A Salute to the Masters: Antaryami (A Tribute to Marc Riboud)

This article is a tribute to a great French photographer, Marc Riboud, as well as to the inimitable interpreter of the “Art of Silence” and arguably the greatest mime ever, Marcel Marceau.

The French photographer Marc Riboud was born in Lyon, France in 1923. In 1937, after his years as a student, Riboud began to photograph with his father’s camera. He took part in the anti-Nazi resistance movement during World War II. During the conflict, he studied engineering. He worked as an engineer until 1951, when he was inspired to become a photographer after covering the cultural festival of Lyon during a one week vacation.

After leaving Lyon for Paris, he took one of his most famous photos, the Eiffel Tower’s Painter, which showed the worker moving like a dancer. It was in this city where he met Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Capa, and joined the famous Magnum photo agency.

As a photographer, Riboud is mainly famous for his extensive reports on the East (he was the first European photographer allowed to enter in China in 1957). He made several reportages on North Vietnam that showed the atrocity of the Vietnam War. In the ’60s, he moved to Africa to document the independence movements in Algeria.

Riboud became the Magnum president in 1976, and resigned three years later. That same year, 1979, he left the agency. He continues to photograph, dedicating himself to some personal projects. His photographs were published in some of the most important magazines like Life, Géo, National Geographic, Paris Match, and Stern.

Arguably his most famous photo was taken in Washington D.C. It depicted a young girl confronting the American National Guard during the 1967 anti-Vietnam War march. However, my favorite one is this nice composition that he took in Beijing.

Riboud is not only a great street and social photographer. On his website you can find many excellent portraits of famous men like Abbe Pierre, Fidel Castro, Joan Mirò, and Gerard Depardieu.

My favorite portraits by Riboud are those of the most famous mime in the world, the inimitable Marcel Marceau (see photos here and here). This great actor performed all over the world in order to spread his “Art of Silence.” He made more than 15,000 performances. In over 60 years of his career as a mime, he pronounced only one word in the comedy directed by Mel Brooks, “Silent Movie” (1976): “Non!”, which means “no” in English.

In this tribute, I’m going to show you a series of my photos I took this year during the Balosso Festival 2015, a two-day public festival featuring performances by street artists at the main squares in my city, Como. Here, you can see a sequence of photos featuring the mute theater and dance performance, Antaryami. A young girl who’s barefoot, perhaps to have an intimate contact with Mother Earth, showed us the gestures of a person who is searching for the meaning of life and for inner peace, reciting a story as a mime in a circular dance without sound and words.

A Salute to the Masters is a series dedicated to great photographers that I like. I posted other tributes for Walker Evans, Lee Friedlander, Helen Levitt, Ernst Haas, Stephen Shore, Gabriele Basilico, Robert Adams, Thomas Struth, J.H. Lartigue, Elliott Erwitt, Robert Frank, Gianni Berengo Gardin, André Kertész, Willy Ronis, Brassaï, Rodchenko, Dan Graham, Henry Grant, William Eggleston, Dennis Stock, Juergen Teller, Martin Parr, Peter Mitchell, Mario Giacomelli, David Burnett, Michael Williamson, Bernard Cahier, Harry Gruyaert, Bruno Barbey, Paul Strand, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Lothar Rübelt, David Goldblatt, Henry Cartier-Bresson, Raymond Depardon, Aaron Siskind, Mario de Biasi, Sabine Weiss, Jack Delano, Bill Eppridge, Édouard Boubat, Serge Moulinier, George Krause, Robert Doisneau, Ferdinando Scianna, Robert Capa, Alexey Brodovitch, Yann Arthus-Bertrand, Christopher Williams, Pepi Merisio, Josef Koudelka, Christopher Anderson, Renè Burri, Mary Ellen Mark and Izis Bidermanas. I especially love street photography and urban architectural photography.

written by sirio174 on 2015-11-28 #girl #dance #lifestyle #barefoot #theatre #street-artist #mime #italy #street-festival #como #regular-contributor #marc-riboud #antaryami #marcel-marceau #balosso-2015 #art-of-silence #circular-dance #mute