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Exhibition: ‘Berenice Abbott (1898-1991), Photographs’ at Jeu de Paume, Paris

Exhibition dates: 21st February – 29th April 2012

Curator: Gaëlle Morel

Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991)
New York Stock Exchange, New York City
1933
Gelatin silver print
24 x 19cm
Ronald Kurtz / Commerce Graphics
© Berenice Abbott / Commerce Graphics Ltd, Inc.

It is not her portraits or the road trip photographs, nor her scientific work for which Berenice Abbott will be remembered. Firstly, she will always be remembered as the person who photographed Eugene Atget in 1927 just before he died and who bought the remainder of his negatives (after the French government had bought over 2,000 in 1920 and another 2,000 had been sold after his death). She then tirelessly promoted Atget’s work helping him gain international recognition until her sale of the archive to the Museum of Modern Art in 1968. Secondly, she is remembered for her magnificent photographs of New York City and its urban environs, photographs that show the influence of Atget in their attention to detail and understanding of the placement of the camera, and imaging of old and new parts of the city (much as Atget had photographed old Paris before it was destroyed). However, these photographs are uniquely her own, with their modernist New Vision aesthetic, bold perspectives and use of deep chiaroscuro to enhance form within the photograph. Abbott’s best known project, Changing New York (1935-1939) eventually consisted of 305 photographs that document the buildings of Manhattan, some of which are now destroyed. As the text on Wikipedia insightfully notes:

“Abbott’s project was primarily a sociological study imbedded within modernist aesthetic practices. She sought to create a broadly inclusive collection of photographs that together suggest a vital interaction between three aspects of urban life: the diverse people of the city; the places they live, work and play; and their daily activities. It was intended to empower people by making them realise that their environment was a consequence of their collective behaviour (and vice versa). Moreover, she avoided the merely pretty in favour of what she described as “fantastic” contrasts between the old and the new, and chose her camera angles and lenses to create compositions that either stabilised a subject (if she approved of it), or destabilised it (if she scorned it).”

In the text below Gaëlle Morel observes, “Rather than the kind of nostalgic approach often brought to bear on a city’s landmarks and typical sites, this ensemble offers an exploration of the nature of modernity and focuses on the ways in which the past and future are temporarily linked together. Seeking to reinvent the forms and functions of photography in relation to the practice of documentary, Abbott sets out to capture the “disappearance of the moment” by juxtaposing motifs from a city subject to an unprecedented process of demolition and reconstruction.”

While Abbott’s photographs are definitely modernist in nature I believe that today they can also be seen as deeply nostalgic, emerging as they do in the period after the Great Depression when the economy was on the move again, a peaceful time before the oncoming armageddon of the Second World War, closely followed by the fear of nuclear annihilation and the threat of communist indoctrination. They are timeless portraits of a de/reconstructed city. The images seem to float in the air, breathe in the shadows. This is the disappearance of the moment into the enigma of past, present, future – where the photograph becomes eternal, where the best work of both Atget and Abbott resides.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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

Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991)
Treasury Building, New York City
1933
Gelatin silver print
51 x 40.5cm
Ronald Kurtz / Commerce Graphics
© Berenice Abbott / Commerce Graphics Ltd, Inc.

Architecture

“The tempo of the city is not that of eternity, nor that of time, but that of the ephemeral. That is why recording it is so important, in both documentary and artistic terms.”

“All the photographs of New York took a long time to make, because the camera had to be carefully positioned. There is nothing fortuitous about these photographs.”

The exhibition features a substantial collection from Abbott’s best known project, Changing New York (1935-1939). Commissioned by the Roosevelt administration as part of its response to the nationwide economic crisis, Abbott saw this piece of work as both a way of documenting the City and as a personal work of art. Eighty of the 305 photographs taken by Abbott are on show here, along with various documents providing insight into the background of this major photographic undertaking, including posters and views of the exhibition organised by the Museum of the City of New York in 1937, sketches and historical notes made by the team of journalists working with Abbott on the project, and proofs and dummies of the layout made by the photographer before she started work.

Abbott homes in on the contrasts between old and new elements in the City’s structure. Her images alternate between a New Vision aesthetic, characterised by an emphasis on details and bold perspectives, and a more documentary style that is frontal and neutral. Rather than the kind of nostalgic approach often brought to bear on a city’s landmarks and typical sites, this ensemble offers an exploration of the nature of modernity and focuses on the ways in which the past and future are temporarily linked together. Seeking to reinvent the forms and functions of photography in relation to the practice of documentary, Abbott sets out to capture the “disappearance of the moment” by juxtaposing motifs from a city subject to an unprecedented process of demolition and reconstruction.

In 1938, hoping to take advantage of the fifty million visitors expected at the New York World’s Fair of 1939, the publisher, E.P. Dutton, offered to bring out a selection of one hundred images from the project accompanied by a text by the renowned art critic Elizabeth McCausland, who also happened to be Abbott’s companion and staunch supporter. Going against the women’s original ideas for an art book, Dutton produced a more standard tourist guide, breaking the City down into a series of tours, from south to north and from the centre outwards. The text, too, was shorn of its poetic and pedagogical dimensions, leaving only informative entries about the buildings in the pictures.

In the exhibition, this set of architectural photographs is rounded out by a selection of pictures of vernacular architecture taken by Abbott during a journey in the southern states of the US in the 1930s and when she was travelling along Route 1 in the 1950s. Here, portraits of farmers and wooden houses alternate with pictures of streets and local events.

Berenice Abbott Petit Journal

With over 120 photographs, plus a selection of books and documents never shown before, this is the first exhibition in France to cover the many different facets of the American photographer Berenice Abbott (1898-1991), who is also famous for her international advocacy of Eugène Atget. She came to Paris in 1921 where she learnt her craft from Man Ray before opening her own studio and embarking on a successful career as a portraitist. Returning to New York City in 1929, she conceived what remains her best‑known project, Changing New York (1935-1939). This was financed by the Works Progress Administration as part of its response to the economic crisis sweeping the country. The photographs she took in 1954 when travelling along the US East Coast on Route 1 (the exhibition presents a previously unseen selection of these images) reflect her ambition to represent the whole of what she called the “American scene.” Furthermore, in the 1950s, she also worked on a set of images for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) designed to illustrate the principles of mechanics and light for educational purposes.

A committed member of the avant‑garde from the early 1920s, and a staunch opponent of Pictorialism and the school of Alfred Stieglitz, Abbott spent the whole of her career exploring the limits and nature of documentary photography and photographic realism. This exhibition shows the rich array of her interests and conveys both the unity and diversity of her work.

Portraits

Berenice Abbott moved to New York City in the early 1920s and went about becoming a sculptor. Mixing in the bohemian circles of Greenwich Village, she met writers and artists such as Djuna Barnes, Sadakichi Hartmann and Marcel Duchamp. She also posed for Man Ray. Economic hardship at home and the allure of what then seemed the cultural Eldorado of Europe impelled several of these artists to try their luck in Paris, and Abbott herself joined this group of American expatriates in 1921.

In 1923 she became the assistant of Man Ray, who had opened a portrait studio shortly after his arrival in France in 1921. While a fair portion of the studio’s clients were American tourists, Abbott found herself at the heart of the avant-garde scene – especially that of the Surrealists. Between 1923 and 1926 she thus learnt about darkroom techniques and portrait photography while at the same time picking up a broader intellectual and artistic education. She produced her portraits in Man Ray’s studio before opening her own in 1926. Success soon followed. Her clientele was a mixture of French cultural figures and American expatriates, of bourgeois, bohemians and literary types. Her portraits were on occasion manifestly influenced by Surrealism, and more generally show an interest in masquerade, play and disguise, but sometimes even in their use of overprinting and distortion.

The female models express a kind of sexual ambiguity, notably by their masculine haircut or clothes, deliberately exuding a sense of uncertainty with regard to their identity. In composing her portraits, Abbott developed a distinctive aesthetic, far removed from the usual commercial conventions. The absence of a set, with the background usually no more than a plain wall, helped to focus on the sitter and their posture, the position of their body and their facial expression. The use of a tripod and long-focus lenses placed at eye-height allowed her to avoid distortions and thus heighten the physical presence of the models. In early 1929 Abbott left Paris for New York City. Back in America she continued with the same activities, opening a new portrait studio and taking part in exhibitions of modernist photography, while also promoting the work of Eugène Atget, having bought part of his estate in 1928.

New York City

In the early 1930s, Abbott set about her project for a great documentary portrait of the City of New York, but had no luck when she approached institutions such as the Museum of the City of New York and the New York Historical Society for funding. She assembled her first efforts in an album (eight pages of which are exhibited here) in order to convey the scale of her ambitious undertaking, and in 1934 exhibited her photographs of the City at the Museum of the City of New York in the hope of attracting sponsors. In 1935, support was at last forthcoming from the Federal Art Project, a programme set up to aid artists by the Works Progress Administration as part of the New Deal; she now had the support of a team of researchers who produced an information pack with text and drawings to accompany each image. Entitled Changing New York, she conceived this commission as both a vast documentary record of the City and a personal work of art. Eighty of the 305 photographs constituting this project have been selected for the exhibition. These are accompanied by documents – a poster, exhibition views, sketches and historical notes, proofs, pages from the preparatory album and original editions – that help to convey the concerns and ambitions behind this major photographic undertaking.

Abbott focused on the contrasts and links between old and new in the City’s structure. Her images alternate between a New Vision aesthetic, characterised by an emphasis on details and bold perspectives, and a more documentary style that is frontal and neutral. Rather than the kind of nostalgic approach often brought to bear on a city’s landmarks and typical sites, this ensemble offers an exploration of the nature of modernity and focuses on the ways in which the past and future are temporarily linked together. Seeking to reinvent the forms and functions of photography in relation to the practice of documentary, Abbott sets out to capture the “vanishing instant” by juxtaposing motifs from a city subject to an unprecedented process of demolition and reconstruction.

The upshot of all this work was the publication of a book, Changing New York, in 1939. But there was considerable tension between the publisher, whose concerns were commercial, and the photographer, with her artistic ambitions. In 1938, hoping to take advantage of the fifty million visitors expected at the New York World’s Fair of 1939, the publishing house E.P. Dutton proposed to bring out a selection of one hundred images from the project accompanied by a text from the renowned art critic Elizabeth McCausland, who also happened to be Abbott’s companion and unfailing supporter. Straying far from the project originally envisaged by the two women, Dutton changed the presentation of the photographs and produced what was a standard tourist guide, breaking the City down into a series of tours, from south to north and from the centre outwards. The text, too, was shorn of its poetic and pedagogical dimensions, leaving only information about the buildings in the pictures.

The “American scene”

This set of architectural images is completed by a selection of vernacular photographs. In the summer of 1935, Berenice Abbott went on a road trip down to the Southern US in order to create a portrait of a rural world in crisis. Choosing the kind of documentary style that would be the hallmark of the photographic survey launched by the Farm Security Administration (FSA) that same year, she focused on the modest wooden houses and the farmers. Driving around these states with Elizabeth McCausland, Abbott took some two hundred photographs which the two women saw as part of an ambitious photographic portrait of America in book form, although in the end this was never published. A similar fate befell Abbott’s piece on the small towns and villages along Route 1, which she travelled in 1954. Covering approximately 6,500 kilometres as she followed this road along the East Coast of the US, she took some 2,400 photographs, taking in stalls, shops, portraits of farmers, diners and bars and dance halls. Her photography alternated between the documentary aesthetic and Street Photography. With Route 1, Abbott continued to pursue her ambition of representing the whole of the “American scene.”

Science

Abbott started photographing scientific phenomena in 1939. In 1944 she was recruited by the journal Science Illustrated, where she published some of her own pictures, as head of its photography department. Abbott took a committed, pedagogical approach, seeing her images as a vital bridge between modern science and the general public. In 1957, as a result of the anxiety about national science stirred by the Soviet launch of the Sputnik into outer space, at the height of the Cold War, the National Science Foundation set up a Physical Science Study Committee at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Its role was to develop new textbooks for the teaching of science in schools and to use innovative photographs to illustrate the principles of quantum mechanics. Abbott was hired by MIT to produce photographs for the popularisation and teaching of the sciences. Using abstract forms to visually express complex mechanical concepts and invisible mechanical laws, she used black grounds to reveal principles such as gravity and light waves. The exhibition features a score of Abbott’s scientific and experimental images, as well as some of the books for which they were used. Harking back to the experiments of the avant-gardes, and in particular the Rayogram technique, she was able to produce visually attractive and surprising images that were also rich in discovery, thus combining documentary information with a sense of wonder.”

Text by Gaëlle Morel, curator of the exhibition, on the Jeu de Paume website

Presentation of the exhibition Berenice Abbott

The exhibition “Berenice Abbott (1898-1991), photographies” reveals for the first time in France the different stages of the career of this American photographer. This retrospective offers more than 120 photographs, original works and a series of unpublished documents. By presenting portraits, architectural photographs and scientific shots, the exhibition shows the multiple facets of a work often reduced to a few images.

Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991)
Triborough Bridge, East 125th Street Approach, New York City, June 29, 1937
1937
Gelatin silver print
24.5 x 19cm
Museum of the City of New York. Gift of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
© Berenice Abbott / Commerce Graphics Ltd, Inc.

Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991)
Broadway to the Battery, New York City, May 4, 1938
1938
Gelatin silver print
17.5 x 24cm
Museum of the City of New York
Museum Purchase with funds from the Mrs. Elon Hooker Acquisition Fund
© Berenice Abbott / Commerce Graphics Ltd, Inc.

Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991)
Flat Iron Building, Broadway and Fifth Avenue, New York City
1938
Gelatin silver print
101.5 x 76cm
Ronald Kurtz / Commerce Graphics
© Berenice Abbott / Commerce Graphics Ltd, Inc.

Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991)
Blossom Restaurant, 103 Bowery, New York City, October 24, 1935
1935
Gelatin silver print
19 x 24.5cm
Museum of the City of New York
Gift of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
© Berenice Abbott / Commerce Graphics Ltd, Inc.

Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991)
Sunoco Station, Trenton, New Jersey
1954
Gelatin silver print
19 x 24.5cm
Ronald Kurtz / Commerce Graphics
© Berenice Abbott / Commerce Graphics Ltd, Inc.

Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991)
Park Avenue and 39th Street, New York
1936
Gelatin silver print
19 x 24.5cm
© Berenice Abbott / Commerce Graphics Ltd, Inc.

Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991)
Gunsmith and Police Department Headquarters, 6 Centre Market Place and 240 Centre Street, New York City, February 4, 1937
1937
Gelatin silver print
19 x 24.5cm
Museum of the City of New York
Gift of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
© Berenice Abbott / Commerce Graphics Ltd, Inc.

Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991)
Happy’s Refreshment Stand, Daytona Beach, Florida
1954
Gelatin silver print
29.5 x 28cm
Ronald Kurtz / Commerce Graphics
© Berenice Abbott / Commerce Graphics Ltd, Inc.

Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991)
Miner, Greenview, West Virginia
1935
Gelatin silver print
25 x 19cm
Ronald Kurtz / Commerce Graphics
© Berenice Abbott / Commerce Graphics Ltd, Inc.

Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991)
Jean Cocteau with a revolver
1926
Gelatin silver print
35.5 x 28cm
Ronald Kurtz / Commerce Graphics.
© Berenice Abbott / Commerce Graphics Ltd, Inc.

Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991)
Eugène Atget
Paris, 1927
Gelatin silver print
© Berenice Abbott/Commerce Graphics.

Jeu de Paume
1, place de la Concorde
75008 Paris
métro Concorde
Phone: 01 47 03 12 50

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Friday: 12am – 8pm
Saturday and Sunday: 11am – 7pm
Closed Monday

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Exhibition: ‘Cy Twombly: Photographs 1951-2010’ at the Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels

Exhibition dates: 1st February – 29th April 2012

Cy Twombly (American, 1928-2011)
Foundry, Rome
2000
Dryprint on cardboard
43.1 x 27.9cm
© Schirmer/Mosel Verlag – Nicola Del Roscio Foundation

“In a certain sense, Twombly operates like the Pictorialists: his photographs look almost like paintings in which light is captured in brushstrokes.”

Text from the press release

Many thankx to the Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Cy Twombly (American, 1928-2011)
Untitled (Rome)
1966
Oil, wall paint, grease crayon on canvas
190 x 200cm
Sammlung Lambrecht-Schadeberg / Rubenspreisträger der Stadt Siegen im Museum für Gegenwartskunst

Cy Twombly (American, 1928-2011)
Yard Sale, Lexington
2008
Dryprint on cardboard
43.1 x 27.9cm
© Schirmer/Mosel Verlag – Nicola Del Roscio Foundation

Cy Twombly (American, 1928-2011)
Untitled, Lexington
2008
Dryprint on cardboard
43.1 x 27.9cm
© Schirmer/Mosel Verlag – Fondazione Nicola del Roscio

Cy Twombly (American, 1928-2011)
The Artist’s Shoes, Lexington
2005
Dryprint on cardboard
43.1 x 27.9cm
© Schirmer/Mosel Verlag – Nicola Del Roscio

As a tribute to the recently deceased artist, the Centre for Fine Arts is turning the spotlight on a less familiar aspect of his oeuvre. The exhibition includes more than 100 dryprint Polaroid photographs (selected by Twombly himself), along with a selection of other works by Twombly and a film portrait by Tacita Dean.

Cy Twombly (who was born in Lexington in 1928 and died in Rome in 2011) was one of the most important US artists of his generation. He made his name with large-scale abstract paintings whose free form and spontaneous dynamism recall calligraphy and graffiti. In his work Twombly often referred to the myths of Classical Greek and Roman Antiquity, to literature and to art history.

The exhibition focuses on a less familiar aspect of Twombly’s oeuvre: his photographic work. The photographs are an addition to the artist’s creative world and throw new light on it. At the request of the publishers Schirmer / Mosel, Twombly selected more than 100 never previously published Polaroid photographs for a catalogue that was published just before his death on 5 July 2011. This selection is the subject of a travelling exhibition that has already been seen in Germany at the Museum Brandhorst (in Munich) and the Museum für Gegenwartskunst (in Siegen). At the Centre for Fine Arts the exhibition is being expanded, in collaboration with Dr. Hubertus von Amelunxen, who wrote an essay for the Twombly catalogue and who has made a selection for BOZAR of drawings and paintings by Twombly that reveal in greater depth the interplay of lines and light in his work. In addition, the exhibition is complemented by the screening of Tacita Dean’s intimate film portrait “Edwin Parker” (which takes its name from Twombly’s official given names).

Twombly and photography

Twombly took up photography back in his student days in the 1950s and continued to take photographs throughout his career. It was only in the 1990s, however, that he went public with his photographic work in gallery exhibitions and publications.

All the photographs in the exhibition were taken with a Polaroid camera, enlarged, printed using a special kind of dryprint, and reproduced in limited editions. This procedure, developed by Twombly himself, gives the photographs a hazy glow and a coarse grain. Twombly further reinforced this impression of blurring by playing with light and shade, by overexposure and sophisticated colour saturation, and by employing extreme close-ups. The lack of definition gives his photographs a certain indefinable quality and a poetic dimension. Our attention is no longer drawn to the subject, but to the texture of the picture. In a certain sense, Twombly operates like the Pictorialists: his photographs look almost like paintings in which light is captured in brushstrokes.

The subjects of his Polaroid photographs are extremely diverse. There are traditional still lifes with tulips, lemon leaves, and angel trumpets, alongside photographs of temples and atmospheric landscapes. Twombly surprises the viewer with intimate images of everyday objects such as his slippers, a detail from a painting, his brushes, a snapshot of his studio, etc.

The photographs are fascinating because they throw new light on Twombly’s creative spirit and visual language. These intangible, fragile images are permeated by the same themes that inspired the artist’s paintings, drawings, sculptures, and graphic art. The atmospheric colours and diffuse motifs of his photographs are an unexpected addition to his creative universe. Twombly’s oeuvre, moreover, is all about light – and is photography not the medium of light par excellence?

Tacita Dean

In the course of the exhibition circuit visitors can see an intimate film portrait of Twombly, Edwin Parker by the British artist Tacita Dean. The film takes its title from Twombly’s official given names (“Cy” is a traditional nickname in his family). The publicity-shy Twombly had become a mythical figure in the world of contemporary art. Dean’s film offers a rare insight into the artist’s life. The camera follows Twombly as he looks at his pictures in his studio, reads letters, looks through the louvres at the traffic in the city of his birth, or sits around a table with old friends and orders a meal. Tacita Dean is a British contemporary artist, known above all for her films. Her latest work to date is FILM, a 35 mm film continuously projected on a 13-metre-high monolith, which can be seen in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern until 11 March 2012.

Press release from the Centre for Fine Arts website

Cy Twombly (American, 1928-2011)
Brushes, Lexington
2005
Dryprint on cardboard
43.1 x 27.9cm
© Schirmer/Mosel Verlag – Nicola Del Roscio Foundation

Cy Twombly (American, 1928-2011)
Tulips, Rome
1985
Dryprint on cardboard
43.1 x 27.9cm
© Schirmer/Mosel Verlag – Nicola Del Roscio Foundation

Cy Twombly (American, 1928-2011)
Cabbages, Gaeta
1998
Dryprint on cardboard
43.1 x 27.9cm
© Schirmer/Mosel Verlag – Nicola Del Roscio Foundation

Cy Twombly (American, 1928-2011)
Painting detail of Roses, Gaeta
2009
Dryprint on cardboard
43.1 x 27.9cm
© Schirmer/Mosel Verlag – Fondazione Nicola del Roscio

Cy Twombly (American, 1928-2011)
Sunset, Gaeta
2009
Dryprint on cardboard
43.1 x 27.9cm
© Schirmer/Mosel Verlag – Nicola Del Roscio Foundation

Cy Twombly (American, 1928-2011)
Painting Detail and “By the Ionian Sea” Sculpture, Bassano in Teverina
1992
Dryprint on cardboard
43.1 x 27.9cm
© Schirmer/Mosel Verlag – Nicola Del Roscio Foundation

Cy Twombly (American, 1928-2011)
Interior, Rome
1980
Dryprint on cardboard
43.1 x 27.9cm
© Schirmer/Mosel Verlag – Fondazione Nicola del Roscio

Centre for Fine Arts
Rue Ravenstein 23
1000 Bruxelles
Info and Tickets 02 507 82 00

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Closed Mondays

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Exhibition: ‘Gerhard Richter. Atlas’ at the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

Exhibition dates: 4th February – 22nd April 2012

Installation photograph of Gerhard Richter. Atlas
Kunsthalle im Lipsiusbau
Photograph: David Brandt, 2012
© Gerhard Richter Archive, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

Meaning arises out of context – or the lack of it. Unlike the grids of the Bechers which promote multiple ways of seeing and construct narrative tension these images do not increase the photographic narrative. They are like the parrots, finches or scarab beetles in a display case at a natural history museum – part of a taxonomic classification system, where one out of a thousand is the most impressive beetle, the bird with the brightest plumage, where the composition is the most surprising. Multiples as collected here are fascinating but emerge from a slightly obsessive mind (which any collectors mind is!)

This photomontage of impressions, ground and movement blurs the history and memory embedded in each photograph. The assemblage of all these visions ranges far and wide but ultimately collapses time and space into one huge universal snapshot. As in advertising imagery the individual documentary-style images mean relatively little – it is the overall impression that impinges on the consciousness. If you watch MTV and stop to analyse the individual images in a pop video you soon acknowledge their vacuousness. The context of the singular image is lost. In this display the grid controls the photographs position relative to each other and the viewer – a compositional design matrix that has a symbolic function. The grid both decontextualises and recontextualises the floating signifier.

Richter obviously uses them as an aide-memoire. Some remind me of the folded photographs found in Francis Bacon’s studio; others Bacon’s portraits of blurred bodies; yet more, ethnographic mappings of Indigenous bodies or criminals cut out of newspapers. Others remind me of Surrealist experiments and the colour photographs the paintings of Gerhard Richter. Funny about that…

They may be the source material of a great artist but in this regimented form of prosaic knowledge they become like bugs caught in amber.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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

“I see countless landscapes, photograph barely one in 100,000, and paint barely 1 in 100 of those that I photograph,”

Gerhard Richter, 1986

“If the grids of art are about arrangement, synchronic vision, connections and knowledge, a standing back to grasp a pattern, then the grids of life are just as much about chance, disconnections among the connections, and the inability of the elements within the grid to perceive, and know, the larger patterns of which they are a part, so that it is only a ‘higher’ consciousness standing outside the grid that will be able to see it all (with or without understanding it). How you know and form a grid depends on whether you are inside or outside it. You can ‘form’ a grid both actively and passively, wittingly and unwittingly – either by simply being part of a grid or by actually assembling one… The grid becomes a potentially totalizing system with which reality (the real of experience as well as the real of the mind), another totalizing system, must endlessly play its games of elusiveness and containment, chaos and order, freedom and necessity.”

Aveek Sen. “The Grid and More,” in ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About Photography,’ on the Fotomuseum Winterthur website, 7th April 2012

Gerhard Richter. Atlas

The film for the special exhibition!

The ATLAS occupies an outstanding position in Gerhard Richter’s entire work. It is both the basis of his painterly oeuvre and an independent work. As a so-called work in progress, the artist, who was born on February 9, 1932 in Dresden, has repeatedly revised and supplemented the ATLAS for more than four decades.

The ATLAS was on display in a special exhibition at the Gerhard Richter Archive of the Dresden State Art Collections.

Installation photograph of Gerhard Richter. Atlas
Kunsthalle im Lipsiusbau
Photograph: David Brandt, 2012
© Gerhard Richter Archive, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

Gerhard Richter (German, b. 1932)
Atlas. Plate 68. Photo experiment
1969
© Gerhard Richter 2011

Portrait of Gerhard Richter
1966
© Gerhard Richter, Köln 2012

In celebration of Gerhard Richter’s 80th birthday, the Gerhard Richter Archive of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden presents the ATLAS of the artist in the Kunsthalle im Lipsiusbau. The ATLAS takes a prominent role in the oeuvre of Gerhard Richter. It is the basis of many of his paintings just as it is an artwork in its own right. The ATLAS consists of approximately 800 framed panels with more than 15,000 photographs, newspaper clippings, sketches and designs, which Richter had accumulated for work in his studio from the early 1960s onwards. In 1972, he ordered and arranged the collection on boards and presented it under the title ATLAS for the first time. Ever since then, he has continuously added new material. The conceptual character of the ATLAS offers unique insights into the mindset of the artist, into the development of some ideas for works as well as into the creational process of several of his paintings.

Gerhard Richter’s ATLAS merits a special place within his oeuvre as a whole. It not only forms the basis of his entire work as a painter but is also an autonomous artwork in its own right. Born in Dresden on 9th February 1932, Richter has been constantly revising and augmenting this “work in progress” for more than four decades.

ATLAS may be seen as an accompaniment, commentary and extension of the entire oeuvre of Gerhard Richter, for it also develops its own perspectives and poses its own questions. ATLAS is Richter’s reflection not only on his own work but also on the everyday world of images that he himself has documented photographically in their thousands. “I see countless landscapes, photograph barely one in 100,000, and paint barely 1 in 100 of those that I photograph,” Richter wrote in 1986. This photographed, yet and seemingly inexhaustible flood of images has afforded Richter a concentrated, ready accessibility of motifs for his future works. Indeed, for some of his paintings, he has been able to draw upon old motifs in his ATLAS, some of them dating back more than a decade.

The accompanying artist’s book “ATLAS” is not just intended as a means of documenting the exhibition. Gerhard Richter sees it as an alternative presentation to the exhibited panels, one that permits an additional, different, non-linear approach to the material. By 1964, Richter had collected a vast amount of pictorial source material for his painting, first keeping it in drawers and portfolios. Five years later he began to sift through this material with a critical eye, grouping the individual photographs, reproductions and sketches into different themes and pasting them onto separate panels. Richter then soon recognised the intrinsic artistic quality of these collections of source material and, in 1972, framed the panels and exhibited them at the Museum Hedendaagse Kunst in Utrecht under the title ATLAS. Meanwhile this repository of source material has grown from its original 343 panels to its present 783, with more than 8,000 individual motifs.

Press release from the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden website

Gerhard Richter (German, b. 1932)
Atlas. Plate 9. Photographs of papers and books etc
1962-1968
© Gerhard Richter 2011

Gerhard Richter (German, b. 1932)
Atlas. Plate 5. Album Photos
1962-1968
© Gerhard Richter 2011

Gerhard Richter (German, b. 1932)
Atlas. Plate 58. Double exposure
Nd
© Gerhard Richter 2011

Gerhard Richter (German, b. 1932)
Atlas. Plate 422. Baysricher forest
1982
© Gerhard Richter 2011

Gerhard Richter (German, b. 1932)
Atlas. Plate 13. Photographs of papers and books etc
1964-1967
© Gerhard Richter 2011

Gerhard Richter (German, b. 1932)
Atlas. Plate 651. Reichstag
1998
© Gerhard Richter 2011

Gerhard Richter (German, b. 1932)
Atlas. Plate 31 for 48 Portraits
1971
© Gerhard Richter 2011

Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden
Residenzschloss Taschenberg 2
01067 Dresden Germany

Kunsthalle im Lipsiusbau opening hours:
Daily 10am – 6pm
Closed Mondays

Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden website

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Exhibition: ‘C’est la vie. Press photography since 1940’ at the Swiss National Museum, Zurich

Exhibition dates: 11th January – 22nd March 2012

Anonymous photographer
Frozen Lake Biel
1941
© Swiss National Museum

Another fascinating, quirky photography exhibition. The photographs from the 1940s are poignant, especially when we remember what was happening in the rest of Europe at this time. Contrary to popular opinion, the Swiss did not have an easy time of it during the Second World War: threatened with invasion by Hitler on one the hand, this landlocked country relied heavily on imports to survive. Many of its citizens were near starvation during the course of the war but they became more self sufficient, growing their own food. They also built up their military (ironically using pre-war German assembled Messerschmitt planes as a basis for their air force). The Germans knew that Switzerland would be a hard country to conquer so they did not force the issue. For an in depth look at the fate of neutral countries during the Second World War see the excellent book The Neutrals by Denis J. Fodor (Volume 35 of World War Two: Time-Life Books, 1982) which includes “chapters on Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Turkey, and others including their success or lack of success in maintaining their neutrality.” (Neal A. Wellons) There is also a picture essay on Switzerland. An absorbing read.

The photograph Swimming lessons for schoolchildren at the Wollishofen lakeside swimming area, Zurich (1943, below) is especially foreboding of the conflict that was swirling around Switzerland in 1943, the child’s heads in a noose as he tries to stay afloat a metaphor for the conflagration that was occurring all around. One slip for Switzerland, and the world, and it was over. Chilling.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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

Anonymous photographer
Using boats to transport wood and stone on Lake Lugano
1940
© Swiss National Museum

Anonymous photographer
Swimming lessons for schoolchildren at the Wollishofen lakeside swimming area, Zurich
1943
© Swiss National Museum

Anonymous photographer
Walter Diggelmann repairs a tyre during the Tour de Suisse
1950
© Swiss National Museum

Walter Diggelmann (Zürich, 11 August 1915 – Guntalingen, 5 March 1999) was a Swiss professional road bicycle racer. Diggelmann won one stage in the 1952 Tour de France.

For the first time, the Swiss National Museum in Zurich presents its extensive archive of press photographs. The exhibition looks at recent Swiss history from the perspective of the press photographer and reveals how, in the second half of the 20th century, press photography developed into the photojournalism we know today.

Housed in three original pavilions by the designer and engineer Jean Prouvé from the 1940s, C’est la vie includes meticulously composed photographs depicting political events, episodes from everyday life, unforgettable moments, candid pictures of well-known personalities and portraits of everyday heroes. It also shows how the extensive photo reportages of the early years were superseded by individual snapshots – initially still in black and white, then in colour. New methods of image transfer and printing technologies enabled ever-increasing numbers of up-to-the-minute photos to appear in the daily press. From the 1960s onwards, the illustrated weekly press went into decline. The exhibition illustrates this process by juxtaposing an analogue picture agency from the 1940s with its present-day digital counterpart.

In 2006 the Swiss National Museum acquired the archives of the press photo agencies Presse Diffusion Lausanne and Actualité Suisse Lausanne, which together comprise millions of negatives, paper prints and transparencies from 1940 (foundation of PDL) to 2000 (closure of ASL). The archives are an ideal complement to the photographs taken by private individuals that previously formed the core of the Swiss National Museum’s photography collection. An examination of the archives soon revealed a wealth of treasures. The diversity, breadth and aesthetic quality of the photographic material are remarkable and exceptional. The new holdings will also be an invaluable source of visual material for the Swiss National Museum’s research activities.

Press release from the Swiss National Museum website

Anonymous photographer
Two brothers in the Rhine harbour at Kleinhüningen, Basel
c. 1939
© Swiss National Museum

Anonymous photographer
Passenger in the dining car of the “Compagnie Suisse des Wagons-Restaurants”
c. 1940
© Swiss National Museum

Anonymous photographer
Elderly lady in a restaurant, Lausanne
1959
© Swiss National Museum

Anonymous photographer
Italian guest workers arriving in Switzerland
1956
© Swiss National Museum

Swiss National Museum
Landesmuseum Zürich
Museumstrasse 2
8021 Zurich
Phone: +41 (0)44 218 65 11

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday 10am – 5pm
Thursday 10 am – 7pm
Closed Mondays
Open on public holidays

Swiss National Museum website

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Exhibition: ‘Henri Cartier-Bresson / Paul Strand, Mexico 1932-1934’ at HCB Foundation, Paris

Exhibition dates: 11th January – 22nd April 2012

Henri Cartier-Bresson (French, 1908-2004)
Mexico
1934
Gelatin silver print
© Magnum, Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation

“The American’s immobility contrasts with [the] Frenchman’s fluidity.”

Press releases should be very careful when making such sweeping generalisations. Personally I find the photographs of Cartier-Bresson the more static (both physical and psychological) of the two photographers. The compartmentalisation of space in Bresson’s photographs – the use of diagonals and verticals – is more fixed than in the sensuous Strand, the emotions more didactic and formalised even as they seek the spontaneity of photojournalism. The placement of the two figures in Strand’s Men of Santa Ana (1933, below) is superlative, with the central dividing column and combination of tones and textures, father and son(?), stares and postures. Cartier-Bresson’s Prostitute (1934, below) is simpler in pose and purpose but we must remember this was a twenty-six year old photographer still finding his voice in the world, whereas Strand was a much older person and a more experienced photographer.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Henri Cartier-Bresson (French, 1908-2004)
Natcho Aguirre, Santa Clara, Mexico
1934
Gelatin silver print
© Magnum, Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation

Henri Cartier-Bresson (French, 1908-2004)
Calle Cuauhtemoctzin (two prostitutes), Mexico City
1934
Gelatin silver print
© Magnum, Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation

Henri Cartier-Bresson (French, 1908-2004)
The Spider of Love, Mexico City
1934
Gelatin silver print
© Magnum, Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation

Henri Cartier-Bresson (French, 1908-2004)
Mexico
1934
Gelatin silver print
© Magnum, Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation

Henri Cartier-Bresson (French, 1908-2004)
Juchitan
1934
Gelatin silver print
© Magnum, Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation

Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976)
Nets, Michoacan
1933
Gelatin silver print
© Paul Strand

Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976)
Near Saltillo
1932
Gelatin silver print
© Paul Strand

Bringing together such different works by two great masters in the history of photography is not self-evident. There are many points of convergence, but their styles are profoundly different. The American’s immobility contrasts with Frenchman’s fluidity. They both travelled to Mexico during the same period and they crossed paths in New York in 1935 when they joined the political filmmakers’ group Nykino (which later became Frontier Films) in order to explore filmmaking at a critical point in their respective careers.

In autumn 1932, Paul Strand (1890-1976) set out for Mexico by car at the invitation of the Mexican Ministry of Education. He exhibited his photographs there and had the pleasure of witnessing the popular success of his images. It was in the course of working in the streets of Mexico, a practice which he had abandoned for many years, that Strand took up a different documentary style. At that point, he received a proposal to make a series of films. In 1934, he shot Redes (released in English as The Wave), a ‘docu-fiction’ about the oppression of the fishermen in the village of Alvarado. The film was screened in Mexico in 1936, and subsequently in the United States and France. In 1950, fleeing the climate of McCarthyism in the United States, he came to France and ultimately settled in the village of Orgeval, where he remained until the end of his life.

In 1934, Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004), who was eighteen years younger than Strand, signed up for a French ethnographic mission which was supposed to take him to Argentina. In the end, the mission was suspended and the twenty-six-year-old photographer spent a year in Mexico, literally fascinated by the country. He worked for several newspapers there, moved in intellectual and artistic circles together with his sister and worried about his future. In March 1935, he exhibited his work at the Palacio de Bellas Artes with Mexican photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo. The local press reacted favourably and the young Frenchman contacted New York art dealer Julien Levy – who had already exhibited him in 1933 – to suggest a show of his recent work. He left Mexico with the firm intention of becoming a filmmaker and thus headed straight for the Nykino group. Strand’s prints come from various international collections; those of Cartier-Bresson belong to the Fondation HCB archives.

Press release from the HCB Foundation website

Henri Cartier-Bresson (French, 1908-2004)
Prostitute, Calle Cuauhtemoctzin, Mexico
1934
Gelatin silver print
© Magnum, Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation

Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976)
Men of Santa Ana, Lake Patzcuaro Michoacan
1933
Gelatin silver print
© Paul Strand

From January 11 to April 22, 2012, the HCB Foundation will pay tribute to two great masters of photography: Henri Cartier-Bresson and Paul Strand. The perspective of their work on Mexico between 1932 and 1934 will be an opportunity for the public to discover two visions of the same country and especially two approaches to photography.

In the fall of 1932, Paul Strand (1890-1976) left the United States and a personal life in crisis for Mexico. It was at the invitation of Carlos Chavez, whom he had met a little earlier and now responsible for culture at the Ministry of Education, that Strand discovered this country of which he said “I thought of Mexico as something mysterious, dark and dangerous, inhospitable.” However, Strand remained in Mexico for two years until his return to New York in December 1934.

The support of Carlos Chavez proved to be very important and enabled Strand to exhibit for the first time in Mexico at the Sala de Arte of the Ministry of Education in February 1933. After this first success, he left in the spring of 1933 to investigate Mexican arts and crafts in the state of Michoacán. Fascinated by the indigenous culture and the piety of the inhabitants, he brought back from this mission portraits of religious statues, men, women and children in the streets, landscapes and architecture.

He was then appointed director of photographic and cinematographic activities for the Ministry of Education and was entrusted with the production of a series of films on Mexico. He then worked on the script for his first feature film Redes, which is intended as a docu-fiction based on the struggle of a group of men, fishermen, against a corrupt society. The actors of the film are mainly the inhabitants of the village of Alvarado. The realisation is complex but the film is finally screened at the Juarez de Alvarado theatre on June 4, 1936. Barely a year later, it is under the title The Wave that the American public discovers this film very largely influenced by Russian cinema. Unfortunately, the new Mexican government set up in 1934 with the election of Lazaro Cardenas abandoned the film series project and Strand therefore decided to return to New York. He then abandoned photography, joined the association of filmmakers Nykino, devoted himself to political cinema and became president of Frontier Film, Nykino’s new name.

In 1940, thanks to the financial support of Virginia Stevens, his new wife, he published “Photographs of Mexico”, a portfolio, published in 250 copies, of 20 carefully assembled photogravures. A copy will be presented in the exhibition.

In 1951, when the witch hunt was launched in the United States by McCarthy, Strand decided to settle in Orgeval, France, where he would spend the end of his life.

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) landed in Mexico City in July 1934. He was part of an ethnographic mission led by Doctor Julio Brandan and supported by the Trocadéro Museum to follow the construction of a major Pan-American road. The mission got off to a bad start because the funding promised by the Mexican government was not forthcoming. The majority of the members of the expedition then returned to France, disappointed to see the project abandoned. But HCB decides to stay because “he feels a real crush on this country”. Nicknamed “the little Frenchman with shrimp cheeks” by Lupe Cervantes, his Mexican “fiancée”, Cartier-Bresson travels the country with his Leica. He therefore manages to survive in this country, befriends poets like Langston Hugues, Tonio Salazar or Natcho Aguirre, is passionate about muralists and their revolutionary frescoes, works for the press like Todo. He exhibited at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in March 1935 with the Mexican photographer Manuel Alvarez Bravo. “When he left, he declared himself a Frenchman from Mexico.”

During his stay, Henri Cartier-Bresson maintains frequent contact with the New York gallery owner Julien Levy and invites him to exhibit his recent photographs. This project will be carried out in April 1935 under the title “Documentary and Antigraphic photographs”. On this occasion, he will find the Mexican Manuel Alvarez Bravo and meet Walker Evans whom he deeply esteems. As soon as he arrived in New York, Henri Cartier-Bresson turned to cinema, “I stopped photographing in 1935, when I was in New York. Photography has always been for me only one of the different means of visual expression. […] I therefore started, with Paul Strand and with others, to learn cinema. I changed tools. Thanks to financial help from his parents, he bought a 35mm camera and joined the Nykino group. He learned a lot from this group of committed filmmakers and on his return to France, he assisted Jean Renoir on several of his films (La vie est à nous [Life is ours], Une partie de campagne [A country party]). It was not until 1937 that he left for Spain to make documentaries on the Spanish front. (Spain Will Live, Victory of Life, and With the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Spain)

Putting these two photographers into perspective is not easy. The convergences are numerous but the styles vary profoundly. The fluidity of the French contrasts with the immobility of the American. Both travel to Mexico at the same time, both meet in New York in 1935, when they join the group of committed filmmakers Nykino, to try a cinematic experience in a key phase of their two careers.

The exhibition presents 90 black and white prints: the works of Paul Strand come from Spanish, American and Mexican collections; those of Cartier-Bresson, some of which are unpublished, come from the collection of the HCB Foundation. The exhibition will be presented from May 13 to September 2, 2012 at the Point du Jour Center d’art in Cherbourg.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue, published by Steidl, with a preface by Agnès Sire and an essay by Clément Chéroux.

Press dossier from HCB Foundation website translated from the French by Google Translate

Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976)
Woman of Alvarado, Veracruz
1933
Gelatin silver print
© Paul Strand

Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976)
Cristo with Thorns, Huexotla
1933, printed 1940
Gelatin silver print
© Paul Strand

Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976)
Boy – Hidalgo
1933
Gelatin silver print
© Paul Strand

Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976)
Man with Hoe – Los Remedios
1933
Gelatin silver print
© Paul Strand

Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976)
Man – Tenancingo
1933
Gelatin silver print
© Paul Strand

Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976)
Boy – Uruapan
1933
Gelatin silver print
© Paul Strand

Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976)
Church, Coapiaxtla
1933, printed 1940
Gelatin silver print
© Paul Strand

Henri Cartier-Bresson (French, 1908-2004)
Mexico
1934
Gelatin silver print
© Magnum, Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation

Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson
79 rue des Archives
75003 Paris

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday 11am – 7pm
Closed Mondays

Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation website

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Exhibition: ‘The Heart of the Great Alone: Scott, Shackleton and Antarctic Photography’ at The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, London

Exhibition dates: 21st October 2011 – 15th April 2012

Herbert Ponting (British, 1870-1935)
Captain Lawrence Oates and Siberian ponies on board ‘Terra Nova’
1910
Presented to King George V, 1914
© 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Continuing my fascination with all things Antarctic, here are more photographs from the Scott and Shackleton expeditions. The photograph Captain Lawrence Oates and Siberian ponies on board ‘Terra Nova’ by Herbert Ponting (1910, above) is simply breathtaking.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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

This exhibition of remarkable Antarctic photography by George Herbert Ponting and Frank Hurley marks the 100th anniversary of Captain Scott’s ill-fated journey to the South Pole. Ponting’s dramatic images record Scott’s Terra Nova expedition of 1910-1912, which led to the tragic death of five of the team on their return from the South Pole. Hurley’s extraordinary icescapes were taken during Ernest Shackleton’s polar expedition on Endurance in 1914-1917, which ended with the heroic sea journey from Elephant Island to South Georgia. Both collections of photographs were presented to King George V and are today part of the Royal Photograph Collection.

Union Jack taken by Scott to the South Pole
1911-1912
Presented to King George V, 1914
© 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

This Union Jack was given to Scott by the recently widowed Queen Alexandra on 25 June 1910 for him to plant at the South Pole. The flag was recovered with Scott’s body and returned to the queen by his wife, Kathleen, on 12 July 1913.

The photographs of Herbert Ponting and Frank Hurley may be stencilled into the collective memory after nearly a century of over-exposure. But it’s not often you get to see them away from the printed page, and they certainly bring out fresh depths and new perspectives…

It turns out to be highly instructive seeing Hurley and Ponting hung in neighbouring rooms. I’ve always taken Ponting to be somehow the lesser snapper. Hurley had the greatest photostory ever captured land in his lap when Shackleton’s ship the Endurance was trapped in ice floes and held fast for months before pressure ridges eventually crushed it like a dry autumn leaf. Like a good journalist Hurley recorded these traumas and more while also taking the chance to experiment with the strange light and baroque shapes supplied by his surroundings.

Ponting’s story was different. Four or so years earlier, and on the other side of the Antarctic land mass, he didn’t stray far from the expedition base, and indeed was left on the Terra Nova while Scott’s polar party were still out on the ice, trudging balefully towards immortality. There’s something about Ponting’s floridly unmodern moustache which sets him apart from the clean-shaven younger men in either expedition, as if he never quite left the studio behind.

But the photographs are astonishing… The story here is the unequal battle between man and ice, the castellations and ramparts of bergs dwarfing explorers with dogs and sledges placed at their foot to give a sense of scale. Ponting also has a beautiful eye for filigree detail, never more than in one picture of long spindly icicles echoing the adjacent rigging of the Terra Nova.

One of the revelations is that the originals play up the drama of Ponting’s work much more than Hurley’s, which are printed at half the size. For all the astonishing pictures – a field of ice flowers, the masts of the Endurance all but shrouded by Brobdingnagian ice clumps – the final impact of Hurley’s collection lies in the fact that they exist at all… That is partly why Ponting trumps Hurley in this show. His pictures of Scott’s men have never felt more immediate.

Rees, Jasper. Review of “The Heart of the Great Alone: Scott, Shackleton and Antarctic Photography, Queen’s Gallery” on the Arts Desk website. Thursday, 27 October 2011 [Online] Cited 06/04/2012

Herbert Ponting (British, 1870-1935)
The Terra Nova icebound in the pack
13 Dec 1910
Carbon print
73.5 x 58.2cm
Presented to King George V, 1914
© 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Photograph of the Terra Nova in sail, passing through ice and snow. Scott’s ship is seen here held up by the ice pack, with a curiously shaped ‘ice bollard’ in the foreground. The Terra Nova was launched in 1884 as a whaling ship. She had sailed to both the Arctic and Antarctic before serving as Scott’s ship in 1910. She survived until 1943 when she was damaged by ice and sank off the coast of Greenland.

British Antarctic Expedition

Scott and his men reached Antarctica on board the Terra Nova on 31 December 1910. The expedition had several aims that were scientific in nature, but the principal goal for Scott was to lead the first team to the South Pole.

Following his earlier polar experience on the Discovery expedition of 1901-1904, Scott realised the importance of good photographic images for fund-raising and publicising the achievements of the expedition. Scott employed the photographer Herbert Ponting to accompany him. This was the first time a professional photographer had been included in an Antarctic expedition.

Ponting had previously worked in the United States and Asia. He had a great deal of experience, and during his time in Antarctica, he produced around 2,000 glass plate negatives as well as making films. Ponting also taught photography to Scott and other members of the team so that they could record their assault on the Pole.

In March 1912 Ponting left the Antarctic, according to previously-laid plans. After his return to Britain, Ponting exhibited his work and lectured widely about Scott, thus ensuring that his photographs became inextricably linked with Scott and the heroic age of Antarctic exploration.

Text from the Royal Collection Trust website

Herbert Ponting (British, 1870-1935)
The Castle Berg with dog Sledge
17 Sep 1911
Carbon print
53.2 x 75.0cm
Presented to King George V, 1914
© 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

This iceberg, which resembles a medieval castle, was greatly admired by members of the expedition. Ponting returned several times during 1911 to photograph it, including once in June, the middle of the Antarctic winter, when he set up flashlights to make an image. At its highest point the berg is around 100 feet high (30.5 m).

Herbert Ponting (British, 1870-1935)
The ramparts of Mount Erebus
1911
Presented to King George V, 1914
© 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Mount Erebus, an active volcano on Ross Island which last erupted in 2008, was first climbed in 1908 by members of Shackleton’s Nimrod expedition. Ponting has contrasted the overwhelming size of the natural world against the tiny human figure pulling a sledge, in the lower left corner of the photograph.

It is a story of heroism and bravery, and ultimately of tragedy, that has mesmerised generations. One hundred years on from their epic voyages to the very limits of the Earth, and of man’s endurance, the legends of Scott and Shackleton live on.

To mark the centenary of Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s expedition to the South Pole, the Royal Collection brings together, for the first time, a collection of the photographs presented to King George V by the official photographers from Scott’s Terra Nova expedition of 1910-1913 and Shackleton’s expedition on Endurance in 1914-1916, and unique artefacts, such as the flag given to Scott by Queen Alexandra (widow of King Edward VII) and taken to the Pole.

The exhibition documents the dramatic landscapes and harsh conditions the men experienced, through the work of expedition photographers Herbert Ponting and Frank Hurley. These sets of photographs are among the finest examples of the artists’ work in existence – and the men who took them play a vital part in the explorers’ stories. Highlights from Scott’s voyage include Ponting’s The ramparts of Mount Erebus, which presents the vast scale of the icescape, and the ethereal The freezing of the sea. Among the most arresting images from Hurley’s work on Shackleton’s expedition are those of the ship Endurance listing in the frozen depths and then crushed between floes.

The photographs also give insights into the men themselves. For instance, at the start of the journey Scott appears confident and relaxed, with his goggles off for the camera. In contrast, a photograph taken at the Pole shows him and his team devastated and unsmiling, knowing they had been beaten. The exhibition also records the lighter moments of expedition life, essential for teams cut off from the outside world for years at a time. On Shackleton’s expedition, a derby for the dogs was organised – with bets laid in cigarettes and chocolate. A menu for Midwinter’s Day, on 22 June 1911, shown in the accompanying exhibition publication, includes roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, ‘caviare Antarctic’ and crystallised fruits.

Antarctic adventurer David Hempleman Adams has been closely involved in the exhibition and has written an introduction to the catalogue. First given the taste for adventure by The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme, he was inspired, like generations of school children, by the tales of discovery. As a South Pole veteran, the first Briton to reach the Pole solo and unsupported, he is still in awe of Scott and Shackleton’s achievements – and will return with his daughter this year to mark the centenary. David Hempleman Adams said: “We have a big psychological advantage today: We know it is possible to reach the South Pole. Nowadays you can go on Google Earth and see what’s there. Back then, it was just a big white piece of paper. Scott and Shackleton had no TVs, radios or satellite phones – they were cut off from the outside world – and in terms of equipment, the tents, skis and sledges, today, we carry about one tenth of what they carried, over the same mileage. What they achieved, with what they had, is really magnificent. This is the 100th anniversary and the legend has stood the test of time. Even in this modern world, there’s still just as much interest.”

As the photographs show, animals played an important part in the expeditions. There are portraits of the ponies and of individual sledge dogs. In his diaries, Scott describes the relationship he struck up with the bad tempered husky Vida: “He became a bad wreck with his poor coat… and… I used to massage him; at first the operation was mistrusted and only continued to the accompaniment of much growling, but later he evidently grew to like the warming effect and sidled up to me whenever I came out of the hut… He is a strange beast – I imagine so unused to kindness that it took him time to appreciate it.”

Ponting also photographed wildlife, including seals, gulls and penguins. Scott writes of the moment Ponting tried to photograph killer whales and how the creatures crashed through the ice to catch him. Scott, watching but unable to help, observes, “It was possible to see their tawny head markings, their small glistening eyes, and their terrible array of teeth – by far the largest and most terrifying in the world.”

The inspirational qualities of the explorers were recognised by King George V. In his book, The Great White South, Ponting records what the Monarch said to him when he went to Buckingham Palace to show his Antarctic film: “His Majesty King George expressed to me the hope that it might be possible for every British boy to see the pictures – as the story of the Scott Expedition could not be known too widely among the youth of the nation, for it would help to promote the spirit of adventure that had made the Empire.”

Royal interest in polar exploration began with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, who followed the fortunes of the early adventurers, such as Sir John Franklin and William Bradford, and it continues to this day. The Duke of Edinburgh, who has written a foreword to the exhibition catalogue, has been the patron of many of David Hempleman Adams’s expeditions and has himself crossed the Antarctic Circle. HRH The Princess Royal is Patron of the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust.

Press release from The Royal Collection website

Herbert Ponting (British, 1870-1935)
Grotto in an iceberg
5 January 1911
Presented to King George V, 1914
© 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Photograph of the Terra Nova seen from inside a grotto that was formed by an iceberg as it turned over, carrying a large floe which froze onto it. Both Ponting and Scott were struck by the colours of the ice inside this ice grotto; they were a rich mix of blues, purples and greens. Ponting thought that this photograph, framing the Terra Nova, was one of his best.

Both Captain Scott and Herbert Ponting – the photographer accompanying him on the Terra Nova expedition – wrote about the intense colours that they encountered in the landscape of Antarctica. In this series of three short talks by Royal Collection curator Sophie Gordon, we examine how Ponting attempted to capture these magical blues, greens and oranges in his photographs beginning here with the blues of this grotto within an iceberg, taken in January, 1911.

Royal Collection: ‘A Lovely Symphony of Blue and Green’ – Grotto in an Iceberg

Herbert Ponting (British, 1870-1935)
The Freezing of the Sea
1911, printed 1913-1914
Carbon print, tinted
74.6 x 58.1cm
Presented to King George V, 1914
© 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Photograph of a thin film of new ice covering the sea with ice blocks in the foreground. The Barne Glacier can be seen in the distance. This view, looking from Cape Evans towards Cape Barne on Ross Island, shows the moment when the sea began to freeze. The men would have realised that they could no longer leave Antarctica. Once winter began, no ships would be able to reach them to bring in supplies or to take anyone out.

Royal Collection: ‘A Lovely Symphony of Blue and Green’ – The Freezing of the Sea

In the second of these three short talks, Royal Collection curator Sophie Gordon, briefly considers this atmospheric photograph which captured the moment the sea began to freeze, cutting the men off in Antarctica for the winter.

Herbert Ponting (British, 1870-1935)
Cirrus clouds over the Barne Glacier
April 1911
Carbon print on dyed paper
43.4 x 58.8cm
Presented to King George V, 1914
© 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Royal Collection: ‘A Lovely Symphony of Blue and Green’ – Cirrus Clouds over the Barne Glacier

In this, the third in her series of talks, Royal Collection curator Sophie Gordon examines how Ponting captured the dramatic reds and oranges and the beauty of the natural landscape that he experienced during his time in the Antarctic.

Herbert Ponting (British, 1870-1935)
Scott writing in his area of the expedition hut, Scott’s cubicle
7 October 1911
Presented to King George V, 1914
© 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Captain Robert F. Scott, sitting at a table in his quarters, writing in his diary, during the British Antarctic Expedition.

Herbert Ponting (British, 1870-1935)
Scott’s birthday dinner
June 1911
Toned silver bromide print
43.6 x 61cm
Presented to King George V, 1914
© 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Photograph of the Officer’s table for Captain Scott’s birthday dinner with a variety of food and drink laid out on the table. The men are celebrating Scott’s 43rd birthday – his last – on 6 June 1911. He sits at the head of the table, and is surrounded by the officers and senior members of the team. The only man looking at the camera is the Norwegian naval officer Tryggve Gran (1889-1980). The atmosphere is both festive and patriotic.

Herbert Ponting (British, 1870-1935)
Vida
1911
Toned silver bromide print
38.0 x 27.5cm
Presented to King George V, 1914
© 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Photograph of Vida. One of Scott’s favourite dogs, Vida suffered from a bad coat and would creep up to Scott for attention. Scott noted in his diary that initially the dog would growl at him but eventually his suspicion grew less: ‘He is a strange beast – I imagine so unused to kindness that it took him time to appreciate it’.

Herbert Ponting (British, 1870-1935)
The winter journey to Cape Crozier
June 1911
Silver bromide print
43.7 x 61cm
Presented to King George V, 1914
© 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Henry Bowers (1883-1912), Edward Wilson (1872-1912) and Apsley Cherry-Garrard (1886-1959) are shown shortly before departing for Cape Crozier in search of Emperor penguin eggs. Between 27 June and 1 August, the trio endured extreme weather conditions and winter darkness as they crossed Ross Island and then returned, having collected three eggs. Cherry-Garrard famously described it as ‘the worst journey in the world’.

Royal Collection: ‘The weirdest bird’s-nesting expedition that has ever been’ – Part Two

In the second in this series of talks, Royal Collection curator Emma Stuart takes us on a journey with three intrepid explorers as they faced the hostile conditions of the Antarctic to recover an Emperor Penguin’s egg.

Herbert Ponting (British, 1870-1935)
Captain Scott
February 1911
Presented to King George V, 1914
© 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

This photograph of Scott, with Mount Erebus in the background, was taken at the start of the expedition. He is wearing fur gloves with an attached cord, leather boots, gaiters and thick socks.

Herbert Ponting (British, 1870-1935)
The Shore Party
Jan 1911
Silver bromide print
43.6 x 61.9cm
Presented to King George V, 1914
© 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Photograph of the Shore party. On the back row are (from left to right): T. Griffith Taylor; Apsley Cherry-Garrard; Bernard Day; Edward Nelson; Edward Evans; Lawrence Oates; Edward Atkinson; Robert Falcon Scott; Charles Wright; Patrick Keohane; Tryggve Gran; William Lashly; Frederick Hooper; Robert Forde; Anton Omelchenko; Dimitri Gerov. On the front row are (from left to right): Henry Bowers; Cecil Meares; Frank Debenham; Edward Wilson; George Simpson; Edgar Evans and Tom Crean. This group is the Shore Party – the men who remained in Antarctica throughout the winter of 1911, preparing for Scott’s final departure for the Pole. They pose in front of the expedition hut at Cape Evans. The only people not visible are Clissold, the cook, and Ponting, the photographer. Scott is at the centre of the group and all the men look relaxed. This was taken at the very beginning of the expedition, when they would have been optimistic and excited about the future.

Henry Bowers (British, 1883-1912)
Forestalled. Amundsen’s tent at the South Pole
18 Jan 1912
Silver bromide print
27.5 x 38cm
Presented to King George V, 1914
© 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Photograph of Scott’s party at Amundsen’s tent at the South Pole. (from left to right are): Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912); Lawrence Oates (1880-1912); Edward Wilson (1872-1912) and Edgar Evans (1876-1912). This photograph shows the dejection of the team as they explore the tent left by Roald Amundsen, who reached the South Pole on 14 December 1911, thirty-five days before Scott. There is a Norwegian flag at the top of the tent; inside, Scott found a letter recording their achievement, left by Amundsen in case he did not return safely.

Henry Bowers (British, 1883-1912)
Scott and the Polar Party at the South Pole
17 January 1912
Presented to King George V, 1914
© 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Imperial Transantarctic Expedition 1914-1916

Shackleton set out in October 1914 on the Endurance with the intention of making the first crossing of the Antarctic continent via the South Pole. While he and his men planned to reach Antarctica through the Weddell Sea, another party aboard the Aurora sailed to the other side of the continent to lay food depots for the expected party.

The intention was that only six men would complete the crossing; the photographer Frank Hurley was to be one of the team. Hurley had been to the Antarctic before, as part of the Australasian Expedition of 1911-1914. He was intrepid in his search for dramatic images. The role of photographer was important not just to document the achievements of the expedition, but also to create a source of income. The rights to publish the images would be sold for a great deal of money after the return to Britain.

The expedition ran into difficulties almost immediately. By mid-January 1915, Endurance became trapped in ice and had to become a floating scientific station. The men waited out the harsh Antarctic winter in the hope that their situation would improve.

Text from the Royal Collection Trust website

Frank Hurley (Australian, 1885-1962)
Entering the pack ice. Weddell Sea, lat. 57° 59′ S. long. 22° 39′ W
9 Dec 1914
Silver bromide print
15.3 x 20.5cm
Presented to King George V, 1914
© 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Photograph of six members of Shackleton’s crew standing on the deck of Endurance. This was the men’s first view of the pack ice through which they had to navigate in order to reach the coast of Antarctica. The Endurance met the ice far further north than they had hoped. The whalers on South Georgia had warned them of the poor ice conditions before they set out. This was a warning of things to come.

Frank Hurley (Australian, 1885-1962)
Under the bow of the Endurance
Self-portrait with cinematograph next to the Endurance
1915
Presented to King George V, 1914
© 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Hurley poses with his cinematograph, which was used to shoot moving film footage. The footage was later turned into a film released after his return under the name of In the Grip of the Polar Pack Ice.

Frank Hurley (Australian, 1885-1962)
The Endurance in the garb of winter
June 1915
Silver bromide print
20.2 x 15.2cm
Presented to King George V, 1914
© 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Endurance sits benignly at rest in the midst of the ice field. A recent blizzard has coated the hummocks in a layer of snow, softening the contours. All looks peaceful, but within a few months these same hummocks will have crushed the ship.

Photograph of the bow and part of the left side of Endurance, lit by flashlight in the darkness of the night. This is probably Hurley’s best-known photograph, which he took with flashlights at -38 °F/-39 °C. It was later used on the front cover of Shackleton’s account of the expedition, South. Hurley described the scene in his autobiography: Never did the ship look quite so beautiful as when the bright moonlight etched her in inky silhouette, or transformed her into a vessel from fairy-land.

Frank Hurley (Australian, 1885-1962)
The night watchman spins a yarn
1915
Gelatin silver print
Presented to King George V, 1914
© 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

After Endurance became a winter station in February 1915, Shackleton abandoned the usual system of watches. The single nightwatchman had little to do, apart from tending the dogs and observing ice movements. It was private leisure time, to read, or do some washing, but often became a social occasion as shown here, as the men gather companionably round the fire.

Frank Hurley (Australian, 1885-1962)
The bi-weekly ablutions of the ‘Ritz’
The Scientists washing down the “Ritz” (living quarters in the hold)
James Wordie, Alfred Cheetham and Alexander Macklin, washing down the ‘Ritz’ living quarters in the hold of the Endurance
1915
Gelatin silver print
© 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Following the onset of winter and the transformation of Endurance into a scientific station, the main cargo hold was emptied and turned into a communal living space for the men, nicknamed the ‘Ritz’. The traditional Antarctic Christmas on Midwinter’s Day (22 June) saw the ‘Ritz’ transformed for a cabaret, featuring satirical speeches, songs, poems and even a drag act. From left to right are Wordie (1889-1962), Cheetham (1867-1918) and Macklin (1889-1967).

Herbert Ponting (British, 1870-1935)
Sir Ernest Shackleton arrives at Elephant Island to take off marooned men
30 August 1916
Presented to King George V, 1914
© 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

This photograph was actually taken at the time of the ‘James Caird’s’ departure on 24 April. Hurley has altered it to represent the moment of rescue, with the arrival of Shackleton on the ‘Yelcho’. The actual rescue was not photographed.

The Royal Collection
The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace
London SW1A 1AA

Opening hours:
Thursday – Monday 10.00 – 17.30

The Queen’s Gallery website

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Exhibition: ‘Eugène Atget: “Documents pour artistes”‘ at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York

Exhibition dates: 6th February – 9th April 2012

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Coin, Boulevard de la Chapelle et rue Fleury 76,18e
June 1921
Matte albumen silver print
6 13/16 x 9 inches (17.3 x 22.9cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Abbott-Levy Collection. Partial gift of Shirley C. Burden

“These are simply documents I make.”

Eugène Atget

“One might think of Atget’s work at Sceaux as… a summation and as the consummate achievement of his work as a photographer – a coherent, uncompromising statement of what he had learned of his craft, and of how he had amplified and elaborated the sensibility with which he had begun. Or perhaps one might see the work at Sceaux as a portrait of Atget himself, not excluding petty flaws, but showing most clearly the boldness and certainty – what his old friend Calmettes called the intransigence – of his taste, his method, his vision.

John Szarkowski

The first of two postings about the work of Eugène Atget, this exhibition at MoMA the first in twenty-five years to focus on his “Documents for artists.” Atget was my first hero in photography and the greatest influence on my early black and white photography before I departed and found my own voice as an artist. Through his photographs, his vision he remains a life-long friend. He taught me so much about where to place the camera and how to see the world. He made me aware. For that I am eternally grateful.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Cour, 7 rue de Valence
June 1922
Matte albumen silver print
7 x 8 15/16 inches (17.8 x 22.7cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Abbott-Levy Collection. Partial gift of Shirley C. Burden

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Cour, 41 rue Broca
1912
Albumen silver print
6 5/8 x 8 1/4 inches (16.9 x 21cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Abbott-Levy Collection. Partial gift of Shirley C. Burden

The sign above the entrance to Eugène Atget’s studio in Paris read Documents pour artistes (Documents for artists), declaring his modest ambition to create photographs for others to use as source material in their work. Atget (French, 1857-1927) made more than 8,500 pictures of Paris and its environs in a career that spanned over thirty years, from the late nineteenth century until his death. To facilitate access to this vast body of work for himself and his clients, he organised his photographs into discrete series, a model that guides the organisation of this exhibition. The works are presented here in six groups, demonstrating Atget’s sustained attention to certain motifs or locations and his consistently inventive and elegant methods of rendering the complexity of the three-dimensional world on a flat, rectangular plate.

In 1925 the American artist Man Ray purchased forty-two photographs from Atget, who lived down the street from him in Montparnasse. Man Ray believed he detected a kindred Surrealist sensibility in the work, to which suggestion Atget replied, “These are simply documents I make.” This humility belies the extraordinary pictorial sophistication and beauty that is characteristic of much of Atget’s oeuvre and his role as touchstone and inspiration for subsequent generations of photographers, from Walker Evans to Lee Friedlander. This exhibition bears witness to his success, no matter the unassuming description he gave of his life’s work.

A Note on the Prints

Atget made photographs with a view camera resting on a tripod. An example of his 24-by-18-centimeter glass plate negatives is on display here. Each print was made by exposing light-sensitive paper to the sun in direct contact with one of these negatives, which Atget numbered sequentially within each series. He frequently scratched the number into the emulsion on the negative, and thus it appears in reverse at the bottom of most prints. He also inscribed the number, along with the work’s title, in pencil on the verso of each print. These titles appear (with English translations where necessary) on the individual wall labels, preserving Atget’s occasionally idiosyncratic titling practices. The Abbott-Levy Collection at The Museum of Modern Art, to which the prints in this exhibition belong (except where noted), is composed of close to 5,000 distinct photographs and 1,200 glass plate negatives that were in Atget’s studio at the time of his death. The Museum purchased this collection in 1968 from photographer Berenice Abbott and art dealer Julien Levy, thanks to the unflagging efforts of John Szarkowski, then director of the Department of Photography, and in part to the generosity of Shirley C. Burden.

Fifth arrondissement

For more than thirty years, Atget photographed in and around Paris. Curiously, given the depth of this investigation, he never photographed the Eiffel Tower, generally avoided the grand boulevards, and eschewed picture postcard views. Instead Atget focused on the fabric of the city: facades of individual buildings (both notable and anonymous), meandering streetscapes, details of stonework and ironwork, churches, shops, and the occasional monument. Even a selective cross section of the photographs he made in the fifth arrondissement over the course of his career suggests that his approach, while far from systematic, might yet be termed comprehensive.

Courtyards

Atget clearly relished the metaphorical and physical aspects of the courtyard – a space that hovers between public and private, interior and exterior – and he photographed scores of them, both rural and urban. The motif was chosen as the backdrop for what was likely Atget’s first photograph of an automobile (Cour, 7 rue de Valence), and it was versatile enough to transform itself depending on where Atget placed his camera (see the two views of the courtyard at 27 quai d’Anjou). The dark areas that appear in the upper corners of some prints are the result of vignetting: a technique in which the light coming through the camera’s lens does not fully cover the glass plate negative, allowing Atget to create an arched pictorial space that echoed the physical one before his camera.

Wall text from the exhibition

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Geneviève
June 1925
Gelatin silver printing-out-paper print
6 11/16 x 8 3/4 inches (17 x 22.2cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Abbott-Levy Collection. Partial gift of Shirley C. Burden

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Maison où Mourut Voltaire en 1778, 1 rue de Beaune
1909
Albumen silver print
8 9/16 x 7 inches (21.8 x 17.8cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Abbott-Levy Collection. Partial gift of Shirley C. Burden

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Balcon, 17 rue du Petit-Pont
1913
Albumen silver print
8 5/8 x 6 15/16 inches (21.9 x 17.7cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Abbott-Levy Collection. Partial gift of Shirley C. Burden

Eugène Atget: “Documents pour artistes“ presents six fresh and highly focused cross sections of the career of master photographer Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927), drawn exclusively from The Museum of Modern Art’s unparalleled holdings of his work. The exhibition, on view at MoMA from February 6 through April 9, 2012, gets its name from the sign outside Atget’s studio door, which declared his modest ambition to create documents for other artists to use as source material in their own work. Whether exploring Paris’s fifth arrondissement across several decades, or the decayed grandeur of parks at Sceaux in a remarkable creative outburst at the twilight of his career, Atget’s lens captured the essence of his chosen subject with increasing complexity and sensitivity. Also featured are Atget’s photographs made in the Luxembourg gardens; his urban and rural courtyards; his pictures of select Parisian types; and his photographs of mannequins, store windows, and street fairs, which deeply appealed to Surrealist artists living in Paris after the First World War. The exhibition is organised by Sarah Hermanson Meister, Curator, Department of Photography, The Museum of Modern Art.

Atget made more than 8,500 pictures of Paris and its environs in a career that spanned over 30 years, from the late-19th century until his death. To facilitate access to this vast body of work for himself and his clients, he organised his photographs into discrete series, a model that guides the organisation of this exhibition. More than 100 photographs are presented in six groups, demonstrating Atget’s sustained attention to certain motifs or locations and his consistently inventive and elegant methods of rendering the complexity of the three-dimensional world on a flat, rectangular plate.

With seemingly inexhaustible curiosity, Atget photographed the streets of Paris. Eschewing picture-postcard views, and, remarkably, never once photographing the Eiffel Tower, he instead focused on the fabric of the city, taking pictures along the Seine, in every arrondissement, and in the “zone” outside the fortified wall that encompassed Paris at the time. His photographs of the fifth arrondissement are typical of this approach, and include facades of individual buildings (both notable and anonymous), meandering streetscapes, details of stonework and ironwork, churches, and the occasional monument.

Between March and June 1925, Atget made 66 photographs in the abandoned Parc de Sceaux, on the outskirts of Paris, almost half of which are on view in this exhibition. His approach was confident and personal, even quixotic, and his notations of the time of day for certain exposures read almost like diary entries. These photographs have long been recognised as among Atget’s finest, and this is the first opportunity for audiences outside of France to appreciate the full diversity and richness of this accomplishment.

Atget photographed the Jardin de Luxembourg more than any other Parisian park, likely reflecting his preference for its character and its proximity to his home and studio on rue Campagne-Première in Montparnasse. His early photographs there tend to capture human activity – children with their governesses or men conversing in the shade – but this gave way to a more focused exploration of the garden’s botanical and sculptural components following the First World War, and culminated in studies that delicately balance masses of light and shadow, as is typical of Atget’s late work.

Atget firmly resisted public association with the Surrealists, yet his work – in particular his photographs of shop windows, mannequins, and the street fairs around Paris – captured the eye of artists with decidedly avant-garde inclinations, such as Man Ray and Tristan Tzara. Man Ray lived down the street from Atget, and the young American photographer Berenice Abbott, while working as Man Ray’s studio assistant, made Atget’s acquaintance in the mid-1920s – a relationship that ultimately brought the contents of Atget’s studio at the time of his death to MoMA, almost 40 years later.

Atget clearly relished the metaphorical and physical aspects of the courtyard – a space that hovers between public and private, interior and exterior – and he photographed scores of them, both rural and urban. This exhibition marks the first time these pictures have been grouped together, allowing the public to appreciate previously unexplored aspects of the Abbott-Levy Collection, which includes prints of nearly 5,000 different images.

Only a tiny fraction of the negatives Atget exposed during his lifetime are photographs of people, yet they have attracted attention disproportionate to their number. With few exceptions, this segment of his creative output can be divided into three types: street merchants (petits métiers); ragpickers (chiffonniers) or Romanies (romanichels, or Gypsies), who lived in impermanent structures just outside the fortified wall surrounding Paris; and prostitutes. As with each section of this exhibition, Atget’s career is represented by the finest prints drawn from critically distinct and essential aspects of his practice, allowing a fresh appreciation of photography’s first modern master.

Press release from the MoMA website

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Luxembourg
1923-1925
Matte albumen silver print
6 7/8 x 9 inches (17.5 x 22.8cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Abbott-Levy Collection. Partial gift of Shirley C. Burden

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Luxembourg
1923-1925
Matte albumen silver print
7 x 8 13/16 inches (17.8 x 22.4cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Abbott-Levy Collection. Partial gift of Shirley C. Burden

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Luxembourg
1902-1903
Albumen silver print
6 5/8 x 8 3/8 inches (16.8 x 21.3cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Abbott-Levy Collection. Partial gift of Shirley C. Burden

Jardin de Luxembourg

Atget photographed the Jardin de Luxembourg more than any other Parisian park, likely reflecting his preference for its character as well as its proximity to his home and studio on rue Campagne-Première in Montparnasse (about a ten-minute walk away). His photographs of the gardens made around 1900 tend to capture human activity (children with their governesses, men conversing in the shade), but this gave way to a more focused exploration of the garden’s botanical and sculptural components following the First World War and culminated in studies that delicately balance masses of light and shadow, typical of Atget’s late work.

Parc de Sceaux

Between March and June 1925, Atget made sixty-six photographs in the abandoned Parc de Sceaux, on the outskirts of Paris. His approach was confident and personal, even quixotic, and his notations of the time of day for certain exposures read almost like diary entries. John Szarkowski wrote of this body of work: “One might think of Atget’s work at Sceaux as… a summation and as the consummate achievement of his work as a photographer – a coherent, uncompromising statement of what he had learned of his craft, and of how he had amplified and elaborated the sensibility with which he had begun. Or perhaps one might see the work at Sceaux as a portrait of Atget himself, not excluding petty flaws, but showing most clearly the boldness and certainty – what his old friend Calmettes called the intransigence – of his taste, his method, his vision. Atget made his last photograph at Sceaux after its restoration had begun. He perceived that the effort to tidy the grounds in anticipation of their conversion to a public park would fundamentally alter the untended, decayed grandeur that had been his muse.”

Wall text from the exhibition

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Parc de Sceaux
June 1925
Gelatin silver printing-out-paper print
7 x 8 7/8 inches (17.8 x 22.5cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Abbott-Levy Collection. Partial gift of Shirley C. Burden

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Parc de Sceaux, mars, 8 h. matin
1925
Gelatin silver printing-out-paper print
7 1/16 x 8 13/16 inches (17.9 x 22.4cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Abbott-Levy Collection. Partial gift of Shirley C. Burden

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Parc de Sceaux, 7 h. matin
March 1925
Matte albumen silver print
6 15/16 x 9 1/16 inches (17.6 x 23cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Abbott-Levy Collection. Partial gift of Shirley C. Burden

People of Paris

Only a tiny fraction of the negatives Atget exposed during his lifetime feature the human figure as a central element. With few exceptions, this segment of his creative output can be divided into three types: street merchants (petits métiers); zoniers – ragpickers (chiffonniers) and Romanies (romanichels, or Gypsies) – who lived in impermanent structures in the zone just outside the fortified wall surrounding Paris; and prostitutes. The painter André Dignimont commissioned Atget to pursue this third subject in the spring of 1921, but the decidedly untawdry resulting images of brothels and prostitutes are only obliquely suggestive of the nature of their trade, so it is not difficult to imagine why the commission was concluded after only about a dozen negatives.

Surrogates and the Surreal

Atget’s photograph Pendant l’éclipse (During the eclipse) was featured on the cover of the seventh issue of the Parisian Surrealists’ publication La Révolution surréaliste, with the caption Les Dernières Conversions (The last converts), in June 1926. The picture was uncredited, as were the two additional photographs reproduced inside. Although Atget firmly resisted the association, his work – in particular his photographs of shop windows, mannequins, and the street fairs around Paris – had captured the attention of artists with decidedly avant-garde inclinations, such as Man Ray and Tristan Tzara. Man Ray lived on the same street as Atget, and the young American photographer Berenice Abbott (working as Man Ray’s studio assistant) learned of the French photographer and made his acquaintance in the mid-1920s – a relationship that ultimately brought the contents of Atget’s studio at the time of his death (in 1927) to The Museum of Modern Art almost forty years later.

Wall text from the exhibition

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Fête du Trône
1925
Gelatin silver printing-out-paper print
6 7/16 x 8 7/16 inches (16.4 x 21.5cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Abbott-Levy Collection. Partial gift of Shirley C. Burden

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Fête de Vaugirard
1926
Gelatin silver printing-out-paper print
6 13/16 x 8 3/4 inches (17.3 x 22.2cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Abbott-Levy Collection. Partial gift of Shirley C. Burden

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Avenue des Gobelins
1925
Gelatin silver printing-out-paper print
8 1/4 x 6 1/2inches (21 x 16.7cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Abbott-Levy Collection. Partial gift of Shirley C. Burden

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Romanichels, groupe
1912
Gelatin silver printing-out-paper print
8 3/8 x 6 11/16 inches (21.2 x 17cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Abbott-Levy Collection. Partial gift of Shirley C. Burden

The Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53 Street
New York, NY 10019
Phone: (212) 708-9400

Opening hours:
10.30am – 5.30pm
Open seven days a week

MoMA website

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Exhibition: ‘Hijacked III: Contemporary Photography from Australia and the UK’ at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA)

Exhibition dates: 18th February – 8th April 2012

Hijacked III Interview with writer Anthony Luvera

The photographs in this posting highlight the conceptual diversity in contemporary art practice and emphasise the talent of the practitioners working today. Just an observation: how serious are the portraits – it’s as if no’body’ is allowed to laugh or smile anymore. Perhaps this is a reflection of the times in which we live, full of malaise, anxiety and little wonder. Fear of being replaced, fear of discrimination, fear of growing up, fear of dying. Or dressed up in a women’s dress and pink hat, having the “courage” or ignorance (the opposite of fear?) to look like a stunned mullet with a blank expression on the face (deadpan photography that I really can’t stand). Or, perhaps, simple effacement: defiance as body becomes mannequin, body hidden behind a mask or completely cloaked from view. These grand photographs have the intensity, perhaps not a lightness of being.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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

Trish Morrissey (Irish, b. 1967)
Hayley Coles, June 17th, 2006
2006
Courtesy of the artist and Elaine Levy Project, commissioned by Impressions Gallery

Review of Trish Morrissey on Art Blart

Front deals with the notion of borders, boundaries and the edge; using the family group and the beach setting as metaphors. For this work, the artist travelled to beaches in the UK and around Melbourne. There, she approached families and groups of friends who had made temporary encampments, or marked out territories and asked if she could be part of their family temporarily. Morrissey took over the role or position of a woman within that group – usually the mother figure. The artist asked to take the place of the mother figure, and to borrow her clothes. The mother figure then took over the artist’s role and photographed her family using a 4 x 5 camera (which Morrissey had already carefully set up) under the artist’s instruction. While Morrissey, a stranger on the beach, nestled in with the mother figure’s loved ones.

These highly performative photographs are shaped by chance encounters with strangers, and by what happens when physical and psychological boundaries are crossed. Ideas around the mythological creature the ‘shape shifter’ and the cuckoo are evoked. Each piece within the series is titled by the name of the woman who the artist replaced within the group.

Text from the PICA website

Bindi Cole (Australian, b. 1975)
Ajay
2009
From the series Sistagirls
Courtesy of Nellie Castan Gallery

Review of Sistagirls on Art Blart

The term ‘Sistagirl’ is used to describe a transgender person in Tiwi Island culture. Traditionally, the term was ‘Yimpininni’. The very existence of the word provides some indication of the inclusive attitudes historically extended towards Aboriginal sexual minorities. Colonisation not only wiped out many Indigenous people, it also had an impact on Aboriginal culture and understanding of sexual and gender expression.

As many traditions were lost, this term became a thing of the past. Yimpininni were once held in high regard as the nurturers within the family unit and tribe much like the Faafafine from Samoa. As the usage of the term vanished, tribes’ attitudes toward queer Indigenous people began to resemble that of the western world and the religious right. Even today many Sistagirls are excluded from their own tribes and suffer at the hands of others.

Text from the PICA website

Maciej Dakowicz (Polish, b. 1976)
Pink Hat, 23:42. Cardiff
2006
Courtesy of the artist and Third Floor Gallery

St Mary Street is one of the main streets in central Cardiff, the capital city of Wales; a city as any other in the UK. Unassuming during the day, on weekend nights it becomes the main scene of the city night life, fuelled by alcohol and emotions. Some of Cardiff’s most popular clubs and pubs are located there or in its vicinity. The very popular Chippy Lane, with its numerous chip and kebab shops, is just a stone’s throw away. Sooner or later most party-goers end up in that area, whether looking for another drink, some food or in search of another dance floor.

Everything takes place in this public arena – from drinking, fighting, kissing to crying and sleeping. Supermen chat up Playboy Bunnies, somebody lies on the pavement taking a nap, the hungry ones finish their portions of chips and the policemen stop another argument before it turns into a fight. Nobody seems to worry about tomorrow, what matters is here and now, punctuated by another week at work, until the next weekend rolls around again.

Text from the PICA website

Laura Pannack (British, b. 1985)
Shay
2010
Courtesy of the artist
Represented by Lisa Pritchard Agency

What’s so special about this picture are the details. The tattoo – not just what it says but the way it mimics the Nike Swoosh on her shirt – and the cigarette, that although it is not in focus, one imagines has a large line of ash on it, as if time has stopped. This is echoed in the expression on her face, deep intensity and focused on something ahead although the car is obviously stationary. From a distance one could be mistaken that this is an American photograph from the 70s but on closer inspection – the piercing, the Nike Swoosh, the car door handles – one realises that this is contemporary and British. And yet of course that stare is timeless.

Harry Hardie on the Foto8 website [Online] Cited 22/03/2012 no longer available online

Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin
Culture3/Sheet72/Frame3
2011
Courtesy of the artists & Paradise Row, London

HIJACKED III interview with PICA curator Leigh Robb

… Artists are notorious for their ability to hijack; meaning to stop and hold up, to seize control by use of force in order to divert or appropriate, a deliberate attempt to action a change of direction.

Hijacked III: Contemporary Photography from Australia the UK draws on the success and unique energy of Hijacked I (Australia and USA) and Hijacked II (Australia and Germany), to once again bring together two geographically distant but historically connected communities through a range of diverse photographic practices.

This exhibition will be simultaneously presented across two sites: PICA in Perth, Western Australia and QUAD Gallery in Derby, United Kingdom, and has been timed to coincide with the launch of the luscious, full colour and 420 page Hijacked III compendium, published by Big City Press. Utilising portraiture, digital collage, archival images, documentary snap shots, internet grabs and refined photographic tableaux, the 24 artists and over 120 works in this exhibition explore themes as diverse as curious weekend leisure pursuits, gender politics and displaced Indigenous culture.

Artists: Tony Albert, Warwick Baker, Broomberg & Chanarin, Natasha Caruana, Bindi Cole, Maciej Dakowicz, Christopher Day, Melinda Gibson, Toni Greaves, Petrina Hicks, Alin Huma, Seba Kurtis, David Manley, Tracey Moffatt, Trish Morrissey, Laura Pannack, Sarah Pickering, Zhao Renhui, Simon Roberts, Helen Sear, Justin Spiers, Luke Stephenson, Christian Thompson, Tereza Zelenkova, Michael Ziebarth.

Press release from PICA website

Sarah Pickering (British, b. 1972)
Land mine
2005
Courtesy of the artist and Meessen De Clercq, Brussels

The Explosion pictures document the literal theatre of war – the detailed level of artifice used to prepare men and women for combat on the front lines. They also reveal the minutiae of packaging war as entertainment. The beauty of the pictures lies in their perverse seductiveness, and this attraction underscores the distance most of us have from real combat.

Pickering’s Explosion images, by distilling an aspect of the war that is a fiction, question the reliability of seemingly objective historical accounts, such as news reports and photographs that influence how war is communicated and remembered. By extension they question how we come to know what we know about it. We learn about war from a variety of sources, from history books, first-hand accounts, news media, and movies, all of which can get confused and merged in our minds as memory.

The dual purpose of the explosives – training and re-enacting – forms a fitting parallel to how we cope with trauma, a process of both anticipation and reconciliation.”

Sarah Pickering website

Simon Roberts (British, b. 1974)
We English No. 56
2007

More Simon Roberts We English on Art Blart

Simon Roberts travelled across England in a motorhome between 2007 and 2008 for this portfolio of large-format tableaux photographs of the English at leisure. We English builds on his first major body of work, Motherland (2005), with the same themes of identity, memory and belonging resonating throughout. Photographing ordinary people engaged in diverse pastimes, Roberts aims to show a populace with a profound attachment to its local environment and homeland. He explores the notion that nationhood – that what it means to be English – is to be found on the surface of contemporary life, encapsulated by banal pastimes and everyday leisure activities. The resulting images are an intentionally lyrical rendering of a pastoral England, where Roberts finds beauty in the mundane and in the exploration of the relationship between people and place, and of our connections to the landscapes around us.

Text from the Simon Roberts website

Tony Albert (Australian, b. 1981)
No Place
2009
Courtesy of the artist

Tony Albert is a Girramay rainforest man from the Cardwell area… The No Place series references The Wizard of Oz ‘there’s no place like home’. For No Place Tony returns to his tropical paradise home with a group of Lucho Libre wrestling masks from Mexico. His family adorn these masks and again become warriors protecting their paradise. These seemingly playful masks share much with Aboriginal and particularly rainforest culture. Body and shield designs from this area represent animal gods or spirit beings. The use of these masks brings a prescient new layer of armour for a new generation of warrior.

The colour scheme of solid blocks of red, black and yellow also speak to traditional rainforest aesthetics. There are strong elements of the sublime and the fantastical within these works. Viewing Aboriginal people in iconic north Queensland locations masked in Mexican wrestling paraphernalia carries more than a hint of the surreal and absurd.

Anon. “Tony Albert and No Place,” on the Big Art website, 2010 [Online] Cited 22/03/2012 no longer available online

Christian Thompson (Australian / Bidjara, b. 1978)
Untitled #7 from the King Billy series
2010
Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi

King Billy, is an ode to his great great grandfather, King Billy of Bonnie Doon Lorne. The initial inspiration was a photograph of King Billy, standing alone wearing his ‘name plate’. Despite its colonial overtones, for Thompson, this image of the senior tribesman exudes wisdom and kindness and reminds him of his father. In much of Thompson’s work his processes are intuitive, he delves into a rich dream world and draws out fabulous images. He manifests his own mythological world. In this series his figures are clad in fabrics patterned with Indigenous motifs, mainly cheap hoodies in lurid colours; a modern / ancient skin for a magic youth culture. He has made a triptych, three views of a pink hooded figure spewing cascading pearl stands from the face; opulent, decadent, excessive and sensual.

Another image shows a crowned figure swathed in fabrics bearing the markings of various clans, perhaps indicating the domain of this regal form. In the hands a (poisoned?) chalice – the sawn off plastic bottle a warning about petrol sniffing? His self-portrait as psychedelic godhead/Carnaby Street dandy / flower child is spectacular and arresting. He is wearing a tailored suit, patterned with more Indigenous motifs and he cradles a bouquet. His skin is green and his eyes are purple flowers. What can this otherworldly creature tell us?

Thompson seems to emphasise a theme of disparity in this work; the ‘hoodie’ with the cascading pearls, the crown with the plastic bottle, the opulence with the desperate. These works are both beautiful and confronting.

Text from the PICA website

HIJACKED III interview with Christian Thompson

Petrina Hicks (Australian, b. 1972)
Emily the Strange
2011
Courtesy of the artist and Stills Gallery

Petrina Hicks’ Beautiful Creatures appeals to our senses. Immediately alluring, the large-scale, hyper-real photographs, are all rendered so clearly and with such control they are reminiscent of advertisements. But with a series of little ruptures, within images and between them, Hicks disrupts our usually beguiled response to such artistry. For her, photography’s capability to both create and corrupt the process of seduction and consumption is of endless interest.

Hicks loads her images with history and associations but denies us a clear message. Along with the ambiguity, there is a visceral quality in these new works; her depiction of flesh, hair and veins stops the viewer short of being lulled into consumption. Hicks engages a playful yet confronting approach to confound our expectations. A cat, naked without fur, in the image Sphynx, contrasts a beautiful blonde with a face full of it in Comfort. In Emily the Strange the hairless creature reappears with a young girl whose piercing green eyes, skin-pink dress, and latent defiance, make her eerily akin to her pet. Alluded to, in the title of the exhibition, this duality is present in much of the work. Her subjects are not simply beautiful or simply creatures.

Text from the PICA website

HIJACKED III interview with photographer Petrina Hicks

Tereza Zelenkova (Czech, b. 1985)
Cadaver
2011
Courtesy of the artist

Luke Stephenson (British, b. 1983)
Diamond Sparrow #1
2009
Courtesy of the artist

Stephenson finds birds and the world surrounding them wonderfully fascinating. The birds he has photographed all belong to avid bird breeders who on the whole have been keeping birds their whole lives. It’s a hobby people generally don’t come into contact with, unless you are active within it. The artist does not keep birds but finds them beautiful in all their variations and colours, so has set out capture these birds in a way that would show them at their best.

There are many criteria to breeding a prize-winning bird, from shape and form to its pattern, and this is something Stephenson has tried to convey whilst also attempting to show some of their personalities. He set out to photograph every breed of bird within the ‘hobby’ of keeping birds but soon realised there were thousands of variations, so decided to keep this as an ongoing project; realising instalments every couple of years which people can collect and, hopefully one day, the dictionary will be complete.

Luke Stephenson website

Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA)
Perth Cultural Centre
James Street Northbridge
Phone: + 61 (0) 8 9228 6300

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday 10am – 5pm
Closed Mondays

PICA website

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Review: ‘Martin Parr: In Focus’ at Niagara Galleries, Richmond, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 6th March – 31st March, 2012

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025) 'New Brighton, England' from the series 'The Last Resort' 1983-1985

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025)
New Brighton, England
From the series Last Resort
1983-1985
Pigment print
Edition of 5
102 x 127cm
Image courtesy of the artist and Niagara Galleries, Melbourne

This is a fine exhibition of the work of celebrated English photographer Martin Parr at Niagara Galleries, Richmond, albeit with one proviso. The mainly large colour prints are handsomely displayed in plain white frames within the gallery space and are taken from his well known series: Last Resort, Luxury, New British and British Food. Parr’s work is at its best when he concentrates on the volume of space within the image plane and the details that emerge from such a concentrated visualisation – whether it be the tension points within the image, assemblage of colour, incongruity of dress, messiness of childhood or philistine nature of luxury.

The best photographs have a wonderful frisson about them, a genuine love of and resonance with the things he is imaging. This frisson can be seen in all of the photographs in this posting but most notably in :

~ The incursion of the surreal red colour to left in England. New Brighton (above) and Parr’s masterful use of vertical and horizontal lines within the image. Note the verticality: of the child’s toy, the two children themselves, the pillars of the pavilion and the lighthouse holding the whole image together at right. If this lighthouse were not there the eye would fall out of the image. As it is it is contained, forcing the viewer to look closely at the absurdity of the melting ice cream and the splashes that have fallen on the ground.

~ The complexity of the photograph England. New Brighton (below) where the eye does not know what to rest upon, constantly jumping from object to object. Do you look at the women on the ground, the shoes to right, the piece of fabric to left, the screaming baby, the sunlit pink umbrella, the women in blue bikini up the ramp, the long elongated shadowed wall with peek-a-boo heads leading to the outlined figures at the vanishing point of image – the top of the ramp. The understanding of light (with the use of flash) and the construction of the image is superlative. Wow!

~ The incongruity evidenced in the photograph England, Ascot. 2003: the over tight pink sateen dress with unfortunate stain (which the eye is irrevocably drawn to), applique bow linked through to hideous flower embossed handbag which then contrasts with the seated women behind in hat and purple floral dress. In the large print in the gallery the background is more out of focus than in the small reproduction here, allowing the viewer’s eye an avenue of escape via the grass and deck chair beyond.

~ The delicious, choreographed mise-en-scène of Australia, The Melbourne Cup. 2008 – the suits, ties and glasses, the teezed hair, the alcohol – where none of the participants is looking at the camera, where only the ladies hand clutches at the back of the man’s shoulder. They look down, they look left, they look right, they look away, they never engage with each other or the viewer. The critical space in this assemblage is the distance between the man and the woman’s noses, that vitally small space of separation that is a synonym for the interactions occurring in the rest of the image. The blindness of Lux’ry, its crassness, its stain.

And so it goes. The dirt under the fingernails of the child eating a doughnut, the lurid colours of the popsicle and jacket of the kid with dribble on his face, all fantastic. There are moments of stasis, for example in the contemplative photograph Australia. South Hedland. Blackrock Tourist Park. 2011 (below) taken from Parr’s new series Australia, where Parr has photographed Australian life in three Western Australian port cities, Fremantle, Broome and Port Hedland. See the video at the bottom of the posting and listen to Parr talk about his work.

This is all fine and dandy, dressed up in polka dots and a lurid bow tie, but when the photographs become too reductive, as in the large photograph in the exhibition England. Dorset. West Bay. 1997 (see first column, fourth down) there is really not enough to hang your hat on. This feeling of over simplification, as though the photographer has said to himself “here’s something I have seen that you haven’t recognised, and I think it is important for you to recognise it” – the perceived essentialness of the object – can become a bit strained. I know that these type of images are part of the series about British or Scottish food or about objects from a specific place but do they really have this grand an importance in the scheme of things? This feeling is reinforced in the exhibition, and this is my proviso to show, when the images such as Scotland. Glasgow. Fairy cakes. 1999, England. Blackpool. 1995 (bread and butter on a plate on red check cloth) are presented at A4 size surrounded by heavy white frames. These photographs have to be large to have any chance of working at all and at the small size they fall flat.

The size of a photograph raises interesting questions about the display of contemporary photography. The giant light boxes of Jeff Wall, the huge group portraits of Thomas Struth, the huge portraits of Thomas Ruff, the huge environments of Candida Hofer and the huge panoramas of Andreas Gursky (to name but a few) are all points in case. Would they work at a smaller size? No. They rely on scale and detail, visual impact for their effect: the same with Martin Parr. What is really ‘In Focus’ is the visualisation of the artist, his ability to envisage the final print at this large size. The A4 prints in this exhibition simply do not work at that size, for these photographs.

Think of Ansel Adams’ famous Monolith, The Face of Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, Calif., (circa 1926). Originally printed as a contact 8″ x 10″ from the negative, Adams gradually increased the size of this image till it became a huge print as tall as a man in his later life. The image works at multiple sizes, it spoke to him (and the viewer) at all these sizes: the small contact is intense and gem-like, the larger imitating the monolithic structure of the Face itself. I feel that some large contemporary photographs are quite vacuous at this large size, that there is no reason for them to be at this size. In other words it is not appropriate for the image. Conversely it would seem that artists previsualise for this size in the end print, which is fine, but that the print cannot exist, cannot breathe in the world at a smaller size. Is this a problem? Does this matter? I believe it does, especially when a photograph is displayed at a size that simply doesn’t work. I was always taught to print a photograph at an appropriate size for the image, whatever size(s) that may be (and there can be multiples), as long as it has resonance for that particular image.

As evidenced in this exhibition, if the photograph cannot “work” at the size that it is to be exhibited then it should not be displayed at all – it is a diminution not just of the artists vision but of the resonance of the photograph, in this case going from large to small. In an upcoming posting about the retrospective of the work of American photographer Fransceca Woodman, there is an installation photograph of the exhibition at The Guggenheim, New York (see above). Her vintage prints (seen in the background) – small, intense visions – have been printed at a huge scale (with her permission) and they simply do not work at this floor to ceiling height. They have lost all of their intimacy, which is one of the strengths of her photography. Again, I believe it is a diminution of the artists vision and the integrity of the photograph, this time from small to large. Artists are not always right. The same can be said of the retrospective of Cartier-Bresson that I saw at the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh in 2005. One room out of four had very small, intense vintage prints in brown hues and the other three galleries had large 20″ x 24″ grainy prints with strong contrast that really ruined any response I had to the work as evidenced by the vintage prints. They were almost reproductions, a simulacra of the real thing. I had a feeling that they weren’t even by the artist himself. The same could be said here.

To conclude I would say this is a fine exhibition of large photographs by Martin Parr that would have been even more focused without the small A4 prints. They are joyous paeans to the quirky, incongruous worlds in which we live and circulate. They evidence life itself in all its orthogonal absurdity. I love ’em!

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to the artist and Niagara Galleries for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Francesca Woodman installation photograph at The Guggenheim Museum, New York. Note the small, vintage prints on the far wall.

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025)
New Brighton, England
From the series The Last Resort
1983-1985
Pigment print
Edition of 5
102 x 127cm
Image courtesy of the artist and Niagara Galleries, Melbourne

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025)
Blackrock Tourist Park, South Hedland, Australia, 2011
From the series Australia
2011
Pigment print
Edition of 5
101.6 x 152.4cm
Image courtesy of the artist and Niagara Galleries, Melbourne

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025)
Ascot, England, 2003
From the series Luxury
1995-2009
Traditional C-type print
Edition of 5
101.6 x 152.4cm
Image courtesy of the artist and Niagara Galleries, Melbourne

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025)
The Melbourne Cup, Australia, 2008
From the series Luxury
1995-2009
Pigment print
Edition of 5
101.6 x 152.4cm
Image courtesy of the artist and Niagara Galleries, Melbourne

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025)
Ramsgate, England, 1996
From the series New British
1994-1996
Traditional C-type print
Edition of 5
105.5 x 157.5cm
Image courtesy of the artist and Niagara Galleries, Melbourne

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025)
Car boot sale, Bristol, England, 1995
From the series British Food
1994-1995
Traditional C-type print
Edition of 33
18 x 25.5cm
Image courtesy of the artist and Niagara Galleries, Melbourne

No Worries: Martin Parr – FotoFreo 2012

Magnum photographer Martin Parr was asked by FotoFreo Festival Director Bob Hewitt to photograph three Western Australian port cities, Fremantle, Broome and Port Hedland. Photographer David Dare Parker was assigned to document the project, the work titled No Worries.

Niagara Galleries
245 Punt Road
Richmond, Melbourne
Victoria, 3121
Australia
Phone: +61 3 9429 3666

Opening hours:
Wednesday – Saturday 12pm – 5pm

Niagara Galleries website

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Exhibition: ‘The Photographs of Brett Weston’ at the The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City

Exhibition dates: 23rd November 2011 – 25th March 25 2012

Brett Weston (American, 1911-1993)
Botanical
c. 1975
Gelatin silver print
Unframed: 11 x 14 inches (27.94 x 35.56cm)
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift from the Christian K. Keesee Collection
© The Brett Weston Archive

Brett Weston’s pictures are ageing well – the decorative aesthetic seems to have more currency today than previously when the values of his father were predominant. Perhaps this has to do with the continuing influence of the Bechers and the exhibition New Topographics: Photographs of a Man Altered Landscape (1975). Although Weston photographs nature there is a beautiful, reductive minimalism to his photographs, an enticing simplicity of light and form that could be seen as decorative but today has taken on more symbolic weight; man and nature under threat, with hints of Atget and Wynn Bullock in the mix as well. Under that seeming simplicity are sophisticated photographs that take a good eye to capture and bring to life – what seems simple isn’t by any means. The light is beautiful, the sensitivity to subject present beyond doubt. His photographs will only gain greater currency in the future.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to The Nelson-Atkins 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.

Brett Weston (American, 1911-1993)
Snow
c. 1970
Gelatin silver print
Unframed: 11 x 14 inches (27.94 x 35.56 cm)
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift from the Christian K. Keesee Collection
© The Brett Weston Archive

Brett Weston (American, 1911-1993)
Water
1970
Gelatin silver print
Unframed: 11 x 14 inches (27.94 x 35.56cm)
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift from the Christian K. Keesee Collection
© The Brett Weston Archive

Brett Weston (American, 1911-1993)
Water Reflection, Logging, Alaska
1973
Gelatin silver print
Unframed: 11 x 14 inches (27.94 x 35.56cm)
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift from the Christian K. Keesee Collection
© The Brett Weston Archive

Brett Weston (American, 1911-1993)
Lava, Hawaii
c. 1985
Gelatin silver print
Unframed: 16 x 20 inches (40.64 x 50.8cm)
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift from the Christian K. Keesee Collection
© The Brett Weston Archive

Over his long and prolific career, photographer Brett Weston (1911-1993) exemplified the modernist aesthetic. The son of famed photographer Edward Weston (1886-1958), Brett Weston was a “natural” with the camera: he was still a teenager when he first received high-level, international recognition as a creative artist.

The Photographs of Brett Weston, Nov. 23, 2011, through April 1, 2012, at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, presents a condensed 40-print survey of his long and prolific career. While rare works from the Museum’s Hallmark Photographic Collection are also included, this exhibition celebrates a gift of 260 Weston prints from Christian K. Keesee, owner of the Brett Weston Archive in Oklahoma City.

“This generous gift from Mr. Keesee exemplifies the deep interest in our program on the part of leading collectors and estates across the nation,” said Keith F. Davis, senior curator of photography. “There is also a wonderful symmetry here: this gift of Brett Weston’s work compliments one of the earliest photography gifts to the Museum, when Mr. and Mrs. Milton McGreevy donated 60 Edward Weston prints in 1958.”

Brett Weston was one of photography’s greatest prodigies. After serving as his father’s apprentice, he achieved international recognition at the age of 17 through inclusion in a landmark exhibition in Stuttgart, Germany in 1929.

“Weston’s images are beautifully modulated, unmanipulated black-and-white prints,” said Davis. “He loved sharp lenses and precision cameras, and he applied this “purist” approach to a sustained exploration of the idea of abstraction.”

Weston always sought an energising balance between fact and form, the objective reality of the world and the purely graphic logic of pictorial shape and structure. In exploring the graphic language of form, Weston aimed to suggest the deeper possibilities, and mysteries, of familiar things.

Press release from The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art website

Brett Weston (American, 1911-1993)
Magnolia Bud
1927
Gelatin silver print
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.
© The Brett Weston Archive

Brett Weston (American, 1911-1993)
Los Angeles
1927
Gelatin silver print
Image: 9 5/8 x 6 7/8 inches (24.45 x 17.46cm)
Framed: 21 1/4 x 17 1/4 inches (53.98 x 43.82cm)
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.
© The Brett Weston Archive

Brett Weston (American, 1911-1993)
Building, Ivy, Tree, Sutton Place, New York
1945
Gelatin silver print
Unframed: 10 x 8 inches (25.4 x 20.32cm)
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift from the Christian K. Keesee Collection
© The Brett Weston Archive

Brett Weston (American, 1911-1993)
Reflections through Window
1955
Gelatin silver print
Image and sheet: 9 9/16 × 7 3/16 inches (24.29 × 18.26 cm)
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.
© The Brett Weston Archive

Brett Weston (American, 1911-1993)
Broken Window
c. 1970
Gelatin silver print
Unframed: 11 x 14 inches (27.94 x 35.56cm)
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift from the Christian K. Keesee Collection
© The Brett Weston Archive

Brett Weston (American, 1911-1993)
Tree Root
c. 1980
Gelatin silver print
Unframed: 14 x 11 inches (35.56 x 27.94cm)
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift from the Christian K. Keesee Collection
© The Brett Weston Archive

Brett Weston (American, 1911-1993)
Leaf
1982
Gelatin silver print
Unframed: 20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.64cm)
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift from the Christian K. Keesee Collection
© The Brett Weston Archive

Brett Weston (American, 1911-1993)
Rock Wall
c. 1985
Gelatin silver print
Unframed: 14 x 11 inches (35.56 x 27.94cm)
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift from the Christian K. Keesee Collection
© The Brett Weston Archive

Brett Weston (American, 1911-1993)
Botanical
c. 1985
Gelatin silver print
Unframed: 14 x 11 inches (35.56 x 27.94cm)
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift from the Christian K. Keesee Collection
© The Brett Weston Archive