“I’ve never been president of anything, but if I work hard and respect Magnum’s role and legacy, I’m sure it will work.” Spanish photographer Cristina de Middel has confessed with this tweet, which nicely sums up her usual confidence given that she is the new president of the famous agency founded 75 years ago by Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Capa, among others. The historic decision – the first time an author of Spanish nationality has been appointed to the position – was made by the agency this Thursday at its annual general meeting in New York, attended by Magnum members. These days, with various events such as conferences or a book fair, the agency is precisely recalling that three quarters of a century ago, while having lunch at MoMA, Capa ordered a large bottle of champagne, the size of which gave him the idea of the name of the agency that revolutionized photography . Magnum was born as a cooperative in which its members could defend their rights as authors and carry out the work they considered without having to rely on what the major newspapers decided to do with their images.
“I feel honored and also aware of the responsibility. I hope to continue the great work that previous Presidents have done and that she manages to bring new ideas and enthusiasm to the group,” added De Middel, winner of the National Photography Prize in 2017 and since several years installed on horseback between Salvador de Bahia (Brazil) and Mexico City. Former Magnum President Olivia Arthur took over with these words: “I’m delighted, I know you will continue the mission of leading us with your energy and consideration.” , Paris and London, Magnum photographers and employees will discuss, among other things, the business model and potential new hires.
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De Middel (Alicante, 47 years old) graduated in Fine Arts from the Polytechnic University of Valencia and joined Magnum just five years ago, in 2017, sponsored by the master of color Martin Parr. Magnum’s complicated admissions process has its applicants go through three stages in which they must demonstrate merit through their work: Nominees, Associates, and finally Full Members. At the meeting in New York, De Middel was elected full member and simultaneously President.
The new Magnum boss, who initially wanted to be a cartoonist, started out as a photojournalist in her town and worked for NGOs for about ten years until 2010 and has already participated in a number of group exhibitions. However, the experience in the press, which she was always very critical of, was a disappointment, so she embarked on a new direction, towards artistic photography. De Middel’s boom came 10 years ago, in 2012, when she had a great success with her book Afronautas, which also made her known outside of Spain. In this work he told the story of the failed Zambian space program of the 1960’s in pictures through scenic recreations. A brilliant project that allowed him to “play with the boundaries between reality and fiction,” he said at the time, and that Martin Parr was interested in opening the doors of Magnum to him years later. De Middel himself edited the book, which contributed to the rise of the photo book in Spain, which she attributed to “a generational change, the few job opportunities and the collapse of official support”.
One of the photos from “Afronautas”, Cristina de Middel’s most famous photo book.Cristina de Middel
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Afronauts is the best example of De Middel’s photography, in which he likes to create an ambiguous relationship to truth, “through reconstructions that start from the premise that the media actually reduces the true understanding of the world,” the Magnum website points out about this one Author . An argument that has always determined his way of conceiving photography. It was said at an exhibition in Madrid in 2016: “People shouldn’t swallow what the press says, they should ask themselves questions.”
As an admirer of the films of Ridley Scott, Jim Jarmusch or Wes Anderson, which influence her vision of visual art, she has Joan Fontcuberta or Diane Arbus as references, among others. In 2015, De Middel repeated the scheme of Afronautas with Man Jayen, another hilarious suggestion in which he reconstructed, based on real documents with photos, a voyage a group of Germans and British made in 1911 to an alleged island between Greenland and Iceland explore . For this, the photographer and a group of employees set up their own production on a Scottish island.
When he received the National Photography Award in 2017, the jury recognized “the national and international recognition achieved through his work, in which he reconsiders the limits of reality in photographic language, while at the same time innovating in the field of photo books. Photography, giving a new dimension as a total work of art”. At the end of the year she presented her photo book The Perfect Man about masculinity in India, and in 2018 she was a guest curator of the PHotoEspaña festival where she organized six exhibitions that shared the justification for playfulness, something that keeps emerging from their conversations. Since then, his most important long-term work is Gentleman’s Club, in which he portrays male customers of prostitution in different countries.
Photography of the work ‘The Perfect Man’.Cristina de Middel