Also see Beyond the flashing bulbs of fame by Andrew Taylor (Sun 14 Nov 2010) ..
Leibovitz's disdain for celebrity is reflected in "Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life 1990-2005", which opens at the Museum of Contemporary Art on Friday.
Just a third of the exhibition features the high-profile names that have turned Leibovitz into a celebrity. There are more images of family and friends and 40 photos include documentary shots of lives ruined by war in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
MCA's director Liz Ann Macgregor said these were her favourite works: "Two of these unforgettable images achieve their strength by showing what is not there – in the absence of victims, we see only the aftermath of war and the bloodshed left behind."
In contrast, Leibovitz said the intimate shots of her parents on the beach and brother and father posing bare-chested, arms crossed, were her "most important work".
"It tells the best story, and I care about it. You don't get the opportunity to do this kind of work except with people who you love: people who will put up with you."
I have enjoyed seeing the personal side of Leibovitz's work and will definitely go to the exhibition.
Have a copy of Susan Sontag's (Leibovitz's Lover) Monograph On Photography which I bought in Canberra in 2002. It seemed an odd relationship because of Sontag's views on photography. I could empathise with their situation with Sontag's journey with Breast Cancer and I remember following the news of Sontag's final weeks and then reading Sontag's New York Times Obituary.
Like all professional photographers, there is definitely a private side to Leibovitz's Photography and I am sure most photographers like myself want to see the private side.
I look forward to viewing the exhibition. I saw the exhibition's book a few years ago. What I really look forward to, though, is the Landscape Photograph work which will feature in future book titled Pilgrimage.
From the Australian (Fri 12 Nov 2010):
ReplyDeleteBones of a life laid bare by Rosemary Sorensen
.. Leibovitz says she edited the book of A Photographer's Life with Sontag in mind, as though she were looking at it in exactly the way her companion would have done. The exhibition coming to Sydney flows from an image of Sontag in the often-photographed chasm between rocks at Petra in Jordan. Reclaiming this tourist site, she then sets about to reclaim the family snapshot, as more than sentiment and less than documentation. The most haunting images in the context of the exhibition are likely to be the hazy, almost abstract landscapes, beautiful but uncertain. Sontag is present there, too, in her absence.