Writings, extracts …

The photographic image speaks without pronouncing sentences. What it shows is real (a scene, an object, an atmosphere, a ... in a format, black and white, multicolored…) without being necessarily "true".

Lie for real? Real lie?
The world-famous war photographer Robert Capa took his secret to the grave about the truth relating to the picture of a republican soldier falling during the Spanish Civil War (in July 18th, 1936 -1936-1er in April, 1939). Was this a real moment of death or was it simply staged? This photo has generated, still generates a strong feeling, a passion. Of sense? What sense? I was once told that the image could have been used by the pro-Franco propaganda services, whether fascist or Nazi. It could have been used as the archetypal image announcing the future republican defeat.

Antifascist Spain could not benefit from this photography for purposes of propaganda for the war effort. It is neither heroic, nor glorifying.

It is "dramatic" in the same way as those thousands of French monuments of the Great War are, which we consider from a low-angle shot. But there is no cock, no laurels, no avenging angel or any other patriotic Kitsch . It does not glorify the slaughterings. It is in this sense that it was able to join the collective memory.

Published in the book Imaging, which links posters and photos stemming from projects carried out since 1976 with the Grapus, the bar Floreal and the Forge collectives. www.editions-creaphis.com
ISBN : 978-2-35428-091-8