Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
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<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/rene-burri-22358" aria-label="More by René Burri" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">René Burri</a>
Salk Institute Biological Designed by Louis Kahn California USA 1979
Presented by Pierre Brahm 2015
actions: postures and motions
adults
architecture
Brutalist
cities, towns, villages (non-UK)
corridor
countries and continents
documentary
emotions, concepts and ideas
formal qualities
interiors
Khan, Louis
laboratory
man
modernist
named individuals
natural phenomena
people
periods and styles
perspective
photographic
places
public and municipal
public and municipal
San Diego, Salk Institute of Biological Studies
shadow
sunshine
USA, California
walking
weather
<p><span>Salk Institute of Biological Studies, Designed by Louis Kahn, California, USA, 1979 </span>1979, printed 2014, is a black and white photograph by the Swiss photographer René Burri. In it, a walking figure is visible through a series of archways that make up a long corridor running through multiple buildings and stretching away from the camera. The arches create angled stripes of light and shadow on the ground while the unfinished, unpainted surface of the poured-in-place concrete walls give the greyscale image varied areas of tone and shading. The photograph was taken in the laboratory buildings at the Salk Institute of Biological Studies, designed by the American architect Louis Kahn in 1965 with a focus on daylight and functionality.</p>
paper print photograph gelatin silver
Salk Institute of Biological Studies, Designed by Louis Kahn, California, USA, 1979
image: 349 × 523 mm
Presented by Pierre Brahm 2015
<div class="text">
<p>
<i>Salk Institute of Biological Studies, Designed by Louis Kahn, California, USA, 1979 </i>1979, printed 2014, is a black and white photograph by the Swiss photographer René Burri. In it, a walking figure is visible through a series of archways that make up a long corridor running through multiple buildings and stretching away from the camera. The arches create angled stripes of light and shadow on the ground while the unfinished, unpainted surface of the poured-in-place concrete walls give the greyscale image varied areas of tone and shading. The photograph was taken in the laboratory buildings at the Salk Institute of Biological Studies, designed by the American architect Louis Kahn in 1965 with a focus on daylight and functionality.   </p>
<p>This image is part of a portfolio of twenty-seven prints (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/burri-inauguration-of-the-chapel-of-notre-dame-du-haut-france-1955-p14301" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P14301</span></a>–<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/burri-poster-of-che-guevara-1993-p14327" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P14327</span></a>), selected and compiled by Burri as a cohesive group shortly before his death in 2014. The selection spans his sixty-year career and includes a number of his best known black and white works, as well as a group of lesser-known colour works. The portfolio was printed by Burri in 2014 and this copy is number three in an edition of five plus one artist’s proof. It contains fourteen black and white gelatin silver prints and thirteen colour C-prints, highlighting Burri’s diverse use of light and shadow alongside his experimental use of colour. Although predominantly known for shooting in black and white, Burri often travelled with two cameras, switching between them to capture images in both colour and greyscale. This was a progressive approach at the time, when colour photography was generally only used in advertising or for commercial practices. Burri revisited his archive of colour images later in his career and published the monograph <i>René Burri: Impossible Reminiscences</i> in 2013 as a decisive examination of this work.</p>
<p>Burri is most famous for his work as a member of the photojournalism agency Magnum Photos and the portfolio includes images produced in this context from projects in Brazil, Egypt, Lebanon, East Germany, China and South Korea, as well as an iconic image of Cuban revolutionary leader Che Guevara taken in Havana in 1963. The young Burri was introduced to Magnum by fellow Swiss photographer Werner Bischof and began working with the agency first as an associate in 1955, before becoming a full member in 1959. His extensive career encompassed a wide variety of photographic practices, including documentary, reportage, street photography and the photo-essay, as well as portraiture, architecture and landscape. He often worked on press assignments and personal projects simultaneously, building a varied portfolio of work in both black and white and colour. Burri’s use of both bird’s eye and worm’s eye views and his attention to the effects of light and shadow created by architectural forms are reminiscent of techniques used by modernist photographers in the early twentieth century.</p>
<p>
<b>Further reading</b>
<br/>Hans-Michael Koetzle, <i>René Burri Photographs</i>, London 2003.<br/>Hans-Michael Koetzle, <i>René Burri: Impossible Reminiscences</i>, London 2013.</p>
<p>Shoair Mavlian<br/>January 2015<br/>Arthur Goodwin<br/>October 2018</p>
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Summary
2019-01-18T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
actions: postures and motions adults architecture Brutalist cities, towns, villages (non-UK) corridor countries and continents documentary emotions, concepts and ideas formal qualities interiors Khan, Louis laboratory man modernist named individuals natural phenomena people periods and styles perspective photographic places public and municipal public and municipal San Diego, Salk Institute of Biological Studies shadow sunshine USA, California walking weather