Description

Catalogue of the George Friedman. Photonovela exhibition , presented at Malba between December 6, 2024 and March 24, 2025.

Emerging in the mid-20th century, photonovels replaced illustrated serials with visual narratives featuring actors and actresses photographed in domestic and urban settings. Published in weekly installments, they became mass-market cultural products with international appeal. In Buenos Aires, the women's magazine Idilio published, in 1949, Aventura en Buenos Aires (Adventure in Buenos Aires) , the first of many photonovels photographed and directed by George Friedman (Miskolc, Hungary, 1910 – Argentina, 2002), who had settled in the country a few years earlier after working as a photojournalist in Europe and a film photographer in Hollywood. Through the pages of Idilio , Friedman became the local leading figure in this new genre.

In this publication, Friedman's refined work can be fully appreciated through a rich selection and meticulous reproduction of his photographs. The images are accompanied by texts from the project's curators, Facundo de Zuviría and Samuel Titan, which highlight photographic and sociological aspects of his body of work, and by an essay specially commissioned from the Argentine researcher Paula Bertúa, which addresses the particular relevance of the magazine Idilio in Argentina. The volume is completed with previously unpublished autobiographical notes by Friedman and an excerpt from Manuel Puig's Boquitas pintadas , a text that, from a literary perspective, helps to understand the context of reception and the aesthetics of the photonovel.

“Viewed from today’s perspective, the photonovel can be a powerful reminder of the fascinating impurity of the photographic act: documentary record, pictorial language, narrative medium, and fictional machine. Themes that have periodically resurfaced throughout the history of photography… Make no mistake: viewed and read as a whole, Friedman’s photonovels bear the mark of a cluster of formulas for expressing pathos, handled with skill and dexterity.” — Samuel Titan

Authors
María Amalia García
Facundo de Zuviría
Samuel Titan
Paula Bertúa
George Friedman

Technical specifications
Published by: Malba
Year: 2024
Type: Exhibition catalog
Binding: Paperback
Dimensions: 24 x 17 cm
Weight: 515 gr
Language: Bilingual - Spanish / English
Pages: 198
ISBN: 978-631-90681-3-9