In August 1966, at the age of 28, the young photographer Joel Meyerowitz (New York, 1938) embarked on a ‘road movie’ through Europe for a year. A modern version of the Grand Tour that aristocrats used to do in the 19th century … as part of their education. But it was also an internal journey. He arrived in Southampton (England) aboard the SS France. He toured by car (a black Volvo Amazon that he bought in the United States for $1,700), along with his first wife, Vivian Bower, 25, more than 30,000 kilometers through ten countries (it started in the United Kingdom and Ireland and, after passing through France, Spain, Germany, Greece and Turkey, it ended in Italy) and made some 25,000 photographs. That was a initiation journey for the young photographer: “I know that the experience of taking photographs in Europe changed me and gave me the perspective I needed to see myself, and then, when I returned home, to see America in a different way.”
It was the Hispanicist Paul Hechtknown as ‘Paul the American’ who advised Meyerowitz and his wife that when they were in Spain they visit Malaga, something that apparently was not in his initial plans. Hecht was installed there researching flamenco and translating his lyrics into English. He was also preparing a book about his life in Spain, ‘El aire lloró’. Thanks to him the couple met on their first night in Malaga the Escalona, one of the best-known Flemish gypsy families in the city. “It changed my life,” says the photographer. They were so fascinated that they decided to stay six monthsuntil early May 1967. Vivian wanted to learn to play flamenco guitar and the patriarch of the family, Antonio Escalona, guitarist who accompanied Lorca in poetry recitals, he was his teacher. The photographer still has his work permit, which Antonio gave him. He voted for Frank to get it.
In Malaga, Joel (who was called Pepe, but also ‘The Beard’ either ‘The eye’) used to go through the streets with two cameras (one with color film and the other in black and white), with which he made 8,500 photographs in 35 mm, in addition to countless recordings of flamenco shows at the Escalona home, in the emblematic Pena Juan Breva… To do this he used his portable Uher recorder that he had bought in London. The Escalonas had never heard his recorded performances. They must have hallucinated. That opened the doors to Meyerowitz to a fascinating world and nights of dancing and singing, of flamenco. «Flamenco educated me. It was like a secret society of people who loved the mystery, the passion, the power and the poetry of this music. At first I didn’t understand it at all. It sounded like a lot of screaming to me! But with the help of Pablo, who acted as an interpreter for Vivian and me, I came to understand the raw human value of the couplets, their telluric character. Some are almost like haikus, dense expressions of the human being. She portrayed Manuel Ávila, “the deepest singer. “A voice that reached the depths of the heart.”
Above, Escalona family and friends, Málaga, Spain, 1967. Above these lines, on the left, Holy Week, Málaga, Spain, 1967; to the right, Málaga, Spain, 1966. It is a portrait of the singer Manuel Ávila
Courtesy of the artist. ©Joel Meyerowitz
He returned to New York with 600 rolls of film in black and white and color slides and a backpack full of experiences. “Was an incredible year, the year of my maturity as a man and as an artist. When I reflect on it, I realize that it was living in Spain when I understood what coming of age really meant to me,” Meyerowitz confesses. His stay in Spain, in full Franco dictatorship, It was a turning point in his career, new photographic look. In 1968 he had his first solo exhibition at the MoMA, ‘My European trip’, where he exhibited 40 black and white photographs taken from the window of his car while driving at 80 kilometers per hour: «As I accelerated down the road, time seemed even more fleeting. With the camera in my lap, I was ready to react to anything that caught my attention.
Above, Greece, 1967. Above these lines, on the left, Sacré-Coeur, Paris, France, 1967; to the right, London, England, 1966
Courtesy of the artist. Joel Meyerowitz Archive, New York. ©Joel Meyerowitz
To his 86 yearssix decades later, Joel Meyerowitz returns to Malaga, invited by the Picasso Museum to exhibit in its rooms. He does it this time with his second wife, the writer and artist Maggie Barrett. The circle is closed. ‘Europe 1966-1967’ gather, from June 15 to December 15, two hundred photographs taken during his trip through the Old Continent between 1966 and 1967, many unpublished. There are vintage prints, but also new prints in color and black and white. They are portraits of local figures, everyday street scenes, landscapes… In addition, the documentary is projected in the exhibition halls ‘Olé! Joel Meyerowitz in Malaga, directed by Manon et Jacob and Miguel López-Remiro, which includes photographs of Málaga and sound recordings made there by Meyerowitz. And under the title ‘Flamenco x Joel Meyerowitz’, a cycle of activities has been scheduled in which prominent flamenco figures will participate, such as the singer Carmen Linares, the dancer La Lupi or the guitarist Juan Ramón Caro, among others. On the 21st, Meyerowitz will offer a master class.
It is the first exhibition that Miguel López-Remiro police station as artistic director of the Picasso Málaga Museum. “Is a metajourney, a journey upon a journey. Meyerowitz inserts his European work into the central space that Picasso occupies in the museum, hoping to generate physical, aesthetic, and emotional connections with his work. The work he presents here engages a dialogue with Malaga as a city of union between both artists. “His objective is to create a new story about the identity of an artist throughout the structure of his work as a whole and in relation to his roots,” he warns. He highlights the photographer’s humility, his artistic courage and his humanism.
Octogenarian Joel Meyerowitz is in top shape. With his camera on his shoulder and protecting his bald head with a hat from the relentless Malaga sun, he acts as a luxury cicerone on a tour of his exhibition. Chatty, expressivenearby, tells a thousand curiosities and anecdotes from that trip that changed his life. «I arrived at 28 years old and I return at 86. The circle is closed. That trip is embedded in these photographs. Artists often explore new territories, but they also return to the place where their authentic selves are found. For him, it is a gift return to Malaga and do it in the museum of Picassoan artist whom he studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts: «He revolutionized the world of art; his work is challenging, stimulating. She has always been a guide. She made us see that we should not feel limited by anything, that we should be free. Exhibiting my work in dialogue with Picasso is something I would never have dreamed of.
He remembers that he decided to leave New York to see the world: “It’s too delicious not to taste». So he took all the money he had and left the New World to discover the The old world: “It was the most sublime journey I could embark on, the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Arabs were there.” It feels indebted to Malaga, «a city with very rich layers of life, with a lot of energy and vitality. He came from the freedom of America to a country in dictatorship. Despite the repression, life flourished in the streets of Malaga. The Escalona were a culture, they had their own language, they lived fully, with joy in the midst of poverty. 19 people lived in four roomsbut they gave life lessons. Remedies, the mother, cooked by fanning the charcoal. “I bought him a grill and a butane cylinder.” Today you will see Anaone of the sisters still living.
«Today I do not recognize the Malaga that I knew», warns Meyerowitz. «I penetrated the surface of the city where tourists usually stay. Today it is a very touristy city, with a lot of visual noise. People sleep through life, only looking at their mobile phones, which steal our lives, but we have accepted it. I arrived when I was 28 years old saying yes to everything. I took 25,000 photos in a year, which means shooting the camera 70 times a day, I said yes to life 70 times a day. “That’s being alive.”
Joel Meyerowitz grew up in the Bronxin a poor and working-class neighborhood like that of the Escalona, surrounded by Europeans: «My neighbors were Irish, Italians from Sicily, Apulia and Naples, Jews from Eastern Europe, Poles and Russians. It had the bustle of a European market; Growing up there made that kind of energy very attractive to me. Today he resides and works between New York and London.
Reference in the history of photography, trained as a painter and medical illustrator at Ohio State University and graduated with a degree in Fine Arts in 1959. Back in New York, he worked as an art director in advertising. One of the key years in his career was 1962, when Meyerowitz’s agency, run by Harry Gordon, hired Robert Frank for a project. The photographs of him were for Meyerowitz a kind of Epiphany: He decided to leave the agency and follow in their footsteps.
Gordon made him two priceless gifts: a camera and the legendary book ‘The Americans’, by Robert Frank. “It never fails to move and stimulate me,” notes Meyerowitz, who was also influenced by other photographers such as Atget and Sanders. He begins to photograph on the streets of New York, together with colleagues such as Tony Ray-Jones and Garry Winogrand, until he decides to travel through Europe. A trip that changed him forever. Pioneer of color photography, with 53 photography books published and work in the main museums in the world, recognized with important awards, his images of the New York Ground Zero after the attacks 9/11, which he collected in the book ‘Aftermath’ (Aftermath). For Joel Meyerowitz, photography is «a sigh that makes you awestruck, a moment of gracewhich produces emotion, passion, tragedy, humor…».
