Cover of Fast Forward: Modern Moments 1913>>2013
Fast Forward: Modern Moments 1913 >> 2013, published to accompany the latest exhibition in The Museum of Modern Art’s ongoing collaboration with the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, details six significant moments in art history since the beginning of the 20th century.
Henri Cartier-Bresson. Shanghai. 1948. Gelatin silver print, printed 1971. The Museum of Modern Art. Acquired through the generosity of Robert B. Menschel. © 2010 Henri Cartier-Bresson/Magnum Photos, courtesy Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris
I tracked Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004) from England to India to Indonesia and back. He was in England for the coronation of King George VI; he was in India when Gandhi was assassinated; he was in Indonesia as the nation gained independence from the Dutch. He was seemingly everywhere.
I know because it was my job to compile all of Cartier-Bresson’s photo captions, notes, datebooks, and correspondence from his travels, which covered the better part of the 50 years he was actively working as a photographer. I then had to transform this into a comprehensive yet comprehensible chronology that would appear in the catalogue of the exhibition Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century.
When artist Marina Abramović and curator Klaus Biesenbach first met with the Publications team to discuss the catalogue that would accompany her exhibition at MoMA, Marina knew she wanted to create a book that offered a different kind of reading experience. Hoping to address the eternal challenge of capturing the complexity of live performance on the printed page, she proposed the addition of an audio component, which she felt would allow for a more personal, intimate, and experiential understanding of the work. What you hear in this video is a track from the resulting CD, which comes with the book.
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