Stanley Kubrick Photographer

The Royal Museums of the Fine Arts of Belgium hosts an exhibition that presents the early creative efforts of Stanley Kubrick, one of the leading filmmakers of the 20th century.

Kubrick was interested in all aspects of human experience. He explored the entire range of cinematographic possibilities to express how human violence can transform an individual to such an extent that he or she is reduced to a mask. Kubrick endlessly improvised on questions of order and chaos, embodying what the philosopher Gilles Deleuze referred to as "mental cinema."

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.

Date: until June 7.
Location: Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. Rue de la Régence, 3, b-1000. Brussels. Belgium.
Opening hours : from Tuesday to Sunday from 10am to 5pm.

See some of the images in the following video and slideshow: