Tokyo / Moscow / Leopoldville (3 volumes)

Perhaps it was the wish to travel as often and as far as possible that drove the photographer Robert Lebeck to aim his camera at the world. Several of his photographs represent more than just successful reporting work. Lebeck was interested not only in the event in and of itself, but also in the stories on the fringes and the people behind the images. He was often found in places where history was being made. When he took the photo Rapier Thief on his tour of Africa in 1960, for instance, he captured a symbolic portrait of the end of European colonial power, an image which has since become a classic of press photography.
Lebeck’s pictures of Africa, Asia and the Soviet Union, which were made in the early 1960s for the most part, show a world in upheaval, in which extremes were colliding. His photographs of Asia contrast the wealth of few with the poverty of many and reveal the exotic, strange and incomprehensible. When Lebeck took photographs of the Soviet Union in 1962, he understood the strict and conventional rules of a state which paid particular attention to self-imposed taboos. Lebeck’s photography suggests that there is much more to be considered in a photographed scene than that which is presented in the photographic image.