Exhibition: ‘The Mind’s Eye, 50 Years of Photography by Jerry Uelsmann’ at the Harn Museum of Art, Florida

Exhibition dates: 14th June – 11th September 2011

Jerry Uelsmann (American, 1934-2022)
Apocalypse II
1967
Gelatin silver print
10 3/4 x 13 5/8 in (27.2 x 34.5cm)
Collection of the artist
© Jerry Uelsmann

Uelsmann is one of my favourite artists. His unique vision and the skill required to execute that vision using multiple exposure of negatives in the darkroom (remember, this is all done with no Photoshop!) is outstanding. Observe the sensitivity to subject matter and the placement of disparate elements in the surrealist landscape. His photographs have real allegorical power and lodge in the viewer’s psyche. My particular favourites are the library and the house on the tree stump. Uelsmann achieves wonderful resolution to inner visions and then makes the dream-like tableaux accessible to the viewer. As one who started as a black and white photographer and who experimented with multiple exposures on one piece of silver gelatin paper in the darkroom, I can attest to how enormously difficult this process is.

The text on Wikipedia states:

“Uelsmann is a master printer producing composite photographs with multiple negatives and extensive darkroom work. He uses up to a dozen enlargers at a time to produce his final images … Uelsmann is a champion of the idea that the final image need not be tied to a single negative, but may be composed of many … he does not seek to create narratives, but rather allegorical surrealist imagery of the unfathomable … Today, with the advent of digital cameras and Photoshop, photographers are able to create a work somewhat resembling Uelsmann’s in less than a day, however, at the time Uelsmann was considered to have almost “magical skill” with his completely analog tools.”

I thank him for having the creative energy to be a magician.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

See another posting on this exhibition.

Many thankx to the Harn Museum of Art for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Jerry Uelsmann (American, 1934-2022)
Magritte’s Touchstone (first version)
Nd
Gelatin silver print
Collection of the artist
© Jerry Uelsmann

Jerry Uelsmann (American, 1934-2022)
Mechanical Man #2
1959
Gelatin silver print
Collection of the artist
© Jerry Uelsmann

The first critical retrospective of American photographer Jerry Uelsmann’s work will open at the Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida on June 14, 2011. Uelsmann, known for his iconic, surreal style and his innovative composite printing techniques, has spent more than 50 years challenging and advocating for the acceptance of photography as an experimental art form. The Mind’s Eye, 50 Years of Photography by Jerry Uelsmann, organised by the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts will feature 89 works from every phase of the artist’s wide-ranging career, including a selection of rare pieces that have never before been on public view. Additional works from the artist’s collection will be on view only during this leg of the exhibition, open through September 11, 2011.

“The Harn Museum of Art is delighted to welcome this important exhibition of photographic works by the University of Florida’s own Jerry Uelsmann, a graduate research professor in the art department from 1960 to 1998,” said Rebecca Nagy, director of the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art. “Jerry has been, and continues to be a leader in the field and we are delighted to celebrate and look back on such a long, important, and innovative career.”

The exhibition will emphasise Uelsmann’s profound influence on the field of photography through his revolutionary mastery of composite photography. Through the presentation of images from different stages of his works, viewers will gain a new understanding of the artist’s creative process and the evolution of Uelsmann’s ideas throughout his career. The pieces on view will be drawn from the artist’s personal archive of vintage materials, and are the definitive prints of the images. A few examples of the artist’s photo sculptures, artist’s books and albums will give viewers first-hand insight into Uelsmann’s creative process.

“From the beginning of his career, Uelsmann has advocated for the acceptance of photography as an experimental art form,” said Phillip Prodger, curator of photography at the Peabody Essex Museum. “Uelsmann’s photography provides a valuable touchstone for understanding new trends in photographic art. His ideas and work have become even more relevant as photography embraces Photoshop and other computer technologies for altering and manipulating photographic pictures.”

Beginning in the late 1950s, Uelsmann succeeded in combining negatives in the darkroom to create synthetic compositions that conjure the illusion of photographic truth. Although these pictures are visually convincing, they depict scenes that often have no analogue in the real world. Evocative, unsettling, and often humorous, Uelsmann’s photographs are seldom easily resolved, inviting reflection without obvious resolution. His most famous technique, seamlessly fabricating photographs from unrelated negatives to create imaginary scenes, helped build his reputation as an experimental photographer, and cemented his standing as a leader of non-literal photography.

“My visual quest is driven by a desire to create a universe capable of supporting feelings and ideas,” said Jerry Uelsmann. “I am drawn to art that challenges one’s sense of reality.”

Press release from the Harn Museum of Art website

Jerry Uelsmann (American, 1934-2022)
Untitled
1964
Gelatin silver print
13 3/4 x 10 1/4 in (34.9 x 26.1cm)
Collection of the artist
© Jerry Uelsmann

Jerry Uelsmann (American, 1934-2022)
Untitled
1976
Gelatin silver print
19 5/8 x 14 1/4 in (49.9 x 36.3cm)
Collection of the artist
© Jerry Uelsmann

Jerry Uelsmann (American, 1934-2022)
Untitled
1982
Gelatin silver print
13 1/4 x 10 3/8 in (33.8 x 26.4cm)
Collection of the artist
© Jerry Uelsmann

Jerry Uelsmann (American, 1934-2022)
Untitled
2003
Gelatin silver print
19 3/8 x 15 in (49.1 x 38cm)
Collection of the artist
© Jerry Uelsmann

Jerry Uelsmann (American, 1934-2022)
Dream Theater
2004
Gelatin silver print
Collection of the artist
© Jerry Uelsmann

Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art
SW 34th Street and Hull Road
Gainesville, Florida 32611-2700

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Saturday 10am – 5pm
Sunday 1 – 5pm
The museum is closed on Mondays and state holidays.

Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art website

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Exhibition: ‘The Art of the Automobile: Masterpieces of the Ralph Lauren Collection’ at The Arts Décoratifs Museum, Paris

Exhibition dates: 28th April – 28th August 2011

Many thankx to The Arts Décoratifs Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the images for a larger version of the image.

Mercedes Benz SSK “Count Trossi”
1930
Ralph Lauren collection
© Photo Michael Furman

The notion of line in a car echoes that of the perfectly harmonious line of trajectory. The design is never far from this line, even in those coachworks designed without drawing boards, of which some of the most marvellous examples are seen here. It is interesting to see that in the French language at least, cars have taken on board the concept of ligne (or “line”), a word with many meanings. Yet the term ligne, taken in the sense that it is used nowadays in reference to coachwork, is classified by French lexicographer Littré within the sphere of fine art, and defined by him as: “the general effect produced by the coming together and combination of different parties of either a natural object or a composition.” The natural development of language thus shows us the relationship between cars and fine art.

Excerpt from the catalog, Editions Les Arts Décoratifs, Paris 2011

In 1970, Les Arts Décoratifs presented a selection of competition cars, “Bolides Design.” To compile the exhibition, a special jury was assembled, featuring designers Joe Colombo, Roger Tallon and Pio Manzu, and the artists Jean-Paul Riopelle, Jean Tinguely and Victor Vasarely, as well as Robert Delpire and François Mathey. The jury chose the models with the idea of the car as a design object, a work of art, showing that “art and technique, each at their own level, are the expression of man and his relationship with design.”

The Ralph Lauren collection can be seen from the same perspective. Patiently assembled over several decades by the fashion designer in a quest for speed and performance, it includes some of the most extraordinary jewels in the crown of European automobile history, with beauty as its common denominator.

Within the collection are some of the most elegant and innovative cars in automotive history, from the “Blower” Bentley (1929), the Ferrari 250 GTO (1962), the famous Mercedes 300 SL (1955) and the unforgettable Jaguar “D type,” whose shark fin blazed a triumphant trail at Le Mans in 1955, 1956 and 1957. But the grand tourer, the Bugatti Atlantic (1938) of which only four models were produced, represents the ultimate in luxury while showcasing the evolution of styles and techniques on the road. Each of these exceptional vehicles was designed as a masterpiece blending technological innovation and boldness of style.

For its first presentation in Europe, the Ralph Lauren collection will be put on display by Jean-Michel Wilmotte, who has opted for an intimate visual approach as these vehicles stand out both for their overall design and detail, as well as for bodywork, chassis and engines.

The kinetic and sound of the vehicles will be reproduced by means of several films and recordings. A seminar on automobile design will also be held during the exhibition.

Press release from The Arts Décoratifs Museum website

Mercedes Benz SSK “Count Trossi”
1930
Ralph Lauren collection
© Photo Michael Furman

Chassis number SSK 36038, currently owned by Ralph Lauren, remained unsold by the Mercedes-Benz factory in 1928, but was then sent out to Japan in 1930, before being brought back to Europe. This car was put together by the young British coach builder, Willy White, based on a design suggested by its aristocratic owner-cum-industrialist, Count Carlo Felice Trossi, himself a racing driver. The SSK, the archetypal Mercedes of the 1920s, built on a short chassis, is dominated by a colossal hood with a trio of exhaust pipes emerging from each side – a hood encompassing over half the car’s length with a radiator projecting out front as a windbreak. Its flamboyant rear end, dramatically tapered, adds a touch of civility to this extraordinary model, contrasting with the hieratic image of its front end. The supercharging gives the Mercedes SSK its fiery temperament, as well as the legendary noise of its seven litre straight 6 cylinder engine producing 300 CV and enabling a flat-out speed of 235kph!

Bugatti 57 SC Atlantic
1938
Collection Ralph Lauren
© Photo Michael Furman

According to Paul Bracq, “the Atlantic is a monument in the history of French coach building! More than any other car, it expresses a French-Italian look. An incredible sense of lightness is given off by this sculpture.” Powered by a straight 8 cylinder engine fitted with twin overhead camshafts and a compressor, this beauty is also incredibly fast, capable of reaching 200 kph. As the aluminium alloy used for the coachwork did not lend itself to shaping and soldering, Jean Bugatti was obliged to make the wings and roof in two parts and then assemble them with rivets. His talent lay precisely in the art of transforming this inconvenient technique into a stylistic advantage. Power and speed are suggested by the doors which are cut out of the roof and the ellipsoidal windows reminiscent of airplanes. Chassis number 57591 was the last of the four examples originally produced, a masterpiece embodying sport and luxury at their height – in short, the automobile exception.

Alfa Romeo 8C 2900 Mille Miglia
1938
Collection Ralph Lauren
© Photo Michael Furman

This racing model fitted out with a straight 8 cylinder 2.9 litre engine with twin overhead camshafts supercharged by two compressors is equipped with fully independent suspension and a four speed rear transaxle. The whole thing is perfectly balanced, resulting in the most extraordinary roadholding. The hydraulic brakes are an additional bonus, enabling it to outclass its rivals at over 185 kph. The Turin factory called upon Carrozzeria Touring to design a small series of four two-seater roadsters intended to take part in the 1938 Mille Miglia, the first example of which is the car exhibited here. Driven by the Pintacuda-Mambelli team, the car came in an incredible second under the number 142. The tear drop shaped wings add the final touch to this extraordinary car which is considered to be one of the most prestigious pre-War Grand Touring Alfa Romeos.

Ferrari 375 Plus
1954
Collection Ralph Lauren
© Photo Michael Furman

The Ferrari known as the 375 Plus was an extrapolation of the Type 375 MM, a model powered by a V12 engine with three carburettors, a gearbox with four speeds plus reverse that increased its engine size to nearly 5 litres, giving it more power and enabling it to reach 340 CV, and attain 250 kph. Because Ferrari did not have its own design department, the 375 Plus, an absolute masterpiece, was created by highly qualified, talented artisans under the guidance of Pinin Farina, Ferrari’s official coach builder. Only five examples of the Type 375 Plus were made, including a spyder version which won the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1954. Ralph Lauren’s car, chassis number 0398 AM – the last of the series – left the factory in 1954 and had a relatively illustrious career in Argentina, often driven by Valiente.

Jaguar XKD
1955
Collection Ralph Lauren
© Photo Michael Furman

In order to find a worthy successor to the brilliant Jaguar Type XKC, winner on two occasions of the Le Mans 24 Hours, the aeronautic aerodynamicist Malcolm Sayer came up with a non-conformist vehicle. The D-Type has a long hood with no radiator grille, opening away from the block and a slender, extremely graceful rear, easily recognisable thanks to the highly original fin that extends the driver’s head-rest, providing greater stability at high speeds. With the classic straight 6 cylinder 3.4 litre engine, the D-Type, built on a monocoque structure, also has disk brakes. The “long-nosed” version (only 10 examples of which left the factory, including Ralph Lauren’s 505/601) gained an additional 15 kph at maximum speed, pushing it to 260 kph. No other car from the 1950s embodies speed better than this Jaguar D, with three consecutive victories in the Le Mans 24 Hours between 1955 and 1957 and another at Nurburgring in 1956. It was the most successful racing car of its generation.

Jaguar XKSS
1958
Collection Ralph Lauren
© Photo Michael Furman

Following on from Jaguar’s magnificent victories in the 1955 and 1956 Le Mans 24 Hours, demand from its enthusiastic clients was such that the company decided to make a road version of the XKD (straight 6 cylinder 3.4 litre engine with a 250 CV output capable of propelling the car to nearly 250 kph) which was named the XKSS. Principally aimed at the American market, it differed from the racing model in having a windscreen, a convertible roof, bumpers and a more civilised interior, and the famous fin was removed. Only 16 examples were constructed between January and February 1957, and a further two examples of the D-Type were transformed by the factory in 1958. Ralph Lauren’s car is one of these, created from the XKD 533 in 1956. It participated in the Six Heures du Forez in 1957, driven by Monnoyeur and Dupuy, finishing 7th, behind a fleet of Jaguar Ds which took the three first places.

Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa
1958
Collection Ralph Lauren
© Photo Michael Furman

The 250 Testa Rossa (red head) owes its name to the red camshaft covers of its V12 3 litre engine. Made by Carrozzeria Scaglietti, adapted from a design by Pinin Farina introducing a torpedo shaped body, the car had a headrest that stuck out above the bodywork and integrated headlights behind protruding Plexiglas protection. The very particular line of this vehicle proved to be primarily functional, rather than aesthetic. Indeed, the originality of the pontoon fenders enabled the wheels to remain partially uncovered, to allow for a sufficient supply of cold air to the drum brakes. Equipped with a light body that allowed it to attain 270 kph, its 300 CV engine carried it to victory on numerous occasions, including in the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1958, 1960 and 1961. Ralph Lauren’s car is the 14th of 34 similar examples produced by Ferrari.

Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta SWB
1960
Collection Ralph Lauren
© Photo Michael Furman

While the name 250 GT appeared in the Maranello catalog in 1955, the 1959 Paris Motor Show presented a short chassis Berlinetta version, with a wheelbase 20 cms shorter than other versions of the line – a thoroughbred equipped for the road, with aluminium coachwork designed by Pinin Farina and made in the Scaglietti workshops in Modena. Compared to the grand tourer version, intended for road use, the racing version was devoid of all luxury interior trimmings and bumpers, but equipped with disk brakes and a 280 CV engine that enabled this flagship model to masterfully dominate the legendary Tour de France automobile for three consecutive seasons (1960-1962) and the GT category of the Le Mans 24 Hours. Its sensual line, unequalled handling and performance (250kph), and list of victories, all combined to make the short chassis 250 GT Berlinetta one of Ferrari’s most popular models. Ralph Lauren’s car was the 31st example to leave the factory out of the 165 produced.

Ferrari 250 GTO
1962
Collection Ralph Lauren
© Photo Michael Furman

Designed in the utmost secrecy, the 250 GTO is considered by aficionados today to be the quintessential vintage Ferrari model, both technically and aesthetically, embodying one of the most famous and most expensive sports cars of all time. This Grand Tourer, of which only 39 examples were produced, clocked up an impressive list of victories, including the International Championship for GT Manufacturers in 1962, 1963 and 1964, thanks to its V12 300 CV engine situated up front, but also because of the lightness of its aluminium body, enabling it to attain 280 kph flat out! With its Scaglietti coachwork and its long hood, stocky cockpit and truncated rear, it symbolised the Grand Tourer par excellence. Ralph Lauren’s car was the 21st out of 36 Series I GTOs produced, and won many races driven by Pedro and Ricardo Rodriguez, Roger Penske, Augie Pabst and Richie Ginther.

The Arts Décoratifs Museum
107 rue de Rivoli
75001 Paris
Phone: +33 01 44 55 57 50

Open Tuesday to Sunday 11am – 6pm

The Arts Décoratifs Museum website

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Exhibition: ‘Patricia Piccinini: The Fitzroy Series’ at the Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP), Fitzroy, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 12th August – 4th September 2011

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965)
Library, 8.45pm
2011
Type C photograph
100 x 160cm
Courtesy the artist; Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne; Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney; and Haunch of Venison, New York

A wonderful suite of photographs by Patricia Piccinini. When you see them “in the flesh” so to speak, five out of the six works (except for the last image below, Sitting Room, 2.30pm) are suffused with a beautiful, rich, dark honey-coloured light, even more so than the reproductions. This tonality adds to the romantic notion of the imaginary animals Piccinini creates – genetically modified, mutant child creatures and “Bottom Feeder” (for that is their name) rubbish scouring pets. The ordinariness of the environs that surround the mise-en-scènes supplements this feeling: books and bedrooms, workshops and sitting rooms allaying our fears, increasing our empathy. The humour is also delicious. Note the squirrel light in Bedroom, 10.30pm : inspired!

Of as much interest was Piccinini’s source material shown in the front gallery. I wrote most of the books, magazines and subjects of the photographs down because I was fascinated to see the inspiration for this artist:

~ Motorised chairs
~ Knots
~ Nests
~ American Native Indian hair (Edward S. Curtis)
~ Claws
~ Walruses
~ Skulls
~ Skeletons
~ Pupae
~ Scientific specimens
~ Birds covered in oil
~ Mammals of Australia
~ Darwin
~ Voyages of Discovery by Dr Tony Rice
~ Hiroshima Mon Amour by Marguerite Duras
~ Mag wheels
~ Big rigs (trucks)
~ Vespas
~ Custom cars and trucks
~ Morphed racing helmets
~ Photograph from Hitchcock’s The Birds
~ Braindead movie
~ Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
~ Newsweek: The Meaning of Michael (Jackson) July 13th, 2009
~ Rare breeds (sheep)
~ Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature by Donna ~ Haraway
~ Louise Bourgeois
~ Macro/Hall by Erwin Wurm
~ Le Cere del Museo dell Instituto Fiorentino di Anatonia Patalogia deformatives

Great work and a wonderful gesture by artist and galleries to support the Centre for Contemporary Photography.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to Karra Rees for her help and to the CCP for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965)
Alley, 11.15am
2011
Type C photograph
100 x 160cm
Courtesy the artist; Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne; Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney; and Haunch of Venison, New York.

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965)
Bedroom, 10.30pm
2011
Type C photograph
100 x 160cm
Courtesy the artist; Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne; Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney; and Haunch of Venison, New York.

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965)
Street, 3.10am
2011
Type C photograph
100 x 160cm
Courtesy the artist; Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne; Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney; and Haunch of Venison, New York.

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965)
Workshop, 7.00pm
2011
Type C photograph
100 x 160cm
Courtesy the artist; Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne; Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney; and Haunch of Venison, New York

To mark Centre for Contemporary Photography’s 25th Anniversary Patricia Piccinini has made a new series of work, never seen before. Entitled The Fitzroy Series, the exhibition of Piccinini’s new body of work, accompanied by video work and a display of her source material, is the major event in the celebrations of CCP’s 25th Anniversary in 2011.

CCP is delighted to be offering this exciting new series for the CCP 25th Anniversary Limited Edition Print fundraiser, each image in the series is generously provided in a limited edition of 4 + 1AP.

Eighty percent of funds raised through Limited Edition Prints enable CCP to support the practice and presentation of contemporary photography through provision of exhibitions, publications, education and public programs, with the artist retaining twenty percent.

What: CCP 25th Anniversary Limited Edition Print
Price: $9,320 each framed by Neo Frames (inc. gst on frame)
The first 12 prints are available at the CCP fundraiser price of $9,320 each framed by Neo Frames (inc. GST on frame)
NB. Credit card purchases attract a 1.5% merchant fee.
Prints are accompanied by a signed, numbered certificate and are provided courtesy of the artist; Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne; Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney; and Haunch of Venison, New York.
Free Artist Floortalk: midday 27 August 2011

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965)
Sitting Room, 2.30pm
2011
Type C photograph
100 x 160cm
Courtesy the artist; Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne; Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney; and Haunch of Venison, New York.

Centre for Contemporary Photography

No permanent exhibition space at the moment

Centre for Contemporary Photography website

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The Museum of Old and New Art (MONA), Hobart

August 2011

MONA exterior, Hobart
Image Courtesy of MONA Museum of Old and New Art

“Lyotard writes,”We must not begin with transgression, we must immediately go to the very end of cruelty, construct the anatomy of polymorphous perversion, unfold the immense membrane of the libidinal ‘body,’ which is quite the inverse of a system of parts.” Lyotard sees this “membrane” as composed of the most heterogeneous items: human bone and writing paper, steel and glass, syntax and the skin on the inside of the thigh. In the libidinal economy, writes Lyotard: “All of these zones are butted end to end … on a Moebius strip … a moebian skin [an] interminable band of variable geometry (a concavity is necessarily a convexity at the next turn) [with but] a single face, and therefore neither exterior nor interior.”

Jean-François Lyotard quoted in Victor Burgin. In/Different Spaces 1

“Taking a walk is also an extremely immediate form of experience. Serge Daney describes the act of perception while taking a walk: ‘Because I am not particularly fond of bravura pieces, I always need a transition from one thing to the next. And I am glad that I can find it through by body and experience of walking…’
The visual memory of the walker / viewer determines the sequence of the pictures. Since the 1960s Marcel Broodthaers has defined the exhibition as a cinematic sequence of pictures and objects, thereby subverting the fixity of the single object through recontextualisation.”

Serge Daney quoted in Hans Obrist. “In the Midst of Things, At the Centre of Nothing.”2

Libidinal, Moebic MONA

My analogy: you are standing in the half-dark, your chest open, squeezing the beating heart with blood coursing between your fingers while the other hand is up your backside playing with your prostrate gland. I think ringmeister David Walsh would approve.

My best friends analogy: a cross between a car park, night club, sex sauna and art gallery.

Weeks later I am still thinking about the wonderful immersive, sensory experience that is MONA. Peter Timms in an insightful article in Meanjin calls it a post-Google Wunderkammer, or wonder chest.3 It can be seen as a mirabilia – a non-historic installation designed primarily to delight, surprise and in this case shock. The body, sex, death and mortality are hot topics in the cultural arena4 and Walsh’s collection covers all bases. The collection and its display are variously hedonistic, voyeuristic, narcissistic, fetishistic pieces of theatre subsumed within the body of the spectacular museum architecture.

The experience starts with the ferry ride from the wharf in Hobart to the museum – the only way to arrive. During the 20 minutes of the journey mental baggage seems to drop away as you look over the water to the industrial zinc works, pass under bridges and then the museum comes into view. Perched on a promontory of land the museum rises like a rusted ancient temple. After disembarking you climb a colossal staircase to the entrance of the museum, all angles and mirrored surfaces. You enter one of two Roy Grounds listed modernist buildings built in the 1950s – beautiful, crisp white spaces that house the shop and a cafe, cloakroom and inquiry desk where you collect your ‘O’, an iPhone-like device that tracks all the artworks that you look at. The are no didactic text panels in the museum freeing the viewer to just experience, all data such as artists names and educational information and the tit-bit Gonzo text being accessed through the ‘O’. Into the large enclosed forecourt space a spiral staircase with a circular lift in the centre descends into the abyss (an inspired piece of design) and your journey proper has begun. Three levels deep into the ground you travel, the space carved out of solid rock. Impressive.

The museum is the body and the artworks are the organs, fragments of the whole exhibition (that of the actual museum). The experience is very kinaesthetic as the body gets lost within the space of the gallery. We wandered like flâneur among the darkened, cinema-like spaces, almost floating from one area to the next, discovering, feeling disorientated, following underground passages, tunnels and stairs, emerging into light and then descending into the abyss again. Hours passed. Like a Moebius strip there seemed to be no interior/exterior to the body. As Lyotard notes the membrane of the libidinal ‘body’ is composed of the most heterogeneous items: here was rock, steel, shit, bestiality, intestines, brain, touch, burial etc… the curating of the collection within the space “creating a safe space for the appreciation and consideration of seemingly extreme and subversive practices.”5

Into this space of controlled transgression, the carnivalesque mise-en-scène allow the artists to delve into the deeper and darker areas of the human condition: “as Anthony Everitt once said of Damien Hirst [to] ‘open up paths for the viewer into areas of experience which are not anti-moral or amoral but extra-moral… a world where bad taste is driven to the point of elegance and disgust is filtered into delight’.”6

While some of the works were spotlit in the darkened galleries, “this dramatic lighting working to decontextualise the art objects, evoking a crepuscular and “timeless” sense of space, out of which the individual pieces emerged,”7 there also seemed to be an affinity between the building itself and the artworks (relating to the concept of affinity in museum curation). The diversity of installation techniques made an acknowledgement of the institutionalising processes part of the viewer’s experience of the show, disrupting a unified, totalising presentation of these objects and their cultures as “exhibition.”8 The intertextual tableaux mixed a Damien Hirst spin painting with Egyptian sculpture, ancient artefacts with Fat Cars. The context of the objects and their relationship to each other and the architecture is how the works are “framed.” This device emphasises the aesthetic rather than information and encourages the viewer to think about the relationship between the artefacts, objects and contemporary works. These inventive arrangements create a meta-narrative that offers the possibility of multiple interpretations to the viewer, multiple truths. All of this undertaken as the body moves through the spaces of the gallery and gets “lost”. As Norman Bryson has observed, “Architecture is sensed primarily through the eye and through bodily movement, and these sensations also play a key role in the way in which the contents of museums make their impact.”9

While the items are not explicitly related in terms of subject, medium or style through unexpected confrontation the works spring to dissonant life. Most of the time. When this process doesn’t work the viewer is left a little flat feeling, and…. so? wandering from piece to piece becoming slightly disenchanted. Little of the work at MONA took me to new spaces; in fact some of it was pretty mediocre, including the very dated Sir Sidney Nolan Snake (1970 to 1972, see below) that is permanent ‘wallpaper’ and takes up a whole, beautiful gallery wall. The tri-screen video by Russian collective AES+F, the works by Anselm Kiefer and the ancient artefacts (most of all) were notable exceptions. The museum is not a place for prolonged concentration and contemplation. This is not really the point of the place. The whole museum is a sensory, immersive surprising experience that cannot be broken down to its parts. David Walsh’s collection does tick all the fashionable boxes: here a Juan Davila, there a Del Kathyrn Barton, now a Howard Arkeley as though his buyers have advised him on just what to buy, but it is his personal vision, his collection. You can’t argue with that.

On of the problems of lumping all of these works together is obvious: “Ancient objects whose meaning is lost to us, medieval utensils, Christian religious images, and art objects made by modern masters were reduced to one meaning – stylistic resemblances providing evidence of the essential nature of humanity.”10 In other words a return to the globalising view of humanity evidenced by Edward Steichen’s MoMA world touring photographic exhibition of the 1950s The Family of Man. Conversely, when this strategy works well it promotes for the viewer different modes and levels of ‘interpretation’ through subtle juxtaposition of ‘experience’. As Emma Barker has observed, “we still need a curator to stimulate readings of the collection and to establish those ‘climatic zones’ which can enrich our appreciation and understanding of art… Our aim must be to generate a condition in which visitors can experience a sense of discovery in looking at particular paintings, sculptures or installations in a particular room at a particular moment, rather than find themselves standing on the conveyer belt of history.”11 Within this plastic space experience is paramount, allowing the viewer to develop their own reading without relying on the curatorial interpretation of history, setting new parameters for the relationship between viewer and object. As Barker notes such juxtapositions are a more natural strategy for a private collector than for a museum curator, with exhibitions and displays according to this dialectical principle happening with more frequency.12 The museum looses its fundamental didactic, educational purpose.

Other problems may also become evident. In a museum whose spectacular architecture was specifically designed for David Walsh’s collection it will be interesting to see how outside, touring exhibitions (such as the recently installed Experimenta Utopia Now exhibition) display in the space, especially given the psychosexual nature of his collection and its relationship to the building. If the quality of the temporary exhibitions is overwhelmed by the architecture, if the labyrinthine, enigmatic and layered nature of the space (all those floating bridges and the huge Void that can be seen in the photographs below) engulfs lesser works then it may well fall very flat.

At the end of the day we emerged into the afternoon light, expelled from the museum in a tidal wave of humanity, exhausted, satiated. Where else in Australia could you spend all day at a museum and not have seen enough? On flying home you can log into the MONA website to retrieve your ‘O’ tour, to see what art you liked and what you didn’t; what pieces you saw and all those that somehow you missed! The physical and its remembrance transported into the virtual.

Since Laura Mulvey’s essay of 1974 “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” we have been aware of the voyeuristic and fetishistic character of our psychosexual relation to cinema. Engulfed in the dark cube, that psychosexual panorama, the cinematic labyrinth that is MONA has the viewer absenting themselves in front of the art in favour of the Eye and the Spectator.13 Spectatorship and their attendant erotics has MONA as a form of fetishistic cinema. It is as if what Barthes calls “the eroticism of place” were a modern equivalent of the eighteenth century genius loci, the “genius of the place.”

The place is spectacular, the private collection writ large as public institution, the symbolic power of the institution masked through its edifice. The art become autonomous, cut free from its cultural associations, transnational, globalised, experienced through kinaesthetic means; the viewer meandering through the galleries, the anti-museum, as an international flaneur. Go. Experience!

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Footnotes

1/ Lyotard, Jean-François. Économie Libidinale. Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1974, pp. 10-11 quoted in Burgin, Victor. In/Different Spaces: Place and Memory in Visual Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995, p. 150

2/ Obrist, Hans Ulrich. “In the Midst of Things at the Center of Nothing,” in Harding, Anna (ed.,). Curating: The Contemporary Museum and Beyond, (Art & Design Magazine Profile No. 52), London: A.D., 1997, p. 88

3/ Timms, Peter. “A Post-google Wunderkammer: Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art Redefines the Genre,” in Meanjin, Vol. 70, No. 2, Winter 2011. pp. 31-39

4/ Keidan, Lois. “Showtime: Curating Live Art in the 90s,” in Harding, Anna (ed.,). Curating: The Contemporary Museum and Beyond, (Art & Design Magazine Profile No. 52), London: A.D., 1997, p. 41

5/ Ibid., p. 41

6/ Ibid., p. 41

7/ Staniszewski, Mary Anne. The power of display: a history of exhibition installations at the Museum of Modern Art. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1998, p. 84

8/ Ibid., p. 97

9/ Bryson, Norman. “A Walk for a Walk’s Sake,” in De Zegher, Catherine (ed.,). The Stage of Drawing: Gesture and Act. London: Tate, 2003, pp. 149-58.

10/ Staniszewski, op. cit. p. 129

11/ Barker, Emma. “Exhibiting the Canon: The Blockbuster Show,” in Barker, Emma (ed.,). Contemporary Cultures of Display. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999, p. 55

12/ Ibid., p. 45

13/ O’Neill, Paul. “The Curatorial Turn: From Practice to Discourse,” in Rugg, Judith and Sedgwick, Michèle (eds.,). Issues in Curating Contemporary Art and Performance. Bristol: Intellect, 2007, pp. 13-28

Many thankx to Delia Nicholls for all her help and to MONA for allowing me to publish most of the photographs in the posting (all except the top two and the one of us inside Babylonia that were taken by Fredrick White). Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Zinc works from the ferry on the way to MONA
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

3d schematic from the O, showing the levels and nodes indicating art works visited, MONA

The Void
February 2011
Museum of Old and New Art – interior
Photo credit: MONA/Leigh Carmichael
Image Courtesy of MONA Museum of Old and New Art

B1 walkway overlooking The Void
February 2011
Museum of Old and New Art – interior
Photo credit: MONA/Leigh Carmichael
Image Courtesy of MONA Museum of Old and New Art

Loop System Quintet/Untitled (stool for guard)

Left:
Taiyo Kimura (Japanese, b. 1970)
Untitled (stool for guard)
2007
Mixed media, clothes, cd player, speaker

Right:
Conrad Shawcross (English, b. 1977)
Loop System Quintet 
2005
Waxed machined oak, five light bulbs, electric motor and gearbox, drive shafts, cogs, universal joints, flange units, screws, bolts, nuts, washers

Photo credit: MONA/Leigh Carmichael
Image Courtesy of MONA Museum of Old and New Art

Callum Morton (Australian born Canada, b. 1965)
Babylonia
2005
Wood, polystyrene, epoxy resin, acrylic paint, light, carpet, mirror and sound
Photo credit: MONA/Leigh Carmichael
Image Courtesy of MONA Museum of Old and New Art

Sculptor Fredrick White and Marcus Bunyan inside Callum Morton’s Babylonia wearing the ‘O’

Portrait gallery
Various artworks by various artists
Museum of Old and New Art – interior
Photo credit: MONA/Leigh Carmichael
Image Courtesy of MONA Museum of Old and New Art

Masturbation. It is a source of endless irony to me that when I was young, and desperately in need of endless fucking, no one was interested in helping me out, whereas now, older and slower, I could fill even my desired adolescent quota. What saved me then was my right hand, even though I call myself left-handed. Surely the hand that you wank with (I guess John Holmes was ambidextrous) defines you just as much as the hand you write with? Anyway, who writes anymore? It’s so much easier to type. Mental masturbation allows me to pretend I’m a mental John Holmes, takes both hands. But no brains.

Art. I’m not at all sure that conceptual art and traditional art are the same thing. One can come from muscle memory, from pragma; at its best it’s not at all conscious. The former, though, is so self-aware it’s often targeting its own self-awareness. Check out the Hirst and the Pylypchuk at the other end of the gallery.

David Walsh 2011

Corten Stairwell
February 2011
Museum of Old and New Art – interior
Photo credit: MONA/Leigh Carmichael
Image Courtesy of MONA Museum of Old and New Art

Corten Stairwell & Surrounding Artworks
February 2011
Museum of Old and New Art – interior
Photo credit: MONA/Leigh Carmichael
Image Courtesy of MONA Museum of Old and New Art

The Nolan Gallery

Sir Sidney Nolan (Australian, 1917-1992)
Snake
1970 to 1972
Mixed media on paper, 1620 sheets

Jannis Kounellis (Greece, 1936-2017)
Untitled 
2002
Jute coffee bags, coal; three parts

Photo credit: MONA/Leigh Carmichael
Image Courtesy of MONA Museum of Old and New Art

Erwin Wurm (Austrian, b. 1954)
Fat Car
2006
Steel chassis and body; leather interior, with polystyrene and fibreglass
Photo credit: MONA/Leigh Carmichael
Image Courtesy of MONA Museum of Old and New Art

Museum of Old and New Art
655 Main Road Berriedale
Hobart Tasmania 7011, Australia

Opening hours:
Fridays – Mondays, 10am – 5pm

MONA website

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Opening: ‘John Bodin: Rite of Passage’ at Anita Traverso Gallery, Richmond

Exhibition dates: 11th August – 3rd September, 2011

John Bodin (Australian)
I Was Far Away From Home
2009
Type C print on metallic paper
80 x 110cm

Reprinted below is the speech I gave at the opening. Beautiful work (shot mostly in Tasmania from the passenger seat of a moving car). Many thanx to Anita and John for asking me to speak at the opening – it was fun!

Opening night speech

I want to preface what I am about to say by noting that I am interested in how these photographs, as physical objects, might speak to what is not physical, what is intangible and ineffable about the spaces they display.

I saw a fantastic documentary about the pianist Artur Rubenstein recently on SBS. When he was playing in concert he believed that he recognised in the audience a person that was more attuned to the nuances of his phrasing and performance than others and he played for them – he wanted to show them something new, insightful and challenging. This made him play better, taking more risks for greater reward, for himself and for the audience. These moments have the possibility of becoming moments in eternity (or to introduce the analogy of the road, milestones). For us it is the recognition of these moments in eternity (or to keep the analogy going, a journey), the unenclosed and apparently insignificant. The material world’s strange mixture of familiarity and otherness, ‘humanness’ and non-humanness.

Where these ideas share a quality with the photographs by John is a recognition of the fluid energy flowing through these spaces, like infinite ribbons of consciousness. For me this is not an escapement nor contentment but a point of stillness within self – an awareness and balance at that moment, at that point in time, in that line of sight when the photograph was taken. A stillness within self that acknowledges the journey taken and the journey to be taken – something that is beyond language and goes to the most intimate place of our being.

The photographs become the surface of the body, stitched together with lines, markers pointing the way – they are encounters with the things that we see before us but also the things that we carry inside of us. It is the interchange between these two things, how one modulates and informs the other. It is this engagement that holds our attention: the dappled light, ambiguity, unevenness, the winding path that floats and bobs before our eyes looking back at us, as we observe and are observed by the body of these landscapes.

One of the fundamental qualities of the photographs is that they escape our attempts to rationalise them and make them part of our understanding of the world, to quantify our existence in terms of materiality. I have an intimate feeling with regard to these sites of engagement. They are both once familiar and unfamiliar to us; they possess a sense of nowhereness. A sense of groundlessness and groundedness. A collapsing of near and far, looking down, looking along, a collapsing of the constructed world.

Why here? Why this particular angle? This section of the visible, this turn in the road. Not quite knowing where we are, we are neither here nor there, within nor without. It is an experience of being between the two – a potential space, a “between” that is formed only in the simultaneous presence of the two. As Donald Winnicott has observed in the book In/different Spaces by Victor Burgin, it is “the potential space between the subjective object and the object objectively perceived” that becomes the location of cultural experience.

“Those things of which I can perceive the beginnings and the end are not my self.” Grimm says. Like the road in these photographs there is no self just an infinite time that has no beginning and no end. The time before my birth, the time after my death. We are just in the world, just being somewhere. Life is just a temporary structure on the road from order to disorder. “The road is life,” writes Jack Kerouac in On the Road.

John’s skill as a photographer is to make visible the not really seen, potential spaces that we could have not have imagined otherwise. And for that, John, I am grateful.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

John Bodin (Australian)
Into the Mystic
2009
Type C print on metallic paper
80 x 110cm

John Bodin (Australian)
Into Timeless Shadows
2009
Type C print on metallic paper
80 x 110 cm

John Bodin (Australian)
Remembrance of Some Lost Bliss
2009
Type C print on metallic paper
80 x 110 cm

John Bodin
So Ghostly Easy
2009
Type C print on metallic paper
80 x 110 cm

John Bodin (Australian)
Somewhere Along the Line the Pearl would be Handed to Me
2009
Type C print on metallic paper
80 x 110 cm

John Bodin (Australian)
The One Distinct Moment of My Life
2009
Type C print on metallic paper
80 x 110 cm

Anita Traverso Gallery
PO Box 7001, Hawthorn North 3122
Phone: 0408 534 034

Anita Traverso Gallery website

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Exhibition: ‘Adam Fuss A Survey of his Work: 1986/2010’ at Huis Marseille Museum for Photography, Amsterdam

Exhibition dates: 11th June – 4th September 2011

Many thankx to the Huis Marseille Museum for allowing me to publish the text and photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Installation view of the exhibition Adam Fuss A Survey of his Work: 1986/2010 at Huis Marseille Museum for Photography, Amsterdam showing at right, Untitled (1999, below) from the series My Ghost

Adam Fuss (British, b. 1961)
Untitled
1999
From the series My Ghost
Gelatine silver print photogram
195.3 x 141.3cm
Unique piece
Courtesy Cheim & Read, New York
© Adam Fuss

Installation view of the exhibition Adam Fuss A Survey of his Work: 1986/2010 at Huis Marseille Museum for Photography, Amsterdam showing at second right, Untitled (1999, below) from the series My Ghost

Adam Fuss (British, b. 1961)
Untitled
1999
From the series My Ghost
Platinum print photogram
100.3 x 76.2cm
Unique piece
Courtesy Cheim & Read, New York
© Adam Fuss

Installation view of the exhibition Adam Fuss A Survey of his Work: 1986/2010 at Huis Marseille Museum for Photography, Amsterdam showing at left, Untitled (2003, below)

Adam Fuss (British, b. 1961)
Untitled
2003
Digital pigment print
182.9 x 111.8cm
Edition 6/7
Courtesy Cheim & Read, New York
© Adam Fuss

Adam Fuss (British, b. 1961)
Untitled
1998
76.2 x 101.6cm
Private Collection
© Adam Fuss

Adam Fuss (British, b. 1961)
Invocation
1992
Cibachrome photogram
101.6 x 76.2cm
Unique piece
Courtesy Cheim & Read, New York
© Adam Fuss

Distance

What immediately stands out with the work of Adam Fuss is that, both in terms of the chosen subject matter and in his approach to the photographic technique, he has greatly dissociated himself from conventional photography. That which Fuss produces is, in fact, still a photograph; but in order to achieve that, he did rid himself of all the finer luxuries available to users of the medium nowadays. Like a present-day alchemist, Fuss has mastered the medium’s most elementary and primitive forms; he sees just as much potential for creativity in technical knowledge as in the imagination, or the visionary power of the photographer.

His subjects (silhouettes, gossamer christening gowns, rabbits, butterflies, snakes, lace, smoke, drops of water) have also been removed from their natural habitats. In the studio they become so epitomised that they assume the strength and quality of a symbol, or icon, fraught with emotion. Fuss seems, figuratively speaking, to have given wings to his images: they have a weightless and elusive appearance, as though being supernatural in origin and import.

Bipolarity

Though ostensibly sublime, the work’s impact on the viewer is nevertheless one of predominantly earthly beauty. This may be a consequence of the bipolarity that lies at the heart of it. All of Fuss’s endeavours have a twofold focus: on matter and mind, on earth or water and the dynamics of fire or air – in short, on vital forces in relation to space and history. Sometimes, as a true photographic magician, he allows the vital fluids of animals (snakes, rabbits) literally to corrode the silver salts of the light-sensitive photographic emulsions. As though trying to allow the image and its model to share the same source of life.

In his technique as well, Fuss wants to reconcile, to connect, past and present. With this he goes back, through experimentation, to the source. Here and there his printing technique is reminiscent of the zeal and the limitations with which Daguerre and Fox Talbot, the disputed founders of photography, wanted to put their discoveries into practice. In the course of time, he came to master the various old and highly complex processes – that of the daguerreotype, the calotype, the photogram, the platinum print – to a degree that remains unsurpassed. Each of these works is unique, and their technical standard is unparalleled. Fuss’s accomplishments include the making of the world’s largest daguerreotypes. (Both daguerreotypes of the Taj Mahal on display here can be counted among these.)

‘Poetic Genius’

Throughout his work Adam Fuss seeks the very essence of the image; to him that lies particularly at the point where an observation of reality is so intensified that it takes on magical powers, so to speak. His outlook on this comes from the notion of ‘Poetic Genius’ expressed by the British poet, writer, engraver and painter William Blake (1757-1827). It seems that Fuss’s idea of producing daguerreotypes of poems and incorporating them into his work also began with Blake.

In Fuss’s extensive 1998 interview with Mark Haworth Booth (then Curator of Photography at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London) he explained this in relation to his photographs of babies in water, saying that the colour photographs are actually not about an individual, a child. The titles Invocation, Journey, Wish have more to do with emotional, romantic ideas. What the image conveys is a feeling, a sensibility. This is no depiction of a baby in water, even though it may be that as well.

Fuss has an incomparable command of the photogram technique. Since 1988 he has been achieving astonishing results with this. The photogram is produced without a camera – and yields, by definition, a unique print. The physical and lifelike quality of these silhouettes is further heightened by the 1:1 scale on which this technique is based. The previously mentioned photographs of babies in water, from the series Invocation (a continuous series with silhouettes of children) are the earliest photograms shown here. Since 1999 Fuss has been making work which he titles My Ghost. Here the themes relate to memory, loss, but also images of remarkable beauty, such as those of peacock feathers. In this series his magnificent daguerreotypes play a leading role.

Press release from the Huis Marseille Museum

Adam Fuss (British, b. 1961)
For Allegra
2009
From the series My Ghost
Daguerreotype
70 x 105cm
Collection Richard Edwards, Aspen, Colorado
© Adam Fuss

Adam Fuss (British, b. 1961)
Untitled
1988
Gelatin silver print photogram
144.8 x 141cm
Unique piece
Collection Robin Katz
© Adam Fuss

Installation view of the exhibition Adam Fuss A Survey of his Work: 1986/2010 at Huis Marseille Museum for Photography, Amsterdam showing at left, Untitled (1999, below) from the series My Ghost; at second left, Medusa
(2010, below); and at right, Untitled (1999, below) from the series My Ghost

Adam Fuss (British, b. 1961)
Untitled
1997
From the series My Ghost
Gelatin silver print photogram
160 x 104.1cm
Collection Jan Widlund
© Adam Fuss

Adam Fuss (British, b. 1961)
Medusa
2010
From the series Home and the World
Gelatin silver print photogram
240 x 144.1cm
Edition of 9
Unique print
Courtesy Timothy Taylor Gallery, London
© Adam Fuss

Adam Fuss (British, b. 1961)
Untitled
1999
From the series My Ghost
Gelatine silver print photogram
38 x 75cm
Unique piece
Collection John Cheim
© Adam Fuss

Adam Fuss (British, b. 1961)
Love
1993
Cibachrome photogram
124.5 x 98.4cm
Unique piece
Courtesy Cheim & Read, New York
© Adam Fuss

Huis Marseille Museum for Photography
Keizersgracht 401
1016 EK Amsterdam

Opening hours:
Daily 10 – 18 hr

Huis Marseille Museum for Photography website

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Exhibition: ‘Another Story. Photography from the Moderna Museet Collection’ at Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Exhibition dates: 1st February, 2011 – 19th February, 2012

Installation view of the exhibition Another Story at Moderna Museet, Stockholm
Photo: Albin Dahlström/Moderna Museet

A posting from an exhibition highlighting a collection of over 100,000 photographs – how lucky are they!

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to the Moderna Museet for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Annika von Hausswolff (Swedish, b. 1967)
I Am the Runway of Your Thoughts
2008
Moderna Museet
© Annika von Hausswolff

In 2011, all the galleries will be successively rehung exclusively with photographic art. The chronology will be the same, but the 20th century will be presented from a partly new perspective. Moderna Museet will take a radical step, with Another Story – Photography from the Moderna Museet Collection. …

There is a growing interest in photography today, as proven by the panoply of exhibitions, fairs and festivals throughout the world. And this is hardly surprising. Nowadays, practically everyone is a photographer, at the very least snapping pictures with the camera built into most mobiles.

Moderna Museet’s collection of photography, ranging from 1840 to the present day, is one of the finest in Europe, featuring many of the most prominent names in photo history and comprising more than 100,000 photographs. The collection provides a historic background to the art of photography, and now we are sharing this with all our visitors. Moreover, several magnificent private donations have recently enriched the collection with works by famous artists practising in the field of photography.

Text from the Moderna Museet website

Another Story: Possessed by the Camera

1970-2010

Another Story: Possessed by the Camera highlighting contemporary photo-based art 1970-2010

From the 1970s, people have challenged the notion that the purpose of art is to show authentic identities. Instead, the camera is used to emphasise the potential of role-play and how identity can be constructed.

The reproduction of reality in the mass media has radically changed the conditions for our lives. The camera became an especially useful artistic tool in exploring the role-play of existence. The veracity of photography was called into question. By manipulating images and presenting them as authentic depictions, artists warned viewers to be critical and on their guard against how images are used in general.

These changes generated a broad range of photographic practices. Traditionally oriented photographers refined their aesthetic methods towards exquisitely artificial images. Robert Mapplethorpe, for instance, revived classical notions of beauty to undermine social prejudices against homosexuality.

Others experimented with digital manipulations and created new realities out of existing worlds. In the 1980s, the artistic use of photography went even further, in veritably philosophical studies of the many levels of meaning in representation. Since the late 1970s, Cindy Sherman has portrayed herself in stereotypical female disguises as a means of exploring the complexity of specific identities.

As a consequence of the dramatic innovations of the digital era, information and entertainment from far and wide are intermingled. Our formerly distinct notions of time and space have become fuzzier.

Annika von Hausswolff’s I Am the Runway of Your Thoughts from 2008 captures the feeling of trying to grasp and control something that is perceived as a vague threat. The concept of identity is no longer only linked to ethnicity, gender and class. Instead, it can be constructed out of surprising mixtures of given conditions and chosen ideals.

Text from the Moderna Museet website

Annika von Hausswolff (Swedish, b. 1967)
I Am the Runway of Your Thoughts (detail)
2008
Moderna Museet
© Annika von Hausswolff

Andreas Gursky (German, b. 1955)
Bibliothek
1999
Moderna Museet
© Andreas Gursky/BUS 2011

Candida Höfer (German, b. 1944)
The Louvre in Paris X 2005 – the caryatid hall
2005
Moderna Museet
© Candida Höfer/BUS 2011

Graciela Iturbide (Mexican, b. 1942)
Magnolia (2), Juchitán, México (Magnolia with Sombrero / Magnolia con sombrero)
1986
Gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet
© Graciela Iturbide

Thomas Ruff (German, b. 1958)
Häuser Nummer 9
1989
Moderna Museet
© Thomas Ruff/BUS 2011

Cindy Sherman (American, b. 1954)
Untitled
2008
Moderna Museet
© Courtesy of the Artist and Metro Pictures

In 2011, Moderna Museet’s new directors, Daniel Birnbaum and Ann-Sofi Noring, will launch a new presentation of the collection. Another Story gives a fresh angle on art history, based on works from the Moderna Museet collection. We will start by focusing on photography, which will gradually be given a more prominent position, only to fill the entire exhibition of the permanent collection this autumn.

If you want an art collection to develop and stay alive, it can’t remain static. You need to present it in new ways and look at it from new angles. That may sound obvious, but it is not that common. In 2011, Moderna Museet will take a radical step, with Another Story. Photography from the Moderna Museet Collection. This is possibly the most extreme re-hanging of the collection undertaken in the history of the museum.

Moderna Museet has one of Europe’s finest collections of photography, ranging from 1840 to the present day. Many of the most famous names in photographic history are represented, and the collection comprises more than 100,000 works. The re-hanging of the permanent collection exhibition will be done in three stages. In February, we will open the first part, Another Story: Possessed by the Camera, which presents contemporary photography-based art. Just before summer, we open Another Story: See the World!, presenting the period 1920-1980. This autumn, finally, we look at the early days of photography. Another Story: Written in Light presents the pioneers of photography from 1840 to the first three decades of the 20th century. In autumn 2011 and for the rest of the year, the entire permanent collection exhibition will consist of photography and photo-based art.

Text from the Moderna Museet website [Online] Cited 22/07/2011 no longer available online

Aleksandr Rodchenko (Russian, 1891-1956)
Sjukov-masten, radiomast i Moskva
1929
Gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet
© Aleksandr Rodtjenko

Another Story: See the World!

1920-1980

Another Story: See the World! focuses on the period 1920-1980.

Many documentary photographers are driven by a strong urge to portray events, places and people in their everyday surroundings. For some, it has been a life-long commitment to uncover and reveal social injustices. For others, it has represented a way of sharing experiences and developing documentary photography in a more personal and artistic direction.

The camera give photographers opportunities to approach vulnerable, sometimes hidden or forgotten, groups and environments. This presentation includes Larry Clark’s intimate and controversial photographs of his drugabusing friends in their hometown, Tulsa. The same theme is found in Nan Goldin’s raw colour portraits.

Amalias Street 5a is on the outskirts of old Riga, a wooden house with 37 inhabitants, documented by the photographer Inta Ruka since 2004. Together with Antanas Sutkus, she is a prominent figure on the Baltic photography scene that commented on and adapted itself to the Soviet Union in the 1980s and 90s, and then documented the changes in the post-Soviet era.

Christer Strömholm and his students also worked in the documentary tradition. Anders Petersen is perhaps the photographer who has most distinctly followed in Strömholm’s footsteps, as in his legendary series from Café Lehmitz in Hamburg (1967-70). Other photographers who have developed individual perspectives in their portrayals of Swedish society are JH Engström, Catharina Gotby and Lars Tunbjörk.

Throughout the history of photography, photographers have ventured for long periods into other people’s worlds and lives. To do that, however, and to earn their living while doing it, many photographers have worked simultaneously on independent projects, and on various commercial assignments. This has led to interesting links and shifts between socially oriented reportage, documentary projects, portrait photography and photographic art.

Text from the Moderna Museet website

August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
Die elegante Frau – Sekrutärin beine WDR
1927 / c. 1975
Gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet
© August Sander/BUS 2011

August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
Konditor (Pastry Cook)
1928
Gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet
© August Sander/BUS 2011

August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
Boxers
1929
Gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet
© August Sander/BUS 2011

Christer Strömholm (Swedish, 1918-2002)
Barcelona
1959
Gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet
© Christer Strömholm/Bildverksamheten Strömholm

Christer Strömholm (Swedish, 1918-2002)
Gina and Nana
1960
Gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet
© Christer Strömholm/Bildverksamheten Strömholm

Christer Strömholm (Swedish, 1918-2002)
Hiroshima
1963/1981
Gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet
© Christer Strömholm/Bildverksamheten Strömholm

Nan Goldin (American, b. 1953)
Couple in bed, Chicago
1977
Dye destruction print, Cibachrome
Moderna Museet
© Nan Goldin

Irving Penn (American, 1917-2009)
Frozen Foods with String Beans, New York, 1977
1977
Moderna Museet
© Irving Penn Foundation

Inta Ruka (Latvia, b. 1958)
Rihards Stibelis
2006
From the series Amãlija’s street 5a
Gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet
© Inta Ruka

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
The Mountain Nymph, Sweet Liberty
1866
Albumen print
Moderna Museet

Another Story: Written in Light

1840-1930

Another Story: Written in Light focuses on the pioneers from 1840 and up to the first three decades of the 20th century

The third part of Another Story. Photography from the Moderna Museet Collection has the subtitle Written in Light. It delineates the infancy of photography, from the moment when the Frenchman Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre developed the photographic process of the daguerreotype in 1839, to August Sander’s fascinating project People of the Twentieth Century, black-and-white portraits of German citizens from the first half of the 20th century.

In six rooms we present several pioneering feats of photography, unique works that contribute to Moderna Museet’s exceptional position among photography-collecting institutions. The section includes Julia Margaret Cameron, who portrayed famous Brits in the 1860s, revealing both their inner and outer character.

Guillaume Berggren’s photographs from 1880s Constantinople are legendary, as are Carleton E. Watkins’ documentation of the American West a few decades earlier. In addition to portraits, landscapes, nature and architecture were typical subjects for the early photographers. A few examples of present-day photography are interspersed, for instance Tom Hunter’s series in which he explored the urban landscape in the wake of industrialism around the turn of the millennium.

What does pictorialism stand for? In one of the larger rooms, we show photographs from the late 1800s up to the outbreak of the First World War, by photographers who were primarily fascinated by optical and visual issues. A seminal figure in the field of art photography is Henry B. Goodwin, famous for his striking artist portraits, painterly nudes and softly hazy Stockholm views.

Photography literally means “written in light”. The various experiments and remarkable documentations shown here encompass Nils Strindberg’s photographs from a disastrous balloon expedition to the North Pole in 1897. Three decades later, his negatives were developed, and the resulting prints are now in the Moderna Museet collection of photography.

Text from the Moderna Museet website

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916)
The Three Brothers
1861
Moderna Museet
Albumen print

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
Henry Taylor
October 10, 1867
Albumen print
Moderna Museet

G Félix T Nadar (France, 1820-1910) and Paul Nadar (France, 1856-1939)
Sarah Bernhardt in Pierrot, Murder of His Wife (Sarah Bernhardt dans Pierrot, assassin de sa femme)
1883/1938
Gelatin silver photograph from wet collodion negative mounted on cardboard
29.8 × 18.1cm
Moderna Museet
Purchase 1965

Nils Strindberg (Swedish, 1872-1897)
Örnen efter landningen. Ur serien Ingenjör Andrées luftfärd, 14/7 1897
The Eagle after landing. From the series Engineer Andrée’s flight, 14/7 1897
1897/1930
Moderna Museet
Gelatin silver print

Nils Strindberg (4 September 1872 – October 1897) was a Swedish photographer and scientist. He was one of the three members of S. A. Andrée’s ill-fated Arctic balloon expedition of 1897. …

Strindberg was invited to the Arctic balloon expedition of 1897 to create a photographic aerial record of the arctic. Before perishing on Kvitøya (White Island) with Andrée and Knut Frænkel, Strindberg recorded on film their long-doomed struggle on foot to reach populated areas. When the remains of the expedition were discovered by the Norwegian Bratvaag Expedition in 1930, five exposed rolls of film were found, one of them still in the camera. Docent John Hertzberg of the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm managed to save 93 of the theoretically 240 frames. A selection of these photos were published along with the diaries of the expedition as Med Örnen mot Polen (Stockholm: Bonnier (1930); British edition The Andrée diaries (1931); American edition Andrée’s Story (1932). The book credited the three explorers as its authors. In an article from 2004, Tyrone Martinsson published some digitally enhanced versions of Strindberg’s photos of the expedition, while lamenting the lack of care with which the original negatives were stored from 1944.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Henry B. Goodwin (Swedish, 1878-1971)
Katarina Lift (Katarinahissen), Slussen, Stockholm, Sweden
1918
Moderna Museet
Public domain

Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Moderna Museet is ten minutes away from Kungsträdgården, and twenty minutes from T-Centralen or Gamla Stan. Walk past Grand Hotel and Nationalmuseum on Blasieholmen, opposite the Royal Palace. After crossing the bridge to Skeppsholmen, continue up the hill. The entrance to Moderna Museet and Arkitekturmuseet is on the left-hand side.

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday 10am – 6pm
Closed Mondays

Moderna Museet website

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Photographs: ‘A Thousand Little Suns’ by Martina Lindqvist

July 2011

Martina Lindqvist (Finland, b. 1981)
Untitled 1
2011
From the series A Thousand Little Suns

This end of the world will occur without noise, without revolution, without cataclysm. Just as a tree loses leaves in the autumn wind, so the earth will see in succession the falling and perishing all its children, and in this eternal winter, which will envelop it from then on, she can no longer hope for either a new sun or a new spring. She will purge herself of the history of the worlds. The millions or billions of centuries that she had seen will be like a day. It will be only a detail completely insignificant in the whole of the universe. Presently the earth is only an invisible point among all the stars, because, at this distance, it is lost through its infinite smallness in the vicinity of the sun, which itself is by far only a small star. In the future, when the end of things will arrive on this earth, the event will then pass completely unperceived in the universe. The stars will continue to shine after the extinction of our sun, as they already shone before our existence. When there will no longer be on the earth a sole concern to contemplate, the constellations will reign again in the noise as they reigned before the appearance of man on this tiny globule. There are stars whose light shone some millions of years before we arrived … The luminous rays that we receive actually then departed from their bosom before the time of the appearance of man on the earth. The universe is so immense that it appears immutable, and that the duration of a planet such as that of the earth is only a chapter, less than that, a phrase, less still, only a word of the universe’s history.

Camille Flammarion, Le Fin du Monde (The End of the World) 1893

Many thankx to Martina Lindqvist for allowing me to publish the six photographs in this series. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Martina Lindqvist (Finland, b. 1981)
Untitled 2
2011
From the series A Thousand Little Suns

Martina Lindqvist (Finland, b. 1981)
Untitled 3
2011
From the series A Thousand Little Suns

A Thousand Little Suns is an autobiographical body of work that uses childhood landscapes as metaphor for human experience, and is further influenced by an interest in spatial psychology, or more precisely, the emotive effects of landscapes and forested wilder land. Marcault and Therese Brosse once wrote that “forests, especially, with the mystery of their space prolonged indefinitely beyond the veil of tree-trunks and leaves, space that is veiled for our eyes … are veritable psychological transcendents.” Forests, in spite of being the most natural of spaces, are truly unnatural for the cultured human being. Soon, if we don’t know where we are going we no longer know where we are, and standing on the brink of a forest always represents this possibility of going deeper and deeper into the unknown.

A Thousand Little Suns takes a contemplative look on the landscape of Ostrobothnia in central Finland, which during the autumn and winter months should be shrouded by an impenetrable darkness, but instead finds itself lit by a thousand glowing lights. Shining upon uneasy buildings trapped in the middle of darkness and light; forestation and cultured space, these ephemeral lights place the border with its inherent dialectical problematic of inside / outside in focus. The concept of the border is thus echoed in the structural quality of the land; in the patches of light with their opposing darkness, and is a reflection of the experience of an inherited yet closed off culture that was always seen through the eyes of a visitor.

Martina Lindqvist 2011

Martina Lindqvist (Finland, b. 1981)
Untitled 4
2011
From the series A Thousand Little Suns

Martina Lindqvist (Finland, b. 1981)
Untitled 5
2011
From the series A Thousand Little Suns

Martina Lindqvist (Finland, b. 1981)
Untitled 6
2011
From the series A Thousand Little Suns

Martina Lindqvist website

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Exhibition: ‘Ai Weiwei – Interlacing’ at Fotomuseum Winterthur, Zurich

Exhibition dates: 28th May – 21st August 2011

Many thankx to Fotomuseum Winterthur for allowing me to publish the text and the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for another version of the image.

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
Profile of Duchamp, Sunflower Seeds
1983
From New York Photographs, 1983-1993
C-print
20 x 28.5cm
© Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei – Interlacing is the first major exhibition of photographs and videos by Ai Weiwei. It foregrounds Ai Weiwei the communicator – the documenting, analysing, interweaving artist who communicates via many channels. Ai Weiwei already used photography in his New York years, but especially since his return to Beijing, he has incessantly documented the everyday urban and social realities in China, discussing it over blogs and Twitter. Photographs of radical urban transformation, of the search for earthquake victims, and the destruction of his Shanghai studio are presented together with his art photography projects, the Documenta project Fairytale, the countless blog and cell phone photographs. A comprehensive book accompanies this exhibition.

Ai Weiwei is a generalist, a conceptual, socially critical artist dedicated to creating friction with, and forming reality. As an architect, conceptual artist, sculptor, photographer, blogger, Twitterer, interview artist, and cultural critic, he is a sensitive observer of current topics and social problems: a great communicator and networker who brings life into art and art into life.

Ai Weiwei was born in 1957, the son of the poet Ai Qing. Following his studies at the Beijing Film Academy, he cofounded in 1978 the artists’ collective The Stars, which rejected Social Realism and advocated artistic individualism and experimentation in art. In 1981 Ai Weiwei went to the USA and 1983 to New York, where he studied at Parsons School for Design in the class of the painter Sean Scully. In New York he discovered artists like Allen Ginsberg, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, and, above all, Marcel Duchamp. Duchamp is important for him because he understood art as part of life. At this time, Ai Weiwei produced his first ready-mades and thousands of photographs documenting his life and friends in the Chinese art community in New York. After his father fell ill, he returned to Beijing in 1993. In 1997 he cofounded the China Art Archives & Warehouse (CAAW) and began from then on to deal with architecture as well. Ai Weiwei opened his own studio in 1999 in Caochangdi and set up the architecture studio FAKE Design in 2003. In the same year, he played a major role, together with the Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, in the construction of the Olympic stadium, the so-called Bird’s Nest. Following its completion, it became a new symbol of Beijing. In 2007, 1001 Chinese visitors traveled, at his instigation, to Documenta 12 in Kassel (Fairytale). In 2010 the world marvelled at his large, yet formally minimal carpet of millions of hand-painted porcelain sunflower seeds at the Tate Modern.

Ai Weiwei deliberately confronts social conditions in China and in the world: Through photographically documenting the architectonic clear-cutting of Beijing in the name of progress, with provocative measurements of the world, his personal positionings in the Study of Perspective, with radical cuts in the past (made to found pieces of furniture) in order to create possibilities for the present and the future, and with his tens of thousands of blog entries, blog photographs, and cell phone photographs (along with many other artistic declarations). This first, large exhibition and book project of his photography and videos focuses on Ai Weiwei’s diversity, complexity, and connectedness, his “interlacing” and “networking” with hundreds of photographs, blogs, and explanatory essays.

The artist as network, as company, as activist, as political voice, as social container, as agent provocateur: at every moment – in the past, present, and future – every society on Earth needs outstanding unique figures like Ai Weiwei in order to stay awake, to be shaken awake, to be made to recognise their own obstinacy, and to be able to avoid tunnel vision. We are therefore deeply saddened that the completion of this book coincides with Ai Weiwei’s arrest which we deplore. We are extremely concerned about the artist. And we wish that this great thinker, designer, and fighter will remain a resistant public voice for all of us – and especially for China.

The exhibition and book were developed in close collaboration with Ai Weiwei. For reasons already mentioned, however, he was unable to be involved in completing the book. We continue to hope that he will be personally present for the installation of the exhibition.

Press release from the Fotomuseum Winterthur website [Online] Cited 06/07/2011 no longer available online

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
10/29/04, Hebei Carpet Factory, China
c. 2005-2009
From Blog Photographs
© Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)
Ai Weiwei. Williamsburg, Brooklyn
1983
From New York Photographs 1983-1993
C-print
29.2 x 20cm
© Ai Weiwei

Fotomuseum Winterthur
Grüzenstrasse 44 + 45 CH-8400
Winterthur (Zürich)

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday 11am – 6pm
Wednesday 11am – 8pm
Monday closed

Fotomuseum Winterthur website

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Book: ‘Spomenik’ by Jan Kempenaers

February 2011

Three Canons

Be still with yourself

Until the object of your attention

Affirms your presence

Let the Subject generate its own Composition

When the image mirrors the man

And the man mirrors the subject

Something might take over

Minor White 1968

“Gone is the modernist tenet of authorship in which everything in a photograph depends and can be traced to a single photographer acting in isolation. In its place, White supposes a relationship with subject that is a two way street: by granting the world some role in its own representation we create a photograph that is not so much a product solely of individual actions as it is the result of a negotiation in which the world and all its subjects might participate.”

Vince Leo

These are beautiful photographs; there is no fuss, no histrionics here. The use of light and the framing of subject are wonderful. The photographer has let the subject generate its own composition meaning that the sculptures speak for themselves: something takes over – an ethereal evocation of space and place.

The sculptures occupy a representational space appropriated by the imagination. “Lefebvre writes that it [representational space] “overlays physical space, making symbolic use of its objects” and is predominantly non-verbal in nature.”1 The photographs and their representational space offer the viewer the possibility of drifting (Guy Debord’s dérive) encouraging “an unplanned journey through a landscape… where an individual travels where the subtle aesthetic contours of the surrounding architecture and geography subconsciously direct them with the ultimate goal of encountering an entirely new and authentic experience.”2

I find the photographs truly authentic. I immerse myself in their presence: I embrace them because they are in my imagination, creatures of the deep recesses of the mind.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ Burgin, Victor. In/Different Spaces: Place and Memory in Visual Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995, p. 27
2/ Anonymous. “Dérive,” on the Wikipedia website [Online] Cited 28/06/2011

Many thankx to Jan Kempenaers for allowing me to publish the photographs and text in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image. All photographs © Jan Kempenaers and courtesy of the artist.

This monument, authored by sculptor Miodrag Živković, commemorates the Battle of Sutjeska, one of the bloodiest battles of World War II in the former Yugoslavia.

World War II

Since nearly the beginning of Axis powers taking control of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in April of 1941, the armies of Germany, Italy and their other Axis collaborators had been battling against armed uprisings of local resistance forces, most notably Josip Tito’s communist Partisan Army. As the Partisans in large part relied on guerilla tactics and unconventional warfare, they became a significant force for the Axis leadership to reckon with. As a result, the German Army created a set of targeted operations to take out Tito specifically, which they felt would behead the Partisan’s leadership and destroyed the movement. The first attempt at subduing Tito took place in January of 1943, during what the German’s called Operation Case White, which the Yugoslav’s later referred to as the Battle of Neretva near Makljen. However, this operation ended in Tito dramatically escaping at the last moment.

In May of 1943, Axis powers set upon Tito again with a new operation called Case Black. The operation was initiated with 127,000 Axis forces pursuing 22,000 Yugoslav Partisans across the Durmitor Mountains, then north into the Zelengora Mountains of present-day Bosnia. Then, in early June of 1943, the Partisans were subsequently boxed in and trapped within Axis lines on Vučevo Mountain on the east Sutjeska River valley, near the small village of Tjentište. As a result, a massive battle between the two sides ensued in what today is known as the ‘Battle of Sutjeska’ (Bitka na Sutjesci). Despite this hopeless seeming situation, Tito orchestrated a daring move where, starting on the morning of June 9th, he ordered Partisan units to begin breaking west across the open valley and over the river. Some of the Partisans were surprisingly successful in breaking the German lines, at which point they headed up a steep ravine of Ozren Mountain and were then able to break north through German lines and escape past Goražde through the mountains into eastern Bosnia.

Despite this ambitious and daring escape Tito made during this seemingly hopeless battle, it came at a great cost of life. During the conflict, over 7,000 Partisan soldiers were killed. Tito’s escape at Sutjeska is considered a significant pivotal moment is the Partisan Liberation Struggle against the German-Italian Axis occupiers, as it proved that they were a formidable fighting force which could not easily be destroyed.

Anonymous text. “Tjentište,” on the Spomenik Database website Nd [Online] Cited 22/07/2022

The Petrova Gora monument was designed by Vojin Bakić and built in 1982. It was dedicated to the people of Kordun and Banija who died during World War II. It was dismantled in 2011.

The Kosmaj monument in Serbia is dedicated to soldiers of the Kosmaj Partisan detachment from World War II.

The Kruševo Makedonium monument in Macedonia was dedicated to the Ilinden Uprising of 1903, when the Bulgarian population revolted against the Ottoman Empire.

Ilinden Uprising

The primary historical event this monument commemorates is the Ilinden Uprising, which was an uprising of Macedonian IMARO rebels initiated against Ottoman rule on August 2nd, 1903. During this time, in the region of present-day Kruševo, resistance fighters proclaimed this newly liberated land to be the land of the Kruševo Republic, under the leadership of then school-teacher turned war-hero Nikola Karev. This separatist territory lasted less than two weeks before it was suppressed by 176,000 Turk soldiers and put back under Ottoman control, with nearly 9000 people being executed at the hands of the Turks in retaliation.

World War II

In addition, this spomenik commemorates the local Kruševo fighters of the People’s Liberation Struggle (WWII) who struggled under the Partisan banner to help free Macedonian from Axis and fascist occupation. On August 19th, 1942, the Kruševo Partisan Detachment was formed as a force of community soldiers who engaged in skirmishes with Axis troops across Macedonia until Kruševo’s liberation by Soviet-backed Bulgarians during the fall of 1944. Macedonia was officially declared a nation-state during the Anti-fascist Assembly for the National Liberation of Macedonia (ASNOM), held at Prohor of Pčinja Monastery, on August 2nd, 1944, which was a date symbolically chosen to align with the date of the Ilinden Uprising, as the ASNOM gathering considered itself the ‘Second Ilinden’. Presently, this date is still celebrated in Macedonia as the Day of the Republic.

Anonymous text. “Kruševo,” on the Spomenik Database website Nd [Online] Cited 22/07/2022

The Susanjar Memorial Complex in Bosnia and Herzegovina was created in remembrance of the thousands killed by Germans during the Orthodox festival of Ilindan in 1941.

Spomenik Construction

Preliminary plans to construct a memorial complex at the Sanski Most execution site for the commemoration of these tragedies was organised in late 1968. At this point, an official selection board was convened to arrange this memorial’s construction. This board consisted of municipal officials as well as generals and officials of the SR of Bosnia who were from the Sanski Most region. The chairman of the board was Yugoslav WWII hero Petar Dodik, at this time a lawyer from Sarajevo. Funding for the project was raised by this board largely via public voluntary donations from those in the community. Three specific notable designers were considered by the board to create the monument, all who had varying ideas of what the monument should look like. Belgrade architect Bogdan Bogdanović, wanted to construct a ‘Tower of Babel’ themed structure, but the design selection committee found this concept unacceptable. Famous Zagreb sculptor Vanja Radauš suggested a bone-shaped memorial, but this was also rejected, as it was felt it might incite feelings of anger and hatred towards Croats in general, especially as the memorial was intended to be a place of healing and reconciliation… not horror.

The project was eventually awarded to Sarajevo architect Petar Krstić, whose primary composition, completed in 1970, consisted of an aluminium flame-like obelisk set within an open paved courtyard. The complex’s approaching pathways were lined with stone tiles commemorating the victims killed and executed in the uprising. In addition, long crisscrossing concrete tubes are arranged around the monument as seating for visitors and as an outdoor classroom for students. The official commemoration ceremony for the memorial took place on August 2nd, 1971, a date which recognised 30 years since the 1941 St. Elijah’s Day killings. During the memorial’s construction, there was an alleged incident where when workers were digging in the ground to construct the memorial’s crypt, blood started to bubble up from the earth. After an investigation, it was determined to be human blood (presumably left over from the massacres which occurred on the site) which had seeped into the ground and mixed with moist clay, allowing it to remain viscous and suspended. However, I was not able to find definitive corroborating evidence of this event. Also, after the monument’s official opening in 1971, a series of annual poetry reading events called the ‘Šušnjar Literary Festival’ were held at the site every August 2nd during the monument’s remembrance ceremonies.

Symbolism

It has been stated by the creator of this memorial sculpture, Petar Krstić, that its sharply irregular and luminescent form is meant to resemble the shape of a shining leaping flame and that said form is meant to be symbolic of the light of life and the victorious process of overcoming the threat of fascism which caused such sufferings to the people of the Sanski Most region. Such a universally understood image of the flame representing the ‘light of life’ was mostly surely chosen by the memorial’s selection board with the intention that it would be an inclusive and non-incendiary symbol pleasing all members of the town’s ethnically divided population. In addition, Krstić explained that his sculpture was meant to symbolise not only the suffering of people in Sanski Most, but suffering of all people throughout the ages. Such statements reinforce the ‘universalist’ interpretations of this sculpture. Interestingly, Krstić’s original design called for the memorial sculpture to emit sounds and lights from a machine within the structure, which would symbolise the struggle and suffering of the people of Sanski Most – however, this experimental concept became cost prohibitive and was never integrated into the site.

Anonymous text. “Sanski Most,” on the Spomenik Database website Nd [Online] Cited 22/07/2022

Built in 1963, this monument in Niš, Serbia commemorates the 10,000 people from the area that were killed during World War II. The three clenched fists are the work of sculptor Ivan Sabolić.

This monument is in Korenica, on the border of Croatia and Bosnia. It commemorates Yugoslavia’s victory in World War II.

This monument is dedicated to the soldiers who freed the city of Knin, Croatia from the fascists during World War II.

Built in 1949, this monument was designed by Vojin Bakić and is dedicated to the fallen fighters of the Yugoslav front.

The Kadinjača Memorial Complex commemorates those who died during the Battle of Kadinjača.

Serbia’s most grandiose spomenik (Yugoslav-era memorial), Kadinjača commemorates the Partisans from the Workers’ Battalion who perished on this spot fighting the Germans in November 1941. Rising on a green hill like some futuristic Stonehenge, the arresting series of white granite monoliths of various heights and angles culminates in two 14m-high pillars that together form a symbolic ‘bullet hole’ sculpture. The 15-hectare complex comprises a stone pyramid with a crypt for the fallen soldiers.

There’s a memorial hall with an exhibition about the historic event. The Partisans’ heroic defeat at the battle of Kadinjača marked the end of the short-lived Republic of Užice, the first liberated territory in German-occupied Europe. Proclaimed by Yugoslavia’s legendary resistance movement, it covered an area of about 20,000 sq km in western Serbia and lasted only 67 days.

Anonymous text. “Kadinjača Memorial Complex,” on the Lonely Planet website Nd [Online] Cited 22/07/2022