Reality Revised
A species of catalogue of subjectivities concerning the reality experienced in the 1970s is the focus of “Reality Revised”, a show organised by Stockholm’s Moderna Museet of pieces in its permanent collection. The more than eighty photographers presented offer conceptual and artistic approaches that in some instances have been translated in the fundamental manners of working in the documentary genre. Accordingly, many of the figures exhibited are veritable icons of the genre, while others are less well-known or unknown, but have works that are certainly remarkable.
“Reality Revised. Photography from the Moderna Museet Collection” concentrates mainly on photographers from 
the United States and Sweden, along with others from elsewhere in Europe and even Latin America. Particularly striking are the representatives from Eastern Europe, and from the Baltic and Scandinavian countries. In these last two cases, the show is configured as a recovery and a sampling of high-quality works of artists from regions that have had little or no visibility in the international art context. Special note is due to the offerings of the Finn Denise Grünstei, the Lithuanians Romualdas Rakauskas and Antanas Sutkus, the Norwegian Tom Sandberg, the Estonian Rein Välme, the Russian Walter Hirsch, and the Czech Josef Koudelka. All of these express important differences in the aesthetics and the “realities” they have captured, rendering indispensable a reflection upon the social and political implications experienced at the time. Eloquence, lyricism, rawness, conceptualism, simplicity, and even the personal side of many of the snapshots shown place the spectator before a period distant from the present but at the same time near, which allows us to sketch the connections between the concerns and problems that to some extent remain with us today, and which in those years worked as an essential stimulus, among others, to the expansion of documentary photography.
Hans Alenius, Christer Strömholm, Yngve Baum, Ann Christine Eek, Monika Englund, Eva Klasson, Jenss S. Jenser, Björn Myrman, Anders Peterson and Odd Uhrbom represent, probably, the most interesting Swedish offerings in the show. Each makes a positive contribution to this “revision of realities”, which is the theme of the exhibition, while also attesting to the quality of the documentary treatment produced in the Scandinavian country. Alongside these photographers, there are indispensable works in the genre by Diane Arbus, Larry Clark, Manuel Álvarez-Bravo, Bill Brandt, Brassäi, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Ernest Cole, William Eggleston, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Graciela Iturbide, André Kertész, Duane Michals, Helmut Newton, and Bill Owens, among others. Also, within the profile developed by the Moderna Musset photography collection, particularly noteworthy is the value ascribed to work by women, with pieces by Nan Goldin, Irina Ionesco, Graciela Iturbide, Lilo Raymond, and Melissa Shook, in addition to the U.S. and Swedish female photographers already named.
Another striking aspect of the show is its illumination, which is on a level rarely seen in exhibitions of this format, and is minimised in face of the spatial jumble perceived on much of the tour. With more than three hundred photographs, the exhibition design is posed as an aporia within the showrooms, although in some areas there is a smooth progression. Beyond this, the work of the photographers selected enables us to fully appreciate the merits of the increasingly forgotten analogue photography, whose most evocative powers we can enjoy profusely in “Reality Revised”.
ARTECONTEXTO. Arte, cultura, nuevos medios. Madrid, Nº 22 / 2009 / 3.
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