Obsessions of Korda, the woman in the photograph

September 19, 2018

"Korda photographed dozens of beautiful women in his lifetime, but it is not yet possible to trace the aesthetic journey he made through their faces and bodies," confess the organizers of the exhibition Interrupted Obsessions, Women in the Photography of Alberto Korda, which opened this Friday at the Fototeca de Cuba, on the 90th anniversary of the birth of the Cuban photographic genius.

From the scarce gelatin silver prints that some of his former models still preserve, and from period publications that used to commission him for their advertisements and beauty sections, true jewels of Cuban and universal photography have been rescued, which from today are exhibited in the mansion on Mercaderes, in La Habana, thanks to a project that brings together Estate Korda, Estudio Figueroa-Vives and the Fototeca de Cuba.

Alberto Korda also found other beautiful women in political demonstrations, which have been recently extracted from among the approximately 50 thousand negatives of the Revolution that are preserved in the historical archives of the State Council of Cuba.

Alberto Korda's creative route, as far as feminine beauty is concerned, was fragmented again and again by successive and abrupt breaks.

"We try today to put together a puzzle with what remains of historical plundering, and the truth is that we are still searching for the empty spaces in that accident-ridden route. Only this way will we understand Korda as the photographer of beauty that he was in the first instance, and we will know how he managed to make the effective photos of the Revolution," assure the organizers of the exhibition, which is now open to the public in La Habana.