The famous photo of Cortázar by Sara Facio: portrait or caricature?

Sara Facio he must be a reliable person an artist with free and exclusive access to certain personalities. Maybe she had no competition. Perhaps she did not realize the joke made to her by the likeable Julio Cortázar, who enjoyed formidable humor and could have turned the author’s most famous portrait into a caricature.

famous photo, The Menine by Sara Faciohis Mona Lisa is also something similar does not go beyond the pose. In general the portraits do not try to reflect the person but the character, Cortázar – suit, tie and hairstyle for the photo – (re) poses with the cigarette attached to his lip, simulating the bohemian air typical of the ’60s scene.

In other words, two productions at the same time, in the same imposture?

And a cigarette in your mouth

As if everything were a false fundamentalAlso note the detail: Cortázar doesn’t even smoke it! He has it, placed in his mouth, positioned too much in the center. He even seemed to weigh him down a little. He is slightly uncomfortable because he was a smoker who knew how to put out 40 butts a day.

Did Sara Facio ask him to use it for the photo or to smoke it? Why is it off and starting? It is a metaphor? DoOr will everything be exactly the opposite of what we have written so far? What if Facio had chosen a wink of intellectual malice to present him that way in the scene?

Furthermore, the eminent photographer claimed that she did not get “beautiful”, but “true” photos. Facio, the one with the wonderful portrait of Peronist boys. For the general, the only truth was reality. And “reality” – cynical Peronism – can be an invention.

Young people 90 years old

Sara Facio’s exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts is about to end. But Facio always comes back. Or rather, he never passes: this Saturday, June 18, to celebrate its 90 yearshis most representative photos will be exhibited outdoors in four neighborhoods of Buenos Aires: Recoleta, San Telmo, Congreso and Centro.

But now we are in the Fine Arts with a small contingent that comes as a “guided tour” as part of a photography course with mobile phone. A handful of apprentices with smartphones in hand doing a hands-on exercise.

But the question we ask ourselves in front of the portrait is because Sara didn’t wait for Cortázar to light her cigarette. And we discussed: it will be a Gauloise oa Parisian? We are talking about the iconic photo of the author of Bellwhich serves as the definitive version of the writer.

The exhibition is called Sara Facio: Photographs 1960/2010 and collect 39 works of the Argentine artist. On a wall we read: “A tribute to his tireless work as cultural manager and initiator of the Museum’s photographic collection in 1995”.

She herself was in charge of selecting the set of images that make up the sample. They all come from her private collection. Cortázar’s photo would be a hit.

There are images from his series “First Prizes”, “Humanario”, “Buenos Aires Buenos Aires”, “Funerals of President Perón” and “Bestiario”, among others.

No such portrait

Cortázar posing with an unlit cigarette. No portrait so portrayed. A black and white postcard size photo born and raised to be pinned to the cork of the desk. A photograph with temperament not as an ornament, but as an inspirational muse.

In addition, we learn of other emblematic images: Jorge Luis Borges, María Elena Walsh of color, Ernesto Sabato, Astor Piazzolla, Pablo Neruda, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Octavio Paz, Doris Lessing, Federico Leloir.

“I never understood the fame of that photo of Cortázar. Sara Facio must believe that a guy posing with an unlit cigarette is art or Cortázar had a misplaced capacity for ironythat he has never put into practice in his stories… ”, says someone from the group, iPhone in hand.

The professor says he portrait it tries not to reflect the person, but the character. Furthermore, Cortázar is a writer who works like the Van Gogh of letters: whoever knows nothing about painting knows who Van Gogh is.

we come across Diego Levy and among the amateur contingent there is a slight commotion. selfie with diego, New Journalism Award from the García Márquez Foundation, author of books, cult director.

-Sorry Diego, is the photo of Cortázar we are seeing original or is it a reproduction?

–MMM, I think he does unlimited reproductions, because he has a position on that. There must be many copies of this photo of Cortázar. I once heard her talk about it, saying that he doesn’t adhere to serial copying, because it goes against the fundamental principle of photography, which is reproduction.

there are few photos because it is a half-century retrospective. If there were more, they deserve posters louvre indicating the easy and direct path to the Mona Lisa de Facio.

They tell us: “The portrait is like an alliance between the face and the eyes”. We write it. And what would the cartoon be? “Caricature exaggerates featuresbut it is still a portrait with slightly more critical intentions ”.

Cortázar di Facio is a beardless man who looks at the camera. The photo is from 1967 and is part of a collection called “My Writers”. Will Cortázar have lit his ass or not? DoWhat if he still doesn’t smoke and simulated the gesture of belonging to the intellectual environment?

Going further: or could it be that Facio hates cigarettes with the corresponding smoke? In the portrait of Gabo, also on display, the Colombian writer clearly lights a cigarette that is not seen. In addition, for an abracadabra camera it would also give the impression that the author of One hundred years of solitude he played the harmonica.

The passage of time, a certain personal and subjective ironic consumption, the guerrilla movement of the audiovisual field, the fact that there are as many photographers as there are cell phones, etc., make it suddenly possible to see the iconic photo of Cortázar less like a portrait of a cartoon.

“The crucial points for the expressiveness of a face are the eyes, the nose and the surrounding environment”, they tell us. “Look closely at the photo: Cortázar’s nose invites you to smoke a small butt“.

WD