by Francois Hebel (Author)
Born in Antwerp in 1941 and a member of Magnum Photos since 1982, Harry Gruyaert revolutionized creative and experimental uses of color in the 1970s and 1980s. Influenced by cinema and American photographers, his work defined new territory for color photography: an emotive, non-narrative, and boldly graphic way of perceiving the world.
In 1972, while living in London, Gruyaert created the striking series TV Shots by turning the dial on a television set at random and photographing the distorted images he saw there. A later series, Made in Belgium, portrays his ambivalent relationship with his homeland in a palette of saturated tones. In his most recent work, he embraces the possibilities of digital photography, taking further creative risks to capture light in new ways.
Gruyaert's images are autonomous, often independent of any context or thematic logic. This volume, the first retrospective of his work, is a superb overview of his personal quest for freedom of expression and the liberation of the senses.