06/12/24 — 24/03/25
Gallery 3. Level 1
The photonovel became a phenomenon in the press and mass media in the mid-20th century. Published on a weekly basis, photonovels were the meeting point between the long literary and graphic tradition of romantic serialized novels on the one hand and the leading art form at the time—sound film—on the other. Replacing hand-drawn serialized novels with visual narrations that featured photographs of actors and actresses in domestic and urban settings, photonovels quickly became an international success following their debut in Italy in 1947.
The Argentine press soon joined the trend. As early as 1948, Buenos Aires witnessed the launch of women’s magazine Idilio, conceived by sociologist Gino Germani and published by Editorial Abril. Idilio was the first magazine to publish photonovels, featuring Italian translations and local productions. One of these was Aventura en Buenos Aires, published in 1949, the first of many photonovels photographed and directed by George Friedman (Miscoltz, Hungary, 1910 – Argentina, 2002). The photographer had settled in Argentina a few years prior, having been a renowned reporter in Europe and a film photographer in Hollywood. Through the pages of Idilio, Friedman became the local standard for the genre. In the span of 15 years, he participated in more than 700 issues of the magazine, publishing a total of over 14 thousand photographs almost every week.
Influenced by film noir, Friedman was an extraordinary photographer, with great visual culture and a personal style that he developed and refined with each issue in the numerous photonovels he published in Idilio. Beyond the genre’s characteristic sugar-coated romanticism, Friedman was able to produce visual constructions with great symbolic and narrative power. Marked by their time, they also allow for a contemporary rereading as works of fiction, and not just as a realistic record. After including Friedman in Mundo propio (2019), Malba turns to his work once again with the exhibition Fotonovela, which will showcase his creations both in the form of vintage photographs and in the graphic context of Idilio magazine.
Curators: Facundo de Zuviría y Samuel Titan.
Catalogue
In this publication, Friedman's refined work can be appreciated as a whole through a rich selection and careful reproduction of his photographs. The images are accompanied by texts from the project's curators, Facundo de Zuviría and Samuel Titan, who highlight photographic and sociological aspects of his body of work, and by an essay specially commissioned from Argentine researcher Paula Bertúa, which discusses the special relevance of Idilio magazine in Argentina. The volume is completed with previously unpublished autobiographical notes by Friedman and an excerpt from Boquitas pintadas by Manuel Puig, a literary text that contributes to understanding the context of reception and aesthetics of the photo novel.
