A young Sandro looks at you defiantly holding two pistols. The Sodas show off their weird new hairstyles for the camera right from the start. Jorge Cafrune advances alongside a road (he would die like this, run over on a road) like a gaucho from the hinterland. Charly, Sui Generis model, winks at the camera…
a tight lad, in one of his presentations in Argentina. Raffaella Carrà, ditto. Michael Jackson, pure lamé, that night -October 1993- in River, on tour in which he flew off the stage.
And, a classic of classics, arguably his greatest hit, the picture It’s that fraternal kiss of the Pole to Maestro Osvaldo Pugliese, fetish/amulet of the tango environment and the musical environment: it brings good luck.
Behind each of those images Antonio Massa was, is and will be. Professional photographer. 60-year career. Employed at CBS (currently Sony), he was in charge of portraying the label’s artists, i.e. the greats of Argentine popular music (regardless of genres, he posed for him rock, tango and folklore).
Photos that will illustrate the cover of his next feature film (under 30, googling) or they would promote a launch on the pages of newspapers and magazines.
Inverting León then, Antonio Massa, the musicians’ photographer, did not play with everyone: Massa killed everyone.
“It is that I was lucky to catch the singers when they were just starting out,” explains this journalist who, just a few days ago, was awarded in Spain, in the champion Connection Buenos Aires-Madridsponsored by the magazine No. “And of course when they start they are more open. You can ask them to do more difficult things later.”
For a few more days until next March 26, in the Photogallery of the Teatro San Martín (Av. Corrientes 1530), you can enjoy the best of his work in the exhibition Antonio Massa: a photographer.
And if it’s true – as that axiom that still persists in the newsrooms says – that “a good photo can’t be explained, it speaks for itself”, it’s also true that there isn’t much left to enjoy them at the San Martín, and what could be better , then, that the father of creatures makes us spy, I remember through, the Backwards of this selection.
Enter, see (and read…)
Osvaldo Pugliese & Roberto Goyeneche
“It was an appointment that was fixed in the old Molino de Rivadavia and kept silent, since Pugliese and Goyeneche would have acted together”, he recalls for clarion Mass of Madrid.
“Then the contract was signed there and afterwards I proposed to Pugliese if we could go out and take some pictures walking around the Congress. Both agreed and at one point I said to Goyeneche: ‘Give him a handshake, kiss the Master’. how did the photo come about.”
stereo soda
“The record label – at the time I worked at CBS, now Sony – and they sent me to a group that had just recorded and had to take some photographs to deliver to the media, to make them known and support the dissemination of their first album. At that At the time I had just opened my studio in via Corrientes, so it was the first group I released in my new studio. Macanudos the kids! The session will have lasted an hour and a half, two hours”.
Sandro
“We had an affinity with Sandro for many years, suggesting things to take notes. Then things would happen to him, like a friend had sold him a collection of weapons… So one day he said to me ‘come home and I have, I have weapons.’ I went to Banfield, right, and he ended up acting like that.
Raffaella Carrà
“The problem with foreign artists is that you don’t get as close as local artists. Then came Rafaella Carrà, who came with a very successful precedent in Italy and in Europe, I took her photos upon arrival, I took photos of her in a interview what he did there, in Ezeiza. But the one I like the most is the presentation of him at the Luna Park.”
Goshawk Piazzolla
“With Astor Piazzolla they entrust me with a ticket – I don’t remember if for radioland OR Antennatwo very famous entertainment magazines at the time-, the point is that there was a section where a famous person recommended his favorite menu.
“In other words, the artist had to be in the kitchen cooking at his house. We did, but I took the opportunity to have a little more material, so I asked Astor for one on the piano, because we saw it always with a bellows; it seemed more original to me”.
Joan Manuel Serrat
“Well, the same thing as always with foreign artists: Serrat arrives… it wasn’t the first time, Pipo Mancera had already brought him. But he comes back for a few concerts and there, live, you need to have a bit of fortune.
“You look for the best angle, especially so that the microphone doesn’t smear your photo, and if it seems that the artist is looking at you, then something like this comes out. Back in those days, when you had to develop in the lab and then copy, the picture You just discovered it there, in that dim light.”
MICHAEL JACKSON
“Well, with Michael Jackson the limits were a little stricter… not strict, but more controlled. Very little could be done: the walk from the plane landing to the Ezeiza hall and then the performance, little else. Later , in acting, I was able to get this point of view clean, almost from the front, and I was able to give the company very good material, under the circumstances, logically”.
George Cafrune
“I have known Jorge Cafrune well since his beginnings, when he started recording. At that time he still didn’t wear the typical gaucho clothes; then, with the passage of time and successes, Cafrune truly became a gaucho. That’s how I was able photograph in his field, which was in Los Cardales, province of Buenos Aires”.
Charlie Garcia
“I did this of Charly downtown, in Suipacha street. Charly was not yet the famous Charly García, he had just started recording with Sui Géneris. Then they called me from the label to take pictures of him and we agreed to meet in a square, he arrived smiling, relaxed, and made accomplice gestures like this”.
Source: Clarin
