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I am interested in large cultural spaces
The Photography of Inge Morath
by Kurt Kaindl

»I am interested in large cultural spaces«, said Inge Morath once in response to my question which were her favourite photograpy projects. And truly it is the cultures from a vast geography that feature in her artistic opus. One of her first assignments for the Paris Agency »Magnum«, of which Morath was a member since 1955, was a book on Spain. Then, still in the fifties, came a project on Iran, and since her marriage to Arthur Miller in 1962 there were many themes from the USA. Together with her husband, Morath travelled to Russia and to China in order to publish books on these cultures. Several times Morath travelled the Danube-basin and in between she produced many photography series from lands and cities of Europe and South America. Always true to the tradition of politically engaged and humanist newsphotography, Morath's interest in the people she met on her travels never wavered. The preparations for the travels were intense — in order to be able to speak to the people she visited, Morath learned, aside from German, English, Spanish, french, Romanian, Russian and Mandarin. Communication is the key to understanding Morath's work.

Despite her interest for the people, Morath was a rather reserved photographer. Secret shots were not her cup of tea. Rather, Morath tried to get to know the people before photographing them. Persons whom she met in the street were captivated by her unequivocal interest for their most insignificant activities. Renowned artists were impressed with her thoriugh knowledge of their work and stimulating discussions. And as if per chance, portraits were made during such interactions as a result of a relationship between new friends. The people on portraits were well aware of her photographing them and Inge Morath did not mind if they stroke a pose. She had by then already penetrated the facade and a pose which someone wanted to strike on the outside was equally important to Morath as the moment which she from time to time managed to capture on film, unbeknownst to the subject.

Time and time again, Inge Morath liked to quote her teacher and mentor from her early years, Henri Cartier-Bresson, who said: »The one open eye looks through the view-finder into the outside world; the second eye, the closed eye, looks on the inside.« In a way, this aspect of photography is present in every photograph. It is nevertheless conspicuous that there are hardly any photographs in which Morath reflects on her own existential situation. There is, for instance, a series titled »In the Country« that contains a few photpgraps from the village Roxbury (USA) in which Morath lived with her husband. Her most comprehensive »look on the inside« was at the same time her last project: in southern Styria and in the north of Slovenia, Morath embarked on a journey tracing her own origins and history. She left this two-year project unfinished. Nevertheless, the work took her back to »the land of her dreams« as she had called it once. Intensive preparations of filmmaker Regina Strassegger enabled Morathh to find and return to the scenes of her youth and the places where her ancestors lived. And truly there are many landscape shots with an oftentimes mythical quality in the photographs from this project (she hardly photographed landscapes in her earlier period). At the centre of her photographic reflection, however, remain people and Inge Morath's unconditional interest that she took in them.

The selection of photographs exhibited in the Carinthian Art Gallery reflects this orientation of Inge Morath. The photographs show people from three different cultural circles, separated from one another by the largest possible physical distance. There is the large »group photograph« of Bejing cyclists, which corresponds perfectly with our stereotype of this populous country and yet a shot which displays a certain symbolic meaning. Juxtaposed is a photograph of a single craftsman, standing in front of his shop, gazing directly at us through the photographer's camera and across decades. Similarly caught in her everyday life we see an old woman from Orchard Street, a tradition-packed jewish part of New York, as a contrast to a Society-Lady learning the art of applying make up in a beauty parlor. Part of her last project in the heart of Europe and the land of her ancestors are the photographs of the child with a parasol and the old woman, never to rise from her sick-bed again.

The selection of photographs in the exhibition portrays »insignificant« people from different continents, photographed by Inge Morath in their daily lives with equal affection and love. The celebration of life and of the simple man is a message that could be seen — next to the photographic and documentary quality of her images — as a significant heritage of this extraordinary photographer.