Magnum Photos Blog

Josef Koudelka. Exiles 

September 17, 2016 
by Josef Koudelka 
"Koudelka’s unsentimental, stark, brooding, intensely human imagery reflect his own spirit, the very essence of an exile who is at home wherever his wandering body finds haven in the night."_ Cornell Capa

Exile
The exhibition features one of the most powerful documents of spiritual and physical states of exile. The sense of mystery that fills these photographs – mostly taken during Koudelka’s years of wandering through Europe and the United States since leaving his native Czechoslovakia – speaks of passion and reserve, of his ‘rage to see’. It invokes the soul of man in search of a spiritual homeland.

Wall
“Security barrier” for the Israelis, “wall of apartheid” for the Palestinians or “separation barrier” for Human Rights Watch, beyond the political debate, Josef Koudelka shows the wall as a manmade scar that mars the natural landscape. Wall assembles panoramic landscape photographs in black and white, taken between 2008 and 2012, of the fence that separates Israel from Palestine in East Jerusalem, Hebron, Ramallah, Bethlehem, and in the various Israeli colonies. His pictures present panoramas covered in concrete constructions and littered with barbed wire fences, trenches, checkpoints and roadblocks, where artists have sometimes left their mark, but there are also other parts where nature resists.

Nederlands Fotomuseum
Wilhelminakade 332
3072 Rotterdam

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