{"id":4324,"date":"2015-03-19T17:10:53","date_gmt":"2015-03-19T16:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.edder.org\/?p=4324"},"modified":"2026-01-30T12:29:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T11:29:08","slug":"borges-segun-avedon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edder.org\/?p=4324","title":{"rendered":"Borges seg\u00fan Avedon (o Avedon cegado por Borges)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Avedon: Borges, Buenos Aires, 1975<\/p>\n<\/div>

<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>

R. Avedon: Borges, Nueva York, 1976<\/p>\n<\/div>

<\/span><\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/div><\/div>

\u201cIn 1975 I reached a point in my career when I was not interested in making portraits of people of power and fame. However, there were three men whose work he greatly admired and whose picture I wanted to do: Jorge Luis Borges, Samuel Beckett and Francis Bacon. Their portraits involved three different types of performance: Borges gave a performance infotografiable, Beckett rejected the performance and Bacon gave a perfect performance.<\/p>\n

I photograph what I fear most, and Borges was blind.<\/p>\n

In flight to Buenos Aires tell me that Borges\u2019s mother, whom I knew he lived all his life, had just died that morning. I assumed the session would be canceled. But he was, as planned, the next afternoon at four o\u2019clock. I arrived at his apartment and found myself in the dark. He sat in a light gray, in a small chair, and pointed with his hand for me to sit beside her. Almost immediately, he said he admired Kipling and asked me to read. \u201cGo to the library and look in from the right seventh book of the second shelf.\u201d I did. I said what I wanted instead listen Kipling poem \u2013\u2018The Harp Song of the Dane Women\u2019 \u2013 and read it. He joined in some passages. He asked if I knew Anglo. What did I preferred, legend or elegy? Elegy, I ventured. He explained, while preparing his recitation, his mother lay dead in the room next door. His hands clenched in pain just an instant before his death, he said, and then described how he and his servant had drawn each of the fingers of his mother, one by one, until his hands rested on his chest. Then he recited the Anglo-Saxon elegy, his voice rising and falling in the darkroom.<\/p>\n

The first time I saw the light, it was my light. Feelings overwhelmed me and started shooting. But the pictures were more empty than I expected. I somehow overwhelm was so much that I had failed to put any of myself in the portrait.<\/p>\n

Four years later I read a story by Paul Theroux on his visit to Borges<\/a><\/span>. It was my visit: the soft light, going to the library, Kipling, the Anglo recital. Somehow, it seems that Borges did not have visits. People coming from outside could only exist for him whether it was part of his inner world, the world of poets and wises who were his true companionship. The people of that world knew more, arguing better, had more to say. The performance did not allow any exchange. He had taken his own portrait for a long time ago, and I could only photograph that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>

Richard Avedon<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

\u00abEn 1975 llegu\u00e9 a un punto en mi carrera en que no estaba interesado en hacer retratos a personas de poder y fama. Sin embargo, hab\u00eda tres hombres cuyo trabajo admiraba enormemente y cuyo retrato quer\u00eda hacer: Jorge Luis Borges, Samuel Beckett y Francis Bacon. Sus retratos comportaron tres tipos diferentes de sesi\u00f3n: Borges dio una sesi\u00f3n infotografiable, Beckett la rechaz\u00f3 y Bacon me ofreci\u00f3 una sesi\u00f3n perfecta.<\/p>\n

Fotograf\u00edo lo que m\u00e1s temo y Borges era ciego.<\/p>\n

En el vuelo a Buenos Aires me informan de que la madre de Borges, con quien yo sab\u00eda que \u00e9l hab\u00eda vivido toda su vida, acababa de morir esa ma\u00f1ana. Di por supuesto que la sesi\u00f3n ser\u00eda pospuesta. Pero \u00e9l me recibi\u00f3, como estaba previsto, la tarde siguiente, a las cuatro en punto. Llegu\u00e9 a su casa y me encontr\u00e9 a m\u00ed mismo en la oscuridad. \u00c9l estaba sentado, dentro de una luz gris, en una silla peque\u00f1a, y me indic\u00f3 con un gesto que me sentara a su lado. Casi inmediatamente me dijo que admiraba a Kipling y me pidi\u00f3 que le leyera: \u201cVaya a la biblioteca y busque el s\u00e9ptimo libro a la derecha del segundo estante\u201d. Lo hice. Me dijo qu\u00e9 poema de Kipling quer\u00eda escuchar \u2013\u201cThe Harp Song of the Dane Women\u201d\u2013 y se lo le\u00ed. Se sum\u00f3 a la lectura en algunos pasajes. Me pregunt\u00f3 si sab\u00eda yo anglosaj\u00f3n. Qu\u00e9 g\u00e9nero prefer\u00eda, \u00bfla leyenda o la eleg\u00eda? La eleg\u00eda, aventur\u00e9. Me explic\u00f3, mientras se preparaba para recitar, que su difunta madre yac\u00eda en la habitaci\u00f3n de al lado. \u201cSus manos se crisparon de dolor justo un instante antes de su muerte \u2013me dijo\u2013\u201d, y luego describi\u00f3 c\u00f3mo \u00e9l y su sirvienta hab\u00edan estirado uno a uno los dedos de su madre hasta que sus manos reposaron rectas sobre su pecho. Luego recit\u00f3 una eleg\u00eda anglosajona, su voz elev\u00e1ndose y musitando en el cuarto oscuro.<\/p>\n

La primera vez que lo vi a la luz, era mi luz. Me abrumaron los sentimientos y empec\u00e9 a fotografiar. Pero las fotos resultaron m\u00e1s vac\u00edas de lo que esperaba. Pens\u00e9 que, de alguna manera, estaba tan abrumado que no hab\u00eda conseguido poner nada de m\u00ed mismo en el retrato.<\/p>\n

Cuatro a\u00f1os despu\u00e9s, al leer la cr\u00f3nica de Paul Theroux sobre su visita a Borges<\/a><\/span>, me reencontr\u00e9 con mi visita: la luz suave, la ida a la biblioteca, Kipling, el recitado en anglosaj\u00f3n\u2026 De alg\u00fan modo me pareci\u00f3 que la visita a Borges no hab\u00eda existido. La gente que ven\u00eda de fuera solo pod\u00eda existir para \u00e9l en la medida en que formaba parte de su propio mundo interior: el mundo de los poetas y los pensadores que eran su verdadera compa\u00f1\u00eda. La gente de ese mundo sab\u00eda m\u00e1s, discut\u00eda mejor, ten\u00eda m\u00e1s cosas que decirle. La sesi\u00f3n fotogr\u00e1fica no me permiti\u00f3 ning\u00fan intercambio. \u00c9l hab\u00eda hecho su propio retrato hac\u00eda mucho tiempo y yo solo pude fotografiar eso.\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/div><\/div>

Kipling: The Harp Song of the Dane Women<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>