Peter Turnley exhibits at the Fototeca de Cuba

After presenting in 2015 his exhibition Moments of the human condition at the National Museum of Fine Arts, the American photographer Peter Turnley (Indiana, 1955) now returns to Havana to exhibit a selection of the images captured by him during his frequent trips to the Cuban capital over three decades; and in Paris, his adoptive home for about forty years.

Just as the title of the exhibition open to the public until October 20 at the Photo Library of Cuba: Paris-Cuba. Two Islands of my Heart expresses, the photographs that integrate it reveal the deep personal significance that both cities have for those who have confessed to having in the camera a tool that allows them to “share realities, emotions and feelings”.

Thus, in the exhibition that occupies both galleries of the Havana institution Turnley transmits to us the unalterable charm of the French city, the same one that he once said comforts him whenever he has returned from covering as a Newsweek photojournalist warlike conflicts like the War from the Gulf, Rwanda, Kosovo and Afghanistan, among many others.

Lovers kissing in a Parisian cafe or under the Eiffel Tower; elders who rest on the banks of the Seine or portraits of lovely girls, move the spectator for a moment to the mythical city; always from the romantic atmosphere that emphasizes his masterful use of black and white.

From Havana, in which, in addition to his scenic beauty, the artist discovers the soul of its inhabitants and the one that prints a society with opportunities for everyone, offers us photographs of everyday events, festivities and religious rites; highlighting among them those carried out in the working-class neighborhood of Pogolotti.

To tour and portray Paris, Peter Turnley has dedicated a large part of his life, convinced that a gift awaits him at every corner. These gifts he has wanted to share with Cubans, whose faces he finds that expression that makes his lens fall in love and makes him call us "the island of softness and spirit".