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Imagema : antología fotográfica 1927-1994

De perto : 20 fotografiaas d eHoracio Coppola em Minas Gerais, 1945

Horacio Coppola : los viajes

A major work on Coppola and his place in modern photography. It includes many previously unpublished photographs, a DVD of his four films done in the early 1930's and a chapter comparing his work with other modernist photographers of the period. Horacio Coppola (Buenos Aires, 1906) was a young man without a definite vocation when he first traveled to Europe. Before then, he was a founding member of the cinema club in Buenos Aires; he attended three lectures given by Le Corbusier when the architect visited Buenos Aires in 1929 and contributed two pictures for the book, "Evaristo Carriego" by Jorge Luis Borges. From 1930-31, he toured Spain, France, Italy and Germany. By the end of the trip he had bought his first Leica camera which allowed him to take high quality images. The exhibition photos include those taken at the ports of Brazil on the way back to Buenos Aires (San Salvador, Rio de Janeiro, Santos). The photographs already show, in the words of Jorge Mara, "a coppoliano viewpoint ". We do not know if Coppola saw the works of important photographers in Europe during his first trip or what influenced him. His works were certainly imbued with the spirit of the times, projecting unusual themes and motifs - boats with fruit vendors seen from above, the chimneys of ships, unusual angles of cities. Coppola returned to Europe in 1932 with a more defined objective: to study photography at the University of Marburg with the chair of History of Art, Richard Hamann. However, the Department of Photography of Marburg closed. Fritz Heller advised him to head to Berlin, the Bauhaus, where he met Grete Stern (who would become his wife) and Peterhans, his teacher. The correct way to take a picture, according to Peterhans, was to decide on a focal point before framing it with the viewfinder. It was called "seeing photographically". The photos displayed amply illustrate this position. His vision of the inter-war European cities like Berlin, Budapest and London, between 1932 and1935, offers images of a poor Europe that still retains its traditions. Coppola's photos shared a lot of similarities with those of European and American colleagues. Common themes on the modern city were windows, mannequins, bicycles, architectural details, the contrast between new and old, the marginalized and the beggars. These artists shared a conscience, giving an account of the theme par excellence of the 20th century - the modern city. In Coppola's work, there is a perceived urgency to record what is happening and, at the same time, a dialogue with film, his other passion. He takes a closer look at social problems along with the collective images created by the pioneers of modern photography: Moholy Nagy, Brassai (especially those of París), Cartier Bresson, André Kertész, and the great Germans, Otto Umber y Germaine Krull. It is also amazing to observe themes that overlap with images of American photographers such as Paul Strand and Edward Weston.