Exhibition Stanley Kubrick Photographer

Kubrick endlessly improvised on questions of order and chaos, embodying what the philosopher Gilles Deleuze referred to as "mental cinema." What is less well-known, however, is how Kubrick arrived at this finely-tuned equilibrium between order and chaos, between an interior world concerned with psychological depths and the past, and an exterior world, which by definition is turned towards the future, and where the supernatural absolute imposes its evolutionary dictates. Shortly after graduating from high school in 1945, Stanley Kubrick began working for the New York magazine Look, where he remained for the next five years as a staff photographer. The sequential construction of his photojournalism - today in the collections of the Museum of the City of New York - already reflects a cinematographic viewpoint. His lens captures a portrait of America right after World War II - a central theme in Kubrick's films. This idea of social portrayal is at the heart of our presentation of Kubrick and informed our organization of his documentary photographs. His themes include crime scenes, the life of a shoeshine man, a university theatre troupe, etc. Kubrick reveals himself to be a first-rate photographer. In his masterful approach, it is possible to detect references to other artists, such as Walker Evans and Diane Arbus. Beyond his involvement with society, and its social and racial tensions, Kubrick's photographic work displays a precision of composition that goes beyond mere reporting. Capable of constructing a scene - there are many accounts from the period that attest to this - Kubrick sought to transcend the present moment, by definition chaotic and uncontrollable, by lending it form and structure. With the Kubrick exhibition, the Royal Museums invites visitors on a journey of discovery: the relation of American society to photography.