Visionary filmmaker, photographer, writer, and multimedia artist, Chris Marker emerged in postwar Paris initially gaining renown for his films that include the seminal work, La Jetée (1962). Subsequently he would create a lasting influence across media and through his writings on the ways in which we consider time, memory, and observation of contemporary life. 

The centenary of his birth offers an ideal occasion to look back at his legacy through a survey of several disparate bodies of work. Totaling almost 250 selected images, and spanning the 1950s to the 2010s, an exhibition at Peter Blum Gallery demonstrates Marker’s reach across the globe and time. Whether chronicling political dissent, or postwar North Korea, poetically documenting the famous, or the anonymous of the Paris Metro, the exhibited works ultimately create a telling self-portrait of the legendarily reclusive artist. They offer a revealing look at his ironic yet impassioned view of the modern world and people coping with it, illustrating his perpetual inquisitiveness directed toward people’s lives. Also evoking or counterpointing his films that often question the linearity of narration and history, these exhibited works explore Marker’s archive of memory. They create new dialogues and new connections, while recalling definitive moments of a life lived behind the camera.

You can view the exhibition online at Peter Blum Gallery. If you haven't seen La Jetée, which directly inspired Terry Gilliam's film 12 Monkeys, it's a must-see and is streaming along with other Chris Marker films on the Criterion Channel.