In the 1980s, the Soviet-Afghan war had one face: that of an Afghan-Pashtun girl with bright gray-green eyes. Her name was Sharbat Gula, and she was a twelve-year-old orphan who Steve McCurry photographed in a refugee camp in Pakistan and made the front page of National Geographic had brought. It is perhaps McCurry’s best-known motif.
The American photographer, born in 1950, has published a whole series of iconic images, often from Southeast Asia. The red-orange glowing monks in the morning rain at Angkor Wat in Cambodia from 1999, for example, or the golden rock near Kyaikto in Myanmar from 1994. McCurry, a member of the Magnum photo agency since 1986, also traveled to China. There, in 2004, he magnificently staged the Shaolin martial students hanging upside down in Zhengzhou.
No less impressive, although much more reserved, is the motif that McCurry created in Kathmandu, Nepal, in 2013. There he photographed a boy on the street, leaning against his family’s cow, while the pigeons run around him like the birds used to around Saint Francis. Splendid!
The new illustrated book “Devotion. Devotion” has now been published by Prestel, in which Steve McCurry dedicates himself to the mental and spiritual side of people with such sensitive images. The recordings revolve around the themes of faith and faithfulness, devotion and devotion, loyalty and fidelity. The book will be presented on Tuesday, November 14th, at 7 p.m. in the Amerikahaus by SZ journalist Christian Mayer.
Steve McCurry: Devotion. Devotion, book launch: Tuesday, November 14th, 7 p.m., America HouseKarolinenplatz 3