Leica
40 (and more) Years of LOBA
Location: Chiesa di Santa Maria Annunziata dei Servi, Piazza dei Servi 12
Opening days and hours:
Monday – Thursday from 15:00 to 19:00
Friday – Sunday from 10:00 to 19:00
On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Leica Oskar Barnack Award (LOBA), Leica presented a comprehensive retrospective of all LOBA winners in 2020 at the Ernst Leitz Museum, which Photolux now presents in Lucca, enriched with the photographs of the winners of the years 2021, 2022 and 2023. A wonderful opportunity to look back on forty years and more of Leica Oskar Barnack Awards: touching and evocative stories, exciting rediscoveries and new encounters, with a great variety of perspectives! This exhibition offers a clear testimony to the visual richness of the series of the LOBA winners and newcomers over four decades, and presents photojournalism in all its diversity and its continuous changes. The common denominator is the humanistic concept of the LOBA: From the very beginning, the prize has been aimed at photographers with a “distinct talent for observation and for vividly expressing humanitarianism as well as the relationship between humanity and the environment”, as stated in the first submission requirements of the competition. Accordingly, it is above all socially relevant themes that define the winning series, many of which have lost none of their topicality. Whether everyday life or emergency situations, research, politics, lifestyle and leisure, the photographers capture life processes and stimulate social discussions, for example on how to deal with medical problems, poverty or social injustice. Reportages on specific people, living communities and forms of society, which have appeared in series and captured a diverse range of lifestyles, seem to be even more significant. Whether peace marchers, centenarians, nomads in Siberia, Roma, Mennonites or tourists in a caravan, whether images of masculinity in the Islamic world or ballerinas in China, to name just a few examples: the comprehensive retrospective of the LOBA series offers a glimpse into unknown worlds, creating a multi-layered kaleidoscope – seen through the eyes of world-famous photographers such as Sebastião Salgado, Gianni Berengo Gardin, Wendy Watriss, Jane Evelyn Atwood, David Turnley or Max Pinckers. Many careers have received a decisive boost thanks to LOBA. The idea for the competition was born on the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Oskar Barnack (1879-1936), the brilliant inventor and developer of the new type of camera with which Leica would write the history of photography and which would revolutionise amateur photography and, in particular, photojournalism. The Leica Oskar Barnack Award, launched in 1980 with a few black-and-white reportages, has evolved over the following decades into one of the most prestigious international awards. In this anniversary year and with the aim of further enhancing the reputation of the LOBA, the application procedure has been further optimized, with the support of numerous photography experts. The exhibition 40 Years of Leica Oskar Barnack Award offers a unique opportunity to draw an overview, which focuses not only on the personalities of the photographers and their stories, but also on four decades of photographic history, in which both the form and the image of photojournalism have changed fundamentally. The comprehensive presentation that spreads over both floors of the Ernst Leitz Museum, presents over 350 exhibits. The accompanying, richly illustrated catalogue documents all 52 LOBA series – 40 main winners and twelve newcomers. In this manner, the reader will have the chance to experience and discover an extremely lively archive of the history of photojournalism.
Photographs of the winners from the years 2021, 2022 and 2023 will also be present.
Further information is available at: www.leica-oskar-barnack-award.com
ABOUT
Leica Camera AG is an internationally operating, premium-segment manufacturer of cameras and sport optics products. The legendary reputation of the Leica brand is founded on a long tradition of excellent quality. In combination with innovative technologies, all Leica products fulfil a common objective: better pictures, wherever perception and visualization matter. Leica Camera AG has its headquarters in Wetzlar, in the state of Hessen in Germany, and a second production site in Vila Nova de Famalicão, Portugal. It also operates its own worldwide network of regional organizations, Leica Retail Stores, Leica Galleries and Leica Akademies.
