Photograph, c-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>
New York City USA 1988
Presented by Pierre Brahm 2015
adults
architecture
arts and entertainment
cities, towns, villages (non-UK)
countries and continents
emotions, concepts and ideas
fashion model
features
female
formal qualities
girder
man
New York  - non-specific
nudes
people
photographer
photographic
places
roof
sex and relationships
society
townscape
townscapes / man-made features
trading and commercial
USA, New York
voyeurism
woman
work and occupations
<p><span>New York City, USA, 1988 </span>1988, printed 2014, is a colour photograph by the Swiss photographer René Burri. Taken looking down on rooftops, it shows a photoshoot scene pictured from an oblique angle. The figure on the left pulls a long shirt or gown down and behind her to reveal her naked body for the camera of the longhaired figure on the right. In Burri’s image, only the back of the woman is visible. His photograph plays with ideas of multiple perspectives and cameras at work, and the explicitly erotic nature of the photoshoot is contrasted with his decidedly unerotic, voyeuristic image taken from afar.</p>
paper print photograph c-print
New York City, USA, 1988
image: 345 × 511 mm
Presented by Pierre Brahm 2015
<div class="text">
<p>
<i>New York City, USA, 1988 </i>1988, printed 2014, is a colour photograph by the Swiss photographer René Burri. Taken looking down on rooftops, it shows a photoshoot scene pictured from an oblique angle. The figure on the left pulls a long shirt or gown down and behind her to reveal her naked body for the camera of the longhaired figure on the right. In Burri’s image, only the back of the woman is visible. His photograph plays with ideas of multiple perspectives and cameras at work, and the explicitly erotic nature of the photoshoot is contrasted with his decidedly unerotic, voyeuristic image taken from afar.   </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
adults architecture arts and entertainment cities, towns, villages (non-UK) countries and continents emotions, concepts and ideas fashion model features female formal qualities girder man New York  - non-specific nudes people photographer photographic places roof sex and relationships society townscape townscapes / man-made features trading and commercial USA, New York voyeurism woman work and occupations