Lending beauty to terror

They shocked the world – the photographs that Steve McCurry, disguised as a Mujahideen fighter, took in 1979 in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and smuggled out of the country. A few years later he photographed an Afghan girl in a refugee camp in Pakistan – the image became iconic. The now 65-year-old American, a member of the illustrious Magnum photo agency, primarily photographs in Asia and regards himself as a chronicler of histories and cultures that are disappearing in some respects. 130 of his photographs are currently on display at the Museum für Gestaltung in Zurich.