), Being Modern: MoMA in Paris (co-author with Olivier Michelon, 2017).
In 2013 Bajac was made a Chevalier (knight) of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Reviews

[Zioluc · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nel 2005 dieci fotografi Magnum espongono i loro lavori su altrettanti nuovi paesi dell'Unione Europea. Cipro, Estonia, Ungheria, Slovenia, Polonia... Paesi "sconosciuti" e per questo degni di esplorazione.
L'iniziativa è lodevole, ma i limiti sono molti.
Innanzi tutto i fotografi si sono "paracadutati" in terre ignote per pochi giorni, quando va bene con una guida locale esperta, per cui hanno una visione sì vergine ma anche troppo superficiale.
Il libro è in piccolo formato e l'esposizione in qualche caso prevedeva anche proiezioni, per cui il mio giudizio è limitato, ma i risultati sono discontinui: un Parr di mestiere in Slovenia, un interessante lavoro per Majoli (Lettonia), immagini magnifiche di Mark Power (Polonia), ritratti belli ma poco significativi per Donovan Wylie e Lise Sarfati, lavoro imbarazzante per Martine Franck. Forse più sinceri gli approcci di Chris Steele-Perkins e Peter Marlow che espongono parecchie decine di immagini, incapaci di selezionare tra ciò che li ha colpiti ma non conoscono.