“Las fotografías legendarias de Leo Goldstein del Harlem hispano“
La Photo League fue atacada por el FBI en el período de caza de brujas de la posguerra como una organización subversiva y se vio obligada a disolverse en 1951. Sin embargo, Leo y varios ex miembros continuaron reuniéndose en sus respectivas casas para mostrar y criticar su trabajo. Según el hijo de Leo, Fred Goldstein, algunos de los que el recuerda haber conocido de esta manera fueron Walter Rosenblum, Bernard (Barney) Cole, Jack Lessinger, Ida Berman y Sam Mahl, entre otros.
Fred Goldstein también describe cómo su padre trabajó muy duro en el proceso de impresión, imprimiendo sus imágenes una y otra vez para obtener las áreas claras y oscuras tal como las quería. Leo sintió que revelar e imprimir sus propias fotografías era tan parte de su proceso creativo como tomar la fotografía en sí. Para ilustrar cuán fuertemente creía esto, Leo rechazó una invitación para enviar negativos para su uso en la exhibición de la Familia del Hombre en el Museo de Arte Moderno porque sintió que tener a alguien más imprimiendo una imagen de su negativo realmente no representaría su trabajo.
Tras la muerte de Leo en Nueva York en 1972, no se pudo encontrar ninguno de sus negativos. Pudieron haber sido desechados cuando su cuarto oscuro fue desmantelado. Esto refleja lo poco que se sabía sobre el valor de la obra en ese momento.
Continue vendo e lendo…
The Photo League was a cooperative of photographers in New York who banded together around a range of common social and creative causes. Founded in 1936, the League included some of the most noted American photographers of the mid-20th century among its members. It ceased operations in 1951 following its placement in 1947 on the U.S. Department of Justice blacklist with accusations that it was a communist, anti-American organization.
…Unusually for artist groups at the time, about one third of League members and participants were women and they served in visible leadership roles such as secretary, treasurer, vice president, and president. For example, Lucy Ashjian, who joined the League as early as 1936, was Photo Notes editor and board chair of the League’s school.[6] Sonia Handelman Meyer was both photographer and secretary, the league’s only paid position.
In the early 1940s the list of notable photographers who were active in the League or supported their activities also included Margaret Bourke-White, W. Eugene Smith, Helen Levitt, FSA photographer Arthur Rothstein, Beaumont Newhall, Nancy Newhall, Richard Avedon, Weegee, Robert Frank, Harold Feinstein, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Minor White. The League was the caretaker of the Lewis Hine Memorial Collection, which Hine’s son had given the League in recognition of its role in fostering social activism through photography as his father had done.
Post-war East Harlem photographed by Leo Goldstein
Leo Goldstein began capturing East Harlem in 1949 after he’d joined the New York Photo League, a photo club that originated around the beginning of the Great Depression. An immigrant of Russian-Jewish descent, Goldstein trained his lens on East Harlem – where he had lived for a time – and its newly established community of Puerto Ricans, which flourished following World War II.
Having remained largely unseen for the last 70 years, his photographs are now the focus of a new book, East Harlem: The Postwar Years. The images were edited by Régina Monfort from a selection of rescued prints that he had left behind and, since there are no remaining negatives, the book provided a way of archiving his work for future generations. However, it wasn’t just a case of preserving Goldstein’s photographic legacy; his work also makes a valuable contribution to the history of New York and the perception of the local community.
PS: Se você já visitou o site do Festival, encontrou muito gente bacana por lá. Luisa Dör, Ana Carolina Fernandes e Victor Moriyama representam o Brasil. Mas também estão Adriana Loureiro da nota “Hope” e Eliana Aponte da nota”Michael Christopher Brown e Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruiz”.
Seguimos interconectados. Seguimos.
PS1: Link para o Bronx Documentary Center
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