One World
From Richard Nixon's America to Fidel Castro's Cuba, Swiss photographer René Burri uses his iconic images to provides an insight into his experiences as a photographer
This collection of René Burri’s work gathers about 160 photographs, taken from 1950 to 1983. But it represents much more than any traditional collection: the artist here aims at describing his universe, a world of its own made up by all the experiences of his life as well as by all his artistic attempts at expressing what he felt towards these experiences.
Because of this, the book is peppered with collages and childhood drawings. As a photographer, René Burri was able to be a witness to the major events of his days – to their causes and consequences – and he endeavoured to photograph their main actors: Che Guevara or President Nixon in politics, Picasso or Pablo Casals in the artistic field.
"My work, my life and my artistic ambitions constitute a unity"
- René Burri
His pictures of the reconstruction in Germany proved to be the genesis of a new photographic art that found further expression in his later work on Cuba, Egypt, China, etc.
The book, therefore, does aim at universality, encapsulating all aspects of reality, from political events all over the world to the trivial, private facts of human life.
