Christine Spengler was born in 1945 in Alsace. After her parents’ divorce, she was raised in Madrid, which perhaps explains her love for the colors red and black, easily understood when one thinks of Manolete and the bullfights. Christine is fascinated by Goya and the Prado Museum. She pursued studies in French and Spanish literature. Her ambition was to become a writer.
In 1970, she discovered her vocation in Chad, in the Tibesti. From then on, she would traverse the planet, heading to places with wars, revolutions, blood, death, and mourning. This is the true reason for her fondness for these two colors, to which she adds white, a symbol of peace and purity. Now a prominent reporter, she captures the agony of war everywhere: Northern Ireland, Vietnam, Cambodia.
In 1976, she became the first female press correspondent for SYGMA. She continued with Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Iran. In 1983, she went to Alsace to visit her brother’s grave, who had died ten years earlier. Following that were Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Kosovo in 2000. This exhibition is somewhat the ‘family album’ of this woman who covered all fronts, all wars. This exhibition is a retrospective of the last quarter of the 20th century.
Let’s listen to Christine Spengler speak to us: “The eyes are the windows to the soul.” The veiled Iranian girls after the revolution. One must keenly observe their gazes: fanaticism, resignation, silent revolt. Each has her own expression. “Bringing the dead to life through a color photograph.”
Here, she becomes intimate, reflecting on her young brother whose death she learned of while in Vietnam in 1973. Yes, one can bring the dead to life with a color photo. Christine, a woman amidst war, where intolerance brings death, fanaticism, and hatred exacerbates passions.
An exhibition: the Opera of the World. If opera is impossible love, a drama where death drops the curtain on stage, this exhibition tends, on the contrary, to lift that curtain to understand what really happened. The eye of the photographer is an infallible witness. Christine Spengler, with her photos, gives us a magnificent gift. Let us learn to appreciate it.
It is at the Museum of Photography, 1 Place Pierre Gautier, that Christine Spengler’s photos can be admired until May 26.
Thierry Jan
