Picturing Asia

de Anthony Bannon, Ian Wedde, Dominique Chan

Brian Brake (1927-1988, New Zealand) and Steve McCurry (1950-, U.S.A.) are two eminent photojournalists whose work concurs with the mission of Asia Society-to promote greater understanding of Asia. The catalogue title Picturing Asia references two kinds of picturing: what we do when we make a photograph, and the imaginative act implied by the phrase picture this . This double take carries over into the experience of seeing the different takes of two great photographers who made their reputations as visual storytellers providing eyewitness accounts of great events . This catalogue invites viewers to participate in a rich visual conversation between the two photographers and their individually distinct picturings of Asia. Brake's international career as a documentary photographer was launched by his photo essays on China in Life in 1957 and 1959. McCurry's breakthrough came with the publication of a photograph in the New York Times, 1979, of the war in Afghanistan. Both men photographed the monsoon-Brake in 1960, McCurry in 1983-1985-and it is here that this exhibition begins.