Robert Capa, fotografo

The exhibition was fantastic. The Centro Cultural Borges interesting. I liked the crowd and the photos (though I'm not sure "like" is the appropriate word), especially the ones of WWII -- though there was a wide range from the Spanish Civil War to Trotsky to the Creation of the State of Israel to la Guerra de Indochina.

There were two photos (Chartres, August 18, 1944) of those who collaborated or at least were suspected of collaborating with the Germans that were especially provocative. They gathered the collaborators they could find into a courtyard. Shaved the women's heads and executed the men. One in particular is of a woman, her head shaved, who committed the crime of having a child by a German soldier -- she's carrying the child close, surrounded by a jeering crowd. She later appears in the courtyard picture. All the pictures were good, but I was also especially touched by some of the ones of Naples and Monte Cassino -- one in particular of a funeral for 20 teenage boys, led by their teacher who held up and fought the Germans for four days before the Allies entered the city. They were all killed.

I have very strong memories of visiting the cemeteries of Monte Cassino as a child (when we lived in Naples) -- endless rows of headstones, massive losses on both sides. My most vivid memory is coming across a gentleman who had come to visit his comrades (all dead). For some reason, the place was closed but they let us in anyway and so it was just us (my father, mother, and me) and this old soldier. I remember holding my mother's hand looking at the infinite rows of headstones, watching him (overcoat, hat, scarf), listening, and watching big, silent tears roll down his face. I remember also feeling that I should stand perfectly still.

Other memorable photos from the exhibition -- three blind men being led by a little girl to the community center, German farmers leaving/crossing the fields from their burning home, Spanish women heading for the mountains, a Frenchman offering American troops cider, an American soldier killed in house-to-house combat, Chinese women being trained for combat, tea in a bomb shelter, and photo 11, the last one taken before Capa himself stepped on a landmine and was killed. There was also an extensive Dali exhibition a room away. After Capa, though, Dali seemed frivolous and silly. There was some interesting stuff (objects of the future), some lithographs, the Quijote series, and work in silver, etc., but much of the stuff (the Casanova series, for example) was pretty much a waste of time. Capa, hands down.

B.