Controversies is the quite disclosing title given to the exposition currently showing at the Botanique museum in Brussels. The collection, borrowed to the Elysée museum of Lausanne, consists of about eighty photos which, when published, provoked renowned controversies, debates or even conflicts…

Extended till the 3rd of January because of its success, the exposition retraces the history of photography through clichés that made it to the Pantheon of photography because of the controversies they gave birth to... Controversies because of photography being the victim of It being ahead of its time, being too liberal, and being the flagship of liberties and civic rights in societies that were not yet ready to accept those changes… Contreversies over photography serving darker purposes as promoting totalitarian regimes and falsifying the historical truth. Contreversies out of the cameras of some the most notorious: Lewis Carroll, Man Ray, Henri, Robert Capa, Robert Doisneau, Gary Gross, Robert Mapplethorpe, Olivieo Toscanni, David Lachapelle and many others.

On two floors and in a quite neutral and characterless setting, you will wander for about an hour and a half attentively scrutinizing photos which, sometimes, by themselves will not arouse your curiosity, amazement or consternation and will even sometimes leave you dubious regarding the reason those were included in a collection bearing such a theme. It s only after you would have read the notice accompanying the photo and retracing the context and reasons that made this photo controversial that you will fully be able to grasp the deeper dimensions carried by those small rectangular impressions. Not only will you appreciate the photo even more but you will want to look at it again, give life to its protagonists and recreate a scene out of the moment caught on the film.

While going through the pictures you will most certainly recognize some of the clichés as the soldier at the moment of his death by Robert Capa. the kissing nun by Olivieo Toscanni, or the little girl from Trang Bang running naked after having been burned by a Napalm explosion. Some photos will haunt you because of their intensity or the drama they were witnessing as the photo of Omayra Sanchez, a little Colombian girl, trapped by debris after a volcanic eruption. She will stay there for a couple of days, the lens of powerless photographers focused on her, desperately waiting for rescuers, who will finally arrive too late…too late to save her life. Some photos will raise subjects still prone to controversy nowadays. So controversial that even some of them had to be left in Lausanne as for example the “Piss Christ”: a photo representing the Christ swimming in blood and urine.

Is “Contreverses” worth the detour? The cadre might not be perfect, the offered additional documentation might be insufficient but those 80 photos are certainly worth being seen. You will fall in love with many of them, or rather the story appended to them. Once out, some of the images will remain printed somewhere in the back of your head. They will make you question yourself about what is right and what is wrong. They will keep haunting you for quite some time. And at some point you will mis them and will want to go see them again... |