Monday 20 October 2008

This is War! at the Barbican

The new exhibition at the Barbican in London of work by war photographer Robert Capa takes its title - "This is War!" - from a headline in the much celebrated British magazine Picture Post. It was used above a powerful spread of Capa's pictures from the Spanish Civil War. The exhibition displays original copies of Picture Post as well as Life magazine featuring some of Capa's Second World War pictures. The exhibition shows how powerfully news pictures were used in magazines like the Post and Life and reflect the heyday of photojournalism in the era before television news. It also attempts to shed some light on the controversy surrounding Capa's most famous picture - 'The Falling Soldier' - which claimed to show a Spanish Republican soldier at the moment he was shot and killed but has been dogged by accusations that it was staged. The exhibition shows all the pictures Capa took on the day which, it is argued, support the case that 'The Falling Soldier' is genuine. Although sceptics remain. The journalist Phillip Knightley has continued to claim the picture was faked and told the BBC's Today programme that Capa had "form" for staging pictures in the Spanish Civil War.

The exhibition runs until January 25. It also features pictures taken during the Spanish Civil War by Gerda Taro, who was killed during the conflict, and artists' responses to the war in Aghanistan and Iraq.

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