Robert Capa's photographs on display at Ancona's Mole Vanvitelliana

From February 16 to June 2, 2019, the Mole Vanvitelliana in Ancona is hosting a major exhibition dedicated to Robert Capa (Budapest, 1913 - Thai Binh, 1954), the great photojournalist who founded the Magnum Photos agency in 1947 with Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger, David Seymour and William Vandiver. After those of Steve McCurry, Henri Cartier Bresson and Sebastiao Salgado, the exhibition completes an exhibition that the City of Ancona and Civita wanted to dedicate to the great masters of 20th-century and contemporary photography.

The exhibition, titled Robert Capa. Retrospective, presents more than 100 black-and-white images documenting the major conflicts of the 20th century, to which Capa was an eyewitness, from 1936 to 1954. Removing the barriers between photographer and subject, his shots portray the suffering, misery, chaos and cruelty of wars. Some have now become icons: think of the militiaman’s death in the Spanish Civil War in 1937 and the photographs of the landing of American troops in Normandy in June 1944.

The exhibition is divided into 13 sections and concludes with the section "Gerda Taro and Robert Capa" a cameo of three shots: a portrait of Robert, a portrait of Gerda taken by Robert, and a “double portrait” of them, a way of bringing their human story and relationship on display. Gerda Taro is “The Girl with the Leica” the protagonist of the novel by Helena Janeczek, a recent Strega Prize winner.

“This exhibition,” says Denis Curti, the curator, who has faithfully reproduced the exhibition originally curated by Richard Whelan, “lends itself to different readings and the visitor will be able to decide on which to direct his or her attention: recent history, wars, passions, friends. This is because for Robert Capa, photography was a physical and mental affair at the same time. A political matter, but also a sentimental one.”. “If the tendency of war,” notes Whelan, Capa’s own biographer and scholar, “is to dehumanize, Capa’s strategy was to re-personalize war by recording individual gestures and facial expressions. As his friend John Steinbeck wrote, Capa knew he could not photograph war because it is primarily an emotion. But he managed to photograph that emotion by knowing it up close, showing the horror of an entire people through a child.”

The exhibition opens Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. (last entry one hour earlier). Tickets: full 11 euros, reduced 9 euros (groups of at least 12 people, non-accredited journalists, conventioned), special reduced 4 euros (children from 6 to 18 years old, schools), free for children under 6 years old, disabled and accompanying persons, accredited journalists, tour guides, accompanying teachers. The exhibition is sponsored by the City of Ancona and organized by Civita Exhibitions and Museums in collaboration with Magnum Photos and the Casa dei Tre Oci. An audio guide in Italian and English is available to all visitors, included in the entrance ticket, with which to follow the entire exhibition itinerary. For info visit mostrarobertcapa.it.

Image: Robert Capa, Pablo Picasso and Françoise Gilot, Golfe Juan, France, 1948. © Robert Capa © International Center of Photography / Magnum Photos.

Robert Capa's photographs on display at Ancona's Mole Vanvitelliana

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