Event
Exhibition «Richard Avedon. In the American West»
Miners, farmers and cowboys will be the protagonists of one of this summer’s most outstanding photography exhibitions in Madrid.
About this event
From 6 June to 30 August, Fundación MAPFRE’s Recoletos room will host a project that transformed portrait photography and became one of Richard Avedon’s best-known works.
The exhibition is devoted to the series In the American West, on which the photographer worked from 1979 to 1984. Commissioned by a Texas museum, Avedon travelled through the western states of the United States for several years, portraying people from very diverse professions and backgrounds. Instead of idealised images of cowboys and heroes of the Wild West, his camera captured miners, farmers, workers, salespeople and travelling performers.
All the portraits share one of the most characteristic features of his work: a neutral white background and absolute attention to the person portrayed. With no sets or distracting elements, the centre of the image is occupied by the gaze, gestures and traces of a life. It was precisely this approach that made the series one of the key works in the history of contemporary photography.