In recent years the work of Winogrand (1928-1984) has been compared on several occasions to that of Vivian Maier. He too, like the now famous nanny photographer, worked on the streets of New York from the early XNUMXs, carrying out a capillary and obsessive work of reportage.
Winogrand was one of the most important chroniclers of American society, as well as one of the most famous international photographers of the sixties and seventies. His gaze on the habits of US citizens, apparently distracted, almost casual, often ironic, was influenced above all by the social photography of Robert Frank and Walker Evans, which he reinterpreted in a new and radical form.
Winogrand identified in the anonymous inhabitants of American cities the ideal subject to give substance to his vision of the world, telling side stories, without script or plot twists, always captured in public places: in parks, at the zoo, in shopping malls, in museums , at airports, or at political rallies and sporting events.
His technique is characterized by the use of wide-angle lenses. The many specimens that have come down to us demonstrate how Winogrand voluntarily sought the presence of a space external to the subject, often forcing the inclination of the camera. As has been written on many occasions, it would be wrong to dismiss these backgrounds as secondary elements, as an irrelevant visual "noise". According to Winogrand's original vision, the external details, included in the frame of the photograph, instead contributed to increasing the strength and meaning of the portrayed subject.
The exhibition at the MAN, curated by Lola Garrido, created in collaboration with diChroma Photography, presents, for the first time in Italy, the complete collection of photographs which, in 1975, went to make up the famous volume "Women are Beautiful", which has become today a cult object. Instant images, presented here through a series of original prints, which celebrate the female figure with an authentic gaze, in which admiration and irony, veneration and sarcasm are mixed.
A controversial work in many respects, parallel to that of the poets of the Beat Generation, which was not spared heavy criticism. In fact, if in the eyes of some interpreters the photographs appeared as a joyful reflection on the emancipation of women and on sensuality, others - due to the presence of shapely figures, in sleeveless dresses or miniskirts, or due to the lingering of Winogrand's gaze on the breasts and buttocks – they felt instead as the twisted expression of a macho and misogynist vision.
What appears evident is that it is not a superficial reflection on the new concepts of beauty, but rather a description of the social consequences of the American counterculture, as well as a declaration of support for women's rights and freedom at a time when Puritan conservatism seemed to want to question some of the most important post-war achievements. The well-known photographer Joel Meyerowitz spoke of "a bump and an embrace at the same time: he is a contradiction and the images are contradictory".
Garry Winogrand (1928-1984) was born into a working class family in the Bronx. He begins to photograph during his military service. He studies painting at City College of New York and photography at Columbia University. In 1949 he attended a photojournalism course at the New School for Social Research in New York and from 1952 until 1969 he worked as a freelance photojournalist. His first major exhibition was held at the MOMA in 1963. In 1966 he exhibited his photos in the Toward a social landscape exhibition at the George Eastman House in Rochester, together with Lee Friedlander, a friend and fellow traveler. With him and with Diane Arbus she took part in the exhibition New Documents (MOMA, 1967). He has won the Gugghenheim Fellowship Awards three times (1964, 1969, 1979) and the National Endowment of the Arts Award once (1979). Garry Winogrand's documentary photographs have appeared in magazines such as Sports Illustrated, Fortune and Life. When he died in 1984 due to cancer, he left behind a huge archive of images, many of which were never developed. Some of these have been collected, exhibited and published by the MOMA in the volume Winogrand. Figments from the Real World (1988). Works by Winogrand are present in the collections of the most important museums in the world, such as the MOMA in New York, the Tate Modern in London, the Center Pompidou in Paris.
