Sire and Quijada: Sergio Larrain

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 Post subject: Sire and Quijada: Sergio Larrain
Unread postPosted: Sat Oct 08, 2016 2:15 pm 
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Sergio Larrain, edited by Agnes Sire and with text by Gonzalo Leiva Quijada, is published in the US by Aperture (2013) and in Paris by Editions Xavier Barral (2013). The hardcover book is 399 pages long, and reproduces many of Larrain's black & white photographs produced from 1951 through 1963. It also reproduces, in color, some of Larrain's drawings, as well as some of his letters and poems in their original typewritten and handwritten forms. As with other Aperture publications, the production values are high, and the reproductions excellent.
Sergio Larrain may be one of Magnum Photo's least well known members. Born in Santiago, Chile in 1931 into an upper-class and cultured family, Larrain early experienced disenchantment with the social whirl and frivolity that characterized much of his home life. Although he and his family lived in luxurious circumstances (his father founded the art school at the Universidad Catolica de Chile and was dean of its architecture school), people lived in severe poverty in relatively close proximity. In particular, the numbers of abandoned children populating the community strongly influenced Larrain's outlook, and informed his aesthetic sensibility.
Larrain bought his first camera, Leica IIIC, in 1949. He had been exposed to avant-garde art and photography in his family's library, and worked for a period with one of the photographers of the Chilean glamour scene. That scene, as well as compulsory military service which followed, further impressed Larrain with the harsh reality so many of his fellow citizens lived in. In 1953 he became, in effect, a wanderer, photographing street children. Some of his photographs were contributed to a local public awareness campaign and published. He continued this work, and expanded his photographic experience, amidst the intellectual and artistic milieu of Santiago in the early 1950s, leading to an invitation from his mentor, Henri Cartier-Bresson, to join Magnum Photo in 1959. Initially an associate, Larrain became a full member in 1961; he was the first Latin American to join Magnum Photo.
Larrain had wanted to be a member of Magnum, virtually from the start of his photographic career. Magnum still handles his work, though his activity with the agency was mostly during the early 1960s. As his career progressed, however, Larrain gradually became uncomfortable with the media attention paid the famous Magnum photographers, and with the "world of deals and fleeting success." By the mid-1960s, his disenchantment was such that he turned his attention much more to a personal, spiritual quest, and by the end of the decade he had cut ties with commercial photography, although he continued to publish work on fellow artists, on personal development and well-being, and political events, until the 1973 imposition of Chile's military dictatorship following the assassination of Salvador Allende.
Larrain's photobooks, in particular El Rectangulo en la mano (The Rectangle in the Hand) (1963) and Valparaiso (1991), are perceptively discussed in the accompanying text by Gonzalo Leiva Quijada. These books are now rare, highly sought-after titles, and the excerpted illustrations and critical discussion demonstrate their seminal influence on later world photography. Although by 1991 Larrain had already receded into quiet, self-reflective life far from public view, his published photographs continued to speak profoundly to photographers, editors, artists and writers, so that a sort of legend grew up around him. He continued to send proofsheets and negatives for archiving by Magnum through 2002. Sergio Larrain passed away in 2012.


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 Post subject: Re: Sire and Quijada: Sergio Larrain
Unread postPosted: Sat May 13, 2017 1:26 pm 
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Larrain is wonderful. I hope you also got a copy of _Valparaiso_, which came out for the first time in English edition by Aperture recently. It is based on a layout designed by Larrain himself. This and the title you note here are my favorite photo books.


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 Post subject: Re: Sire and Quijada: Sergio Larrain
Unread postPosted: Wed May 17, 2017 12:04 am 
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Thank you so much for bringing the re-publication - in English - of Valparaiso to everyone's attention. I would have loved to have a copy of the first edition in my library but could not afford it, even assuming I could find one in suitable condition for sale. Now, the opportunity to purchase one published in the format originally visualized by Sergio Larrain, at a most reasonable price, is wonderful indeed.


Last edited by James Lehrer on Mon May 22, 2017 6:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Sire and Quijada: Sergio Larrain
Unread postPosted: Mon May 22, 2017 12:29 pm 
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I recently recently received and read through the new Aperture edition of Valparaiso by Sergio Larrain. I must again thank mOnOchrOme for bringing it to our attention...it is a wonderful book. I will post a report on it a bit later; in the meantime, I should note that my prior note's reference to it as a "re-publication" doesn't to this book justice. It is not simply a re-printing of the out-of print and now rare first edition. It is a wholly revised and expanded book, exactly as conceived over a period of years by Larrain, featuring added photographs and drawings and written material (including text by Pablo Neruda and Agnes Sire) and published - at his request - after Larrain's death.


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