René Burri
Révolution à vendre
Taken in 1963 in Havana, the portrait of Che Guevara with a cigar is one of René Burri’s iconic images. Although under copyright from the famous Magnum Photo Agency, it has been diverted and reinterpreted on numerous items, including key rings, puzzles, T-shirts, ties, matryoshkas or cigarette cases. The Révolution à vendre exhibition in a local department store presented over 150 such products to humorously deal with a photographer’s loss of control over his copyrights. Festival Images addressed this issue during a round table discussion in the presence of René Burri, and during the visit of a star footballer, who has a tattoo of the iconic image on his arm.
Black Out
On 9 November 1965, René Burri was between 42nd and 59th Street in Manhattan when part of the northeastern region of the country suffered a power shortage. As the city was plunged in darkness, he shot his Black Out series with no flash, strikingly capturing the strange atmosphere of that night marked by widespread mutual assistance. Beyond the technical challenge, the absence of flash questions the importance of light as the revealer and essence of the photographic medium.
