MUSEUM | Guided tour by photographer Renáta Liszi of René Burri’s exhibition *Utopia*

René Burri, best known for his portrait of Che Guevara smoking a cigar, reported on the most significant events of the second half of the 20th century as a true photojournalist during the era of mass-circulation photo magazines. He joined the Magnum Photo Agency in 1955 and became a full member in 1959. Over the course of his six-decade career, he traveled throughout Europe, the Middle East, North, Central, and South America, Japan, and China. He was in Berlin when the Wall fell, photographed the student protests in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, and documented the devastation of war in Beirut. The exhibition titled Utopia, however, offers a fresh perspective on Burri’s multifaceted body of work: the significant transformations of the century are also expressed through the formal language of modern architecture. In this sense, this selection can also be seen as a tribute to architecture: Burri captured buildings that have become numerous symbols of modernism in his artistically unique photographs, from Le Corbusier’s Chapel at Ronchamp to the ministry buildings designed by Oscar Niemeyer in Rio de Janeiro and Brasília. Paris Match, among other publications, gave prominent coverage to his photo series, which also featured portraits of artists; the exhibition focuses on the world-renowned creators of modern architecture.