A group of 9 crime-scene photographs from the early part of Weegee’s career c. 1930s.
In 1935, Weegee (Arthur Fellig’s nickname, “a phonetic rendering of Ouija, because of his frequent, seemingly prescient arrivals at scenes only minutes after crimes, fires or other emergencies were reported to authorities”) struck out on his own to become a freelance photographer, selling his “hot off the press” images to the tabloid newspapers. His method was to get there fast, get there first, use his 4×5 Speed Graphic camera preset at f/16 at 1/200 of a second (usually using flashbulbs and a set focus distance of ten feet), develop the photos, sell them and move on to the next spectacle… whether that be a murder, a society happening, or people’s reactions to an event.
What is interesting about these early photographs is what we can deduct about his photographic process and glean from the photographs themselves.
Firstly, the skeletal body (above). We can see that the body is resting on a tray in a boat that is tied to a pier (notice the tensioned rope top right). It has obviously been in the river quite a while because all the flesh has withered from the vine. A piece of metal wire is coiled near the hands, proposing that this person met foul play. The photographer stands on the bank and you can just imagine the conversation. You can imagine Weegee saying to the working men who were in the boat (there must have been two for the lid of the container, top left, is parallel to the body), “Do us a favour, lift the lid for a second.” He only had a second, his camera slanted 45 degrees down looking at the body, and he missed his focus point (or is it deliberate?) … the depth of field low, the focus is on the workers shoes and the skeletal body is out of focus. Does it matter? Not one bit.
Secondly, the lady with the shoe (below). In a seedy tenement house (a run-down and often overcrowded apartment house, especially in a poor section of a large city) we observe how Weegee approaches the body, photographing it from above, from opposing directions, using flash to illuminate the scene. In this case he contextualises the body… in a room, against a cheap vinyl patterned floor covering. A single suitcase sits with open locks on a small trestle table. An old cast iron bed (you know the ones, with metal springs) is framed to the right in front of a heavy iron radiator. In this first photograph the definitive focus is on the body, and its attitude at the point of destruction. The out flung arm, the bend of the knee, the ravaging of the breast. And how it is surrounded by a smashed plate and a discarded shoe.
Next he steps over the body and photographs it from the opposite direction. Here, the focus is not so much on the body, but how the body is placed within the space of the living (and the dead). This was a place of inhabitation, of habit, of cups of tea, of sitting at a table, of having sex in a bed. We note the mouldy walls, the knocked over ornament, the single, bleak standard lamp with trailing cord, the tray for tea, the bare, cheap table and chair to the right, and the bloodied pillow on the floor. This was a place of life, now departed.
Thirdly, and most interestingly in terms of Weegee’s photographic process, is the murder in the storeroom (below). It took me a while to work out what was going on here, and I have created a composite photograph of the three images to explain the photographic sequence.
I believe that Weegee took the central images first, using flash, reasonable depth of field, looking down on the victim. The body of a young man lies crammed into a small space, face down in an unnatural pose, table to the left, boxes at back and shelf to right. The flash has blown out the floorboards and objects to the right, but intensifies the bloodstains on the floor. Weegee has then stepped around the table to photograph the lower portion of the man’s body, one leg resting behind a step ladder, the other leg out of sight to the right of the Du Pont box. The curl of the man’s hand is particularly poignant. As in the second photograph of the women in the apartment, it is the placement of the body in the context of life and death that is so important in this photograph. The space of existence.
Finally, and this is where it gets really interesting, Weegee walks to where the foot of the step ladder must have been in the second photograph. He must have removed the ladder and photographed the foreshortened space, where we can just see the man’s head resting on the floor above the darkness of his jacket. The blue line in the composite photograph shows the opposite ends of this box (in the first and third images), with the table out of the picture to the right in the third photograph. This is fascinating stuff, to understand how Weegee intuitively approached a crime scene, how his eye saw so clearly and quickly what he needed to capture. The essence of a scene revealed to the photographer and the viewer in the blink of an eye. A series of decisive moments captured not on the fly, but in the mind.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
These digitally cleaned photographs are published under “fair use” for the purposes of academic research and critical commentary. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Weegee was born Usher Fellig in Złoczów (now Zolochiv, Ukraine), near Lemberg in Austrian Galicia. His given name was changed to Arthur when he emigrated with his family to New York in 1909. There he took numerous odd jobs, including working as a street photographer of children on his pony and as an assistant to a commercial photographer. In 1924 he was hired as a darkroom technician by Acme Newspictures (later United Press International Photos). He left, however, in 1935 to become a freelance photographer. Describing his beginnings, Weegee stated:
In my particular case I didn’t wait ’til somebody gave me a job or something, I went and created a job for myself – freelance photographer. And what I did, anybody else can do. What I did simply was this: I went down to Manhattan Police Headquarters and for two years I worked without a police card or any kind of credentials. When a story came over a police teletype, I would go to it. The idea was I sold the pictures to the newspapers. And naturally, I picked a story that meant something.
He worked at night and competed with the police to be first at the scene of a crime, selling his photographs to tabloids and photographic agencies. His photographs, centred around Manhattan police headquarters, were soon published by the Herald Tribune, World-Telegram, Daily News, New York Post, New York Journal American, Sun, and others.
In 1957, after developing diabetes, he moved in with Wilma Wilcox, a Quaker social worker whom he had known since the 1940s, and who cared for him and then cared for his work. He traveled extensively in Europe until 1968, working for the Daily Mirror and on a variety of photography, film, lecture, and book projects. On December 26, 1968, Weegee died in New York at the age of 69. …
Photographic technique
Most of his notable photographs were taken with very basic press photographer equipment and methods of the era, a 4×5 Speed Graphic camera preset at f/16 at 1/200 of a second, with flashbulbs and a set focus distance of ten feet. He was a self-taught photographer with no formal photographic training. Weegee developed his photographs in a homemade darkroom in the rear of his car. This provided an instantaneous result to his work that emphasised the nature of the tabloid industry and gave the images a “hot off the press” feeling. While Fellig would shoot a variety of subjects and individuals, he also had a sense of what sold best:
Names make news. There’s a fight between a drunken couple on Third Avenue or Ninth Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen, nobody cares. It’s just a barroom brawl. But if society has a fight in a Cadillac on Park Avenue and their names are in the Social Register, this makes news and the papers are interested in that.
Weegee is famously credited for answering “f/8 and be there” when asked about his photographic technique. Whether he actually said that or not, the saying has become standard advice in some photographic circles.
Some of Weegee’s photos, like the juxtaposition of society grandes dames in ermines and tiaras and a glowering street woman at the Metropolitan Opera (The Critic, 1943), were later revealed to have been staged.
Late 1930s to mid-1940s
In 1938, Fellig was the only New York newspaper reporter with a permit to have a portable police-band shortwave radio. He maintained a complete darkroom in the trunk of his car, to expedite getting his free-lance product to the newspapers. Weegee worked mostly at nightclubs; he listened closely to broadcasts and often beat authorities to the scene.
Installation view of the exhibition Victor Vasarely. The Birth of Op Art at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid showing Vasarely’s Feny (1973, below)
No comment is really necessary. You just have to look at the spirit and inventiveness of the art. A pioneer of light and colour, a genius of plastic grid and form, is at play here!
The installation photographs show just how optically magnetic these works are. How they are holistic, singular works which then play magnificently off each other when placed in close proximity. Like the fugues of J.S. Bach these optical illusions create dazzlingly beautiful, intricate and powerful works, an earthly divination of a ‘planetary folklore’.
As my good friend Elizabeth Gertsakis said of the work of Robert Hunter, “he had the mind of abstract divination for a music of the spheres, of any geometry.”
Visit the VR Microsite for a Virtual Reality walk through of the exhibition.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Victor Vasarely is a towering figure in the history of abstract geometric art. The results of his experiments with spatially ambiguous, optically dynamic structures and their effects on visual perception burst into public consciousness in the mid-1960s under the name of Op Art, launching a short-lived yet extraordinarily popular wave of fashion.
The exhibition is organised in eight chronological sections and an introductory space devoted to Vega Structures, one of the best-known and most emblematic series produced by Vasarely at the height of his career named after the brightest star in the northern hemisphere’s summer night sky.
1. Vega Structures
Inspired by contemporary news reports about mysterious signals received from distant galaxies, Vasarely named many of his works after stars and constellations. The Vega pictures rely on convex-concave distortions of a grid-like network, a sophisticated combination of the cube and the sphere, symbolically referring to the two-way motion of the light that emanates from pulsating stars, and to the functioning of condensing galaxies and the expanding universe. The common denominator in these works is Vasarely’s realisation that two dimensions can be expanded into three simply by deforming the basic grid, and that, depending on the degree of enlargement or reduction, the elements in the deformed grid can be transformed into rhombuses or ellipses.
Installation view of the exhibition Victor Vasarely. The Birth of Op Art at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Blessed with exceptional drawing ability, Vasarely studied the basics of graphic design at Műhely (Workshop) from 1929 to 1930. The private school in Budapest was run by Sándor Bortnyik, a painter and graphic designer who had connections with the Bauhaus in Weimar. Through Bortnyik, Vasarely began to take an interest in the formal problems of the kind of art in which composition is based on geometric principles, and as such he adopted Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg, El Lissitzky, Kazimir Malevich and László Moholy-Nagy as his spiritual masters. In the first period of the artist’s career, which lasted until 1939, the imagery had not yet broken away from the primary visual world, that is, it was not entirely abstract, but the paradoxical optical effects produced by his networks of lines and crosses already bore hints of the illusionistic spatiality to come.
Installation view of the exhibition Victor Vasarely. The Birth of Op Art at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid showing the works Man in motion. Study of Motion (The Man) 1943 (left) and Material Study-Wood 1939 (right)
In 1947, while spending the summer on Belle ÃŽle, an island off the coast of Brittany, he discovered the internal geometry of nature. He took irregularly shaped glass tiles and pebbles polished by the ocean waves and stylised their abstract forms into ellipses. In 1948, he produced delicate pen-and-ink drawings that conjured up the strange meandering patterns of the hairline cracks that pervaded the ceramic tiles covering the Paris metro station named Denfert-Rochereau. From his sketches, which reveal a vivid imagination, he created evocative paintings composed with well unified colours. Those same years also saw the beginning of his Crystal period, which was inspired by the strict geometric structure of the stone houses in Gordes, a medieval town built on a cliff in the South of France. Vasarely strove to transpose reality into the two-dimensional plane with the help of the axonometric approach.
Installation view of the exhibition Victor Vasarely. The Birth of Op Art at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid showing from left, the works Lan 2, 1953; Amir (Rima) 1953; and Vessant, 1952
Inspired by Kazimir Malevich’s Suprematist composition, Black and White (1915), which embodies the harmony of spirituality and is widely interpreted as the ‘end point’ of painting, Vasarely conceived of the picture titled Homage to Malevich. Its basic component, a square rotated about its axis so that it appears as a rhombus, became the starting point of his ‘kinetic’ works.
Installation view of the exhibition Victor Vasarely. The Birth of Op Art at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid showing from left, the works Doupla, 1970-1975; Kotzka, 1973-1976 and Gixeh, 1955-1962
Installation view of the exhibition Victor Vasarely. The Birth of Op Art at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid showing from left, the works Nethe, 1964; Noorum, 1960-1977 and Tlinko-F, 1956-1962
Installation view of the exhibition Victor Vasarely. The Birth of Op Art at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid showing from left, the works Afa III, 1957-1973 Nethe, 1964; Noorum, 1960-1977
Installation view of the exhibition Victor Vasarely. The Birth of Op Art at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid showing from left, the works Taymir II, 1956 and Afa III, 1957-1973
The plastic alphabet is a kind of programmed language with an infinite number of form and colour variations. The basic unit of the alphabet is a coloured square containing smaller basic shapes like squares, triangles, circles and rectangles. Vasarely used these patterns and primary colours plus endless colour permutations as the duplicating and changing elements in his works. In each unit there was a number which determined its colour, tone, form and place in the whole.
Vasarely saw that his plastic alphabet, by enabling serial production, could open the way to countless applications. It could be used as the basis for planning houses and whole environments for cities: it offered countless permutations of form and colour, and the size of the basic unit could be changed or enlarged as required.
Installation view of the exhibition Victor Vasarely. The Birth of Op Art at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid showing from centre to right, the works Villog, 1979; Zila, 1981 and Pavo II, 1979
Installation view of the exhibition Victor Vasarely. The Birth of Op Art at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid showing from left to right in the bottom image, the works Vonal-Fegn, 1968-1971; Helios, 1964 (multiple) and Villog, 1979
Installation view of the exhibition Victor Vasarely. The Birth of Op Art at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid showing from left in the bottom image, Doupla, 1970-1975; Kotzka, 1973-1976 and Vonal-Fegn, 1968-1971
Installation view of the exhibition Victor Vasarely. The Birth of Op Art at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid showing from left, Bi-Octans, 1979; Doupla, 1970-1975; Kotzka, 1973-1976; Vonal-Fegn, 1968-1971 and Helios, 1964 (multiple)
Installation view of the exhibition Victor Vasarely. The Birth of Op Art at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid showing from left Dirac, 1978 and Bi-Octans, 1979
Vasarely first discussed the necessity for his works to be duplicated and disseminated widely in 1953. Then, in his Yellow Manifesto of 1955 he outlined his ideas on the possibilities of re-creation, multiplication and expansion. He believed that a basic set of corpuscular elements, by virtue of their multiplicability and permutability, could be transformed using a pre-selected algorithm into a virtually infinite number of different compositions. The programmations that would record the picture-composition process onto graph paper assumed that the colours, shades and forms making up each image could be notated numerically, and even fed into an electronic brain to be retrieved at any time. Although Vasarely himself had never worked with computers, his principles led logically to the possibility of creating images with such technology. As conceived by the artist, in future, employing codes of colour and form that were objectively defined using alphanumerical data, his compositions could be recreated at anytime, anywhere in the world, by anybody at all.
Installation view of the exhibition Victor Vasarely. The Birth of Op Art at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid showing from left Kekub, 1976-1978; Black Orion, 1970; Marsan-2, 1964-1974 and Eroed-Pre, 1978
Installation view of the exhibition Victor Vasarely. The Birth of Op Art at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid showing in the bottom image from left Yllus, 1978; V.P. 102, 1979; Trybox, 1979 and Toro, 1973-1974
Installation view of the exhibition Victor Vasarely. The Birth of Op Art at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid showing in the bottom image from left Stri-Oet, 1979; Cheiyt-Stri-F, 1975; Peer-Rouge, 1977; Woo, 1972-1975; Kekub, 1976-1978 and Black Orion, 1970
An important part of Vasarely’s art philosophy was his conscious refusal to discriminate between an individual work and its duplicate. He was convinced that an artwork came alive again when multiplied, and that the multiple was the most democratic form of art. His aim was to topple the elitist concept of owning unique and unrepeatable works by replacing it with the notion of making pictures for mass distribution. The artist experimented with the most diverse assortment of materials and techniques, from the most modern to the most ancient. Weaving workshops in Aubusson, following traditions dating back centuries, produced tapestries from his designs. Vasarely was also especially fond of the serigraph. His individually signed and numbered screen prints were commercially available on the art market, as were the multiple objects composed of individually handcoloured or industrially reproduced sheets mounted on wooden or metal backing materials.
When the major exhibition titled The Responsive Eye opened at the New York Museum of Modern Art in 1965, it made Optical Art famous almost overnight. The limelight was stolen by two Europeans: Josef Albers, who continued the legacy of the Bauhaus in his art, and Victor Vasarely. Both men were represented at the show with six works each. But whereas Albers, oft neglected by the critics, was turned into the black sheep of the movement by contemporary art history writing, for Vasarely, who was just reaching the peak of his career, the show served as a launch pad to fame.(…)
The scientific definition of Op Art came soon afterwards, with the first attempt made in 1967 by the German art historian, Max Imdahl. Imdahl interpreted the art of Victor Vasarely as deriving from the Orphism of Robert Delaunay, which ascribed meaning to colour, the Neo-Plasticism of Piet Mondrian, which rested on the symmetry of two-dimensional structures, and the Mechano-Faktura of Henryk Berlewi, which borrowed its aesthetic principles from the schematism of mechanical production. Vasarely, meanwhile, preferred to call his own invention Kineticism, and he was fully justified in doing so, because if we accept the contents of his art philosophical writings, published in chronological order under the title of Notes brutes, then the artist was the first person to consistently use this name for the movement. He coined the phrase ‘kinetic art’ in 1953, basing the term on the description of the movement of gases written by Nicolas Sadi Carnot, the nineteenth-century French engineer who developed thermodynamics. In the light of Vasarely’s consistency of thought, his wide-ranging knowledge and his enthusiasm for science, it would have been the logical outcome of his principles to classify his works under a style or movement of his own construction. Kineticism, however, was regarded by Vasarely as something more than a simple art movement. He not only referred to it in a formal sense, but also accorded it ethical, economic, social and philosophical functions. He believed it to be of greater significance than Cubism, and he was convinced the Kineticism offered, for the first time since the Renaissance, a synthesis of ‘the two creative expressions of man: the arts and the sciences’. The simultaneous representation of movement, space and time had already found expression in Constructivist art in the 1920s, but Vasarely’s Op Art was fundamentally different, in that it aimed to generate a spatial effect through the use of a two-dimensional surface by creating the illusion of motion in macro-time, whereby the image formed on the retina underwent virtual manipulation. Consequently, the name Op Art can be given to any artwork ‘that shifts during the spectator’s act of perception’. (…).
‘Optical’ paintings
(…) Vibrant surfaces created from patterns of geometric figures arranged according to a particular algorithm can be found among the mosaics of Antiquity. The first stage in the history of the autonomisation of retina-based art, however, came at the end of the nineteenth century with Pointillist painting, which relied on the scientific theory of the optical combination of colours, and with the so-called Divisionists, who strove to separate optical effects using an analytical method. Georges Seurat’s ‘optical painting’, however, remained firmly attached to the real spectacle. Primary shapes became a means of generating illusions with the arrival of non-objective, abstract art styles, especially Cubism. Optical games derived from periodic series of geometric elements were incorporated into the repertoire of applied photography in the second half of the 1920s. During his studies in Budapest, Vasarely may have come across such depictions, even in the printed press, such as the photograph of the Hollywood actress, Alice White, in a room of mirrors decorated with abstract patterns.
Yet optical illusion was not enough to bring about Op Art, which also needed the dynamism of kinetics. It became inseparable from the concept of the fourth dimension of motion-time, which tipped the static work out of its fixed position by involving the viewer and turning the eye into the active organ of sight. In this sense, Vasarely’s optical kineticism also posed the question of the dematerialisation of the artwork, for in his works, the actual spectacle is not present on the canvas at rest in front of us, but comes about through interacting with the work and is generated on the retina. Vasarely was never concerned with the type of mechanical movement that brought about the works of Jean Tinguely or Marcel Duchamp. The Hungarian artist’s planar kineticism was in this respect far more closely connected to visual research than to the approach of works that emphasise their industrial nature. (…)
Op Art as Algorithm
(…) When it came to the aesthetic and market values of artworks that existed in multiple copies, opinion was split even among the artists participating in the exhibition. In terms of form, the experiments into perception conducted by Vasarely and Bridget Riley, for example, had much in common, and yet their views on the democratisation and interdisciplinarity of art differed sharply. Unlike Riley, who always insisted on her paintings being one of a kind, Vasarely’s programme of art targeted a re-evaluation of the aesthetic of reproduced, duplicated objects. It was in this regard that Vasarely came closest to Pop Art and to its iconic exponent, Andy Warhol. In spite of this, Vasarely was not in thrall to Pop Art. He spoke appreciatively of its achievements, but he considered it to be a movement outside the realm of painting, a parody or caricature of its own times. Pop Art, meanwhile, suffered greatly from the fact that Op Art ultimately proved far more popular. ‘I am “pop” in the sense that I would like to be popular’, Vasarely wittily replied when one journalist pressed him on his personal position in Op Art, shortly after it had found fame as a fashion phenomenon. A few years later, at a reception held in the Galerie Spiegel in Cologne in September 1971, where a work by Vasarely hung on the wall beside Tom Wesselmann’s Great American Nude, an iconic piece from the rival movement, the Hungarian-born artist was asked his opinion of Pop Art. He could not refrain from commenting that the essence of Pop was exaggeration. He then cast a malicious glance at Wesselmann’s painting before declaring, ‘Art is not about painting gigantic pictures for billionaires’. When it was subsequently suggested that his democratic views were not compatible with the high prices commanded by his works, he replied, ‘The critics compare me to hippies who loathe money but who want to get around by hitchhiking. And at such times it is of no concern to them that they are travelling with the help of General Motors, Shell and other billionaire companies’.
There was, however, a whole group of Pop-Art fans who would never have dreamed of denigrating Kineticism. Warhol, for instance, began to follow Vasarely’s career after seeing his works at the opening of The Responsive Eye. He was present at the artist’s exhibition held in 1965 in the Pace Gallery in New York, and his admiration endured until 1984, when he attended Vasarely’s birthday party, arranged by Yoko Ono. It was probably on this occasion that Warhol was given a handkerchief signed by Vasarely, decorated with a pre-kinetic zebra composition, which the American artist preserved among his relics up until his death. We would find few artists in the twentieth century who achieved more in rethinking the aesthetic of the multiplied artwork than Vasarely and Warhol, so there is a striking contradiction in the fact that the only work by Vasarely in Warhol’s collection was a monochromatic oil painting, titled Onix 107 (1966), which actually represented the counterpoint to the paradigm expressing the latent artistic opportunities in duplication (including the entire spectrum of vibrant and saturated colours). (…)
I have been to so many clubs in my life I have lost count!
I started going to clubs in 1975 when I came out as a gay man – a year before disco hit, with Sylvester’s You Make Me Feel Mighty Real, the first (gay) superstar of disco. What a star he was. I danced on revolving turntables with lights underneath, just like in the movie Saturday Night Fever, dressed in my army gear for uniform night at Scandals nightclub in Soho, London. Adams club, in Leicester Square, was also a favourite gay nightclub haunt.
I remember dancing to a 17 minute extended version of Donna Summer’s MacArthur Park several times a night at the Pan Club in Luton; and going to Bang on Tottenham Court Road on a Monday and Thursday night to hear the latest releases from the USA. Heaven nightclub (still going), the largest gay nightclub in Europe at the time, was a particular favourite. All around the world, Ibiza, America, Amsterdam, Berlin, etc… I have partied, and still do, in clubs. Night fever for a night owl, one who loves do dance, loves music and life.
After disco came High NRG where we used to dance for hours on the dance floor at Heaven on pure adrenaline, only coming off the dance floor to have a drink of water. New romantics, punk, and soul, techno and trance (my favourite) followed. I am a recovering trance addict. So many memories, so many people, good times and tunes – Black Box, Gloria Gaynor, Barry White, David Bowie, Grace Jones, the list goes on and on.
While this posting shows the design of some amazing clubs, and some photographs of the people who inhabited them, what it cannot capture is the atmosphere of a place. The most important thing in any club are… the people; the music; the lighting; and the DJs.
Without all four working together it doesn’t matter how good the design of a club, it will fail. You can have the most minimal lighting but the most electric atmosphere if the vibe is there: a congress of like-minded people who love dance music, who commune together on the dance floor and in the club, all having a good time. The DJ’s orchestrate this secular celebration of spirit. They can take you up, bring you around, twist you inside out. The modern temple of love, light and healing. Party hard, party on.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to the Vitra Design Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
The nightclub is one of the most important design spaces in contemporary culture. Since the 1960s, nightclubs have been epicentres of pop culture, distinct spaces of nocturnal leisure providing architects and designers all over the world with opportunities and inspiration. Night Fever. Designing Club Culture 1960 – Today offers the first large-scale examination of the relationship between club culture and design, from past to present. The exhibition presents nightclubs as spaces that merge architecture and interior design with sound, light, fashion, graphics, and visual effects to create a modern Gesamtkunstwerk. Examples range from Italian clubs of the 1960s created by the protagonists of Radical Design to the legendary Studio 54 where Andy Warhol was a regular, from the Haçienda in Manchester designed by Ben Kelly to more recent concepts by the OMA architecture studio for the Ministry of Sound in London. The exhibits on display range from films and vintage photographs to posters, flyers, and fashion, but also include contemporary works by photographers and artists such as Mark Leckey, Chen Wei, and Musa N. Nxumalo. A spatial installation with music and light effects takes visitors on a fascinating journey through a world of glamour and subcultures – always in search of the night that never ends.
Night Fever opens with the 1960s, exploring the emergence of nightclubs as spaces for experimentation with interior design, new media, and alternative lifestyles. The Electric Circus (1967) in New York, for example, was designed as a countercultural venue by architect Charles Forberg while renowned graphic designers Chermayeff & Geismar created its distinctive logo and font. Its multidisciplinary approach influenced many clubs in Europe, including Space Electronic (1969) in Florence. Designed by the collective Gruppo 9999, this was one of several nightclubs associated with Italy’s Radical Design avant-garde. The same goes for Piper in Turin (1966), a club designed by Giorgio Ceretti, Pietro Derossi, and Riccardo Rosso as a multifunctional space with a modular interior suitable for concerts, happenings, and experimental theatre as well as dancing. Gruppo UFO’s Bamba Issa (1969), a beach club in Forte dei Marmi, was another highly histrionic venue, its themed interior completely overhauled for every summer of its three years of existence.
With the rise of disco in the 1970s, club culture gained a new momentum. Dance music developed into a genre of its own and the dance floor emerged as a stage for individual and collective performance, with fashion designers such as Halston and Stephen Burrows providing the perfect outfits to perform and shine. New York’s Studio 54, founded by Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell in 1977 and designed by Scott Bromley and Ron Doud, soon became a celebrity favourite. Only two years later, the movie Saturday Night Fever marked the apex of Disco’s commercialisation, which in turn sparked a backlash with homophobic and racist overtones that peaked at the Disco Demolition Night staged at a baseball stadium in Chicago.
Around the same time, places in New York’s thriving nightlife like the Mudd Club (1978) and Area (1983) offered artists new spaces to merge the club scene and the arts and launched the careers of artists like Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. In early 1980s London, meanwhile, clubs like Blitz and Taboo brought forth the New Romantic music and fashion movement, with wild child Vivienne Westwood a frequent guest at Michael and Gerlinde Costiff’s Kinky Gerlinky club night. But it was in Manchester that architect and designer Ben Kelly created the post-industrial cathedral of rave, The Haçienda (1982), from where Acid House conquered the UK. House and Techno were arguably the last great dance music movements to define a generation of clubs and ravers. They reached Berlin in the early 1990s just after the fall of the wall, when disused and derelict spaces became available for clubs like Tresor (1991); more than a decade later, the notorious Berghain (2004) was established in a former heating plant, demonstrating yet again how a vibrant club scene can flourish in the cracks of the urban fabric, on empty lots and in vacant buildings.
Developments have become ever more complex since the early 2000s. On the one hand, club culture is thriving and evolving as it is adopted by global brands and music festivals; on the other, many nightclubs have been pushed out of the city or survive merely as sad historical monuments and modern ruins of a hedonistic past. At the same time, a new generation of architects is addressing the nightclub typology. The architectural firm OMA, founded by Rem Koolhaas, has developed a proposal for a twenty-first-century Ministry of Sound II for London, while Detroit-based designers Akoaki have created a mobile DJ booth called The Mothership to promote their hometown’s rich club heritage.
Based on extensive research and featuring many exhibits never before displayed in a museum, Night Fever brings together a wide range of material, from furniture to graphic design, architectural models to art, film and photography to fashion. The exhibition takes visitors through a fascinating nocturnal world that provides a vital contrast to the rules and routines of our everyday life.
While the exhibition basically follows a chronological concept, a music and light installation created specially by exhibition designer Konstantin Grcic and lighting designer Matthias Singer offers visitors the opportunity to experience all the many facets of nightclub design, from visual effects to sounds and sensations. A display of record covers, ranging from Peter Saville’s designs for Factory Records to Grace Jones’s album cover Nightclubbing, underlines the significant relationship between music and design in club culture. The multidisciplinary exhibition reveals the nightclub as much more than a dance bar or a music venue; it is an immersive environment for intense experiences.
Represented artists, designers and architects (extract): François Dallegret, Gruppo 9999, Halston, Keith Haring, Arata Isozaki, Grace Jones, Ben Kelly, Bernard Khoury, Miu Miu, OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture), Peter Saville, Studio65, Roger Tallon, Walter Van Beirendonck, Andy Warhol
Represented clubs (extract): The Electric Circus, New York, 1967 Space Electronic, Florenz, 1969 Il Grifoncino, Bolzano, 1969 Studio 54, New York, 1977 Paradise Garage, New York, 1977 Le Palace, Paris, 1978 The Saint, New York, 1980 The Haçienda, Manchester, 1982 Area, New York, 1983 Palladium, New York, 1985 Tresor, Berlin, 1991 B018, Beirut, 1998 Berghain, Berlin, 2004
I am writing this short text on a laptop in Thailand which keeps jumping lines and misspelling words. The experience is almost as disorienting as the photographs of Dorothea Lange, with their anguished angles and portraits of despair. Her humanist, modernist pictures capture the harsh era of The Great Depression and the 1930s in America, allowing a contemporary audience to imagine what it must have been like to walk along blistering roads with five children, not knowing where your next meal or drink of water is coming from.
Like Lewis Hine and Jacob Riis from an earlier era, Lange’s photographs are about the politics of seeing. They are about human beings in distress and how photography can raise awareness of social injustice and disenfranchisement in the name of cultural change.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
#dorothealange @barbicancentre
Many thankx to the Barbican Art Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Dorothea Lange took this photograph in 1936, while employed by the U.S. government’s Farm Security Administration (FSA) program, formed during the Great Depression to raise awareness of and provide aid to impoverished farmers. In Nipomo, California, Lange came across Florence Owens Thompson and her children in a camp filled with field workers whose livelihoods were devastated by the failure of the pea crops. Recalling her encounter with Thompson years later, she said, “I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction.”1 One photograph from that shoot, now known as Migrant Mother, was widely circulated to magazines and newspapers and became a symbol of the plight of migrant farm workers during the Great Depression.
As Lange described Thompson’s situation, “She and her children had been living on frozen vegetables from the field and wild birds the children caught. The pea crop had frozen; there was no work. Yet they could not move on, for she had just sold the tires from the car to buy food.”2 However, Thompson later contested Lange’s account. When a reporter interviewed her in the 1970s, she insisted that she and Lange did not speak to each other, nor did she sell the tires of her car. Thompson said that Lange had either confused her for another farmer or embellished what she had understood of her situation in order to make a better story.
1/ Dorothea Lange, “The Assignment I’ll Never Forget,” Popular Photography 46 (February, 1960). Reprinted in Photography, Essays and Images, ed. Beaumont Newhall (New York: The Museum of Modern Art), p. 262-265
2/ Dorothea Lange, paraphrased in Karin Becker Ohm, Dorothea Lange and the Documentary Tradition (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1980), p. 79
Installation views of the exhibition Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing at the Barbican Art Gallery, London showing Dorothea Lange’s photograph Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California 1936 Photos: Ian Gavan/Getty Images for Barbican Art Gallery
“I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction. I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean- to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about it.” (From: Popular Photography, Feb. 1960).
The images were made using a Graflex camera. The original negatives are 4 x 5″ film. It is not possible to determine on the basis of the negative numbers (which were assigned later at the Resettlement Administration) the order in which the photographs were taken.
Thompson’s identity was discovered in the late 1970s; in 1978, acting on a tip, Modesto Bee reporter Emmett Corrigan located Thompson at her mobile home in Space 24 of the Modesto Mobile Village and recognised her from the 40-year-old photograph.[10] A letter Thompson wrote was published in The Modesto Bee and the Associated Press distributed a story headlined “Woman Fighting Mad Over Famous Depression Photo.” Florence was quoted as saying “I wish she [Lange] hadn’t taken my picture. I can’t get a penny out of it, she didn’t ask my name. She said she wouldn’t sell the pictures, she said she’d send me a copy. She never did.”
Lange was funded by the federal government when she took the picture, so the image was in the public domain and Lange never directly received any royalties. However, the picture did help make Lange a celebrity and earned her “respect from her colleagues.”
In a 2008 interview with CNN, Thompson’s daughter Katherine McIntosh recalled how her mother was a “very strong lady”, and “the backbone of our family”, she said: “We never had a lot, but she always made sure we had something. She didn’t eat sometimes, but she made sure us children ate. That’s one thing she did do.”
Anonymous text. “Florence Owens Thompson,” on the WikiVisually website Nd [Online] Cited 05/08/2018. No longer available online
“There are moments such as these when time stands still and all you do is hold your breath and hope it will wait for you. And you just hope you will have enough time to get it organised in a fraction of a second on that tiny piece of sensitive film. Sometimes you have an inner sense that you have encompassed the thing generally. You know then that you are not taking anything away from anyone: their privacy, their dignity, their wholeness.” ~ Dorothea Lange 1963
Davis K F 1995, The photographs of Dorothea Lange, Hallmark Cards Inc, Missouri p. 20.
White angel breadline, San Francisco is Lange’s first major image that encapsulates both her sense of compassion and ability to structure a photograph according to modernist principles. The diagonals of the fence posts and the massing of hats do not reduce this work to the purely formal – the figure in the front middle of the image acts as a lightening rod for our emotional engagement.
“I had made some photographs of the state [of] people, in an area of San Francisco which revealed how deep the depression was. It was at that time beginning to cut very deep. This is a long process. It doesn’t happen overnight. Life, for people, begins to crumble on the edges; they don’t realise it…”
Dorothea Lange, interview, 1964
There was a real “White Angel” behind the breadline that served the needy men photographed by Dorothea Lange. She was a widow named Lois Jordan. Mrs. Jordan, who gave herself the name White Angel, established a soup kitchen during the Great Depression to feed those who were unemployed and destitute. Relying solely on donations, she managed to supply meals to more than one million men over a three-year period.
Jordan’s soup kitchen occupied a junk-filled lot in San Francisco located on the Embarcadero near Filbert Street. This area was known as the White Angel Jungle. The Jungle was not far from Lange’s studio. As she began to change direction from portrait to documentary photography, Lange focused her lens on the poignant scenes just beyond her window. White Angel Breadline is the result of her first day’s work to document Depression-era San Francisco. Decades later, Lange recalled: “[White Angel Breadline] is my most famed photograph. I made that on the first day I ever went out in an area where people said, ‘Oh, don’t go there.’ It was the first day that I ever made a photograph on the street.”
Hear Dorothea Lange discuss her photographs and the difficulty of leading a visual life.
Dorothea Lange’s stirring images of migrant farmers and the unemployed have become universally recognised symbols of the Great Depression. Later photographs documenting the internment of Japanese Americans and her travels throughout the world extended her body of work. Watch the video to hear Lange discuss how she began her documentary projects for the Farm Security Administration, and learn how she felt about some of her assignments and subjects.
Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965) Family walking on highway – five children. Started from Idabel, Oklahoma, bound for Krebs, Oklahoma June 1938 Silver gelatin print Library of Congress
Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965) Cars on the Road August 1936 Silver gelatin print Library of Congress
Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965) Dust Bowl, Grain Elevator, Everett, Texas June 1938 Silver gelatin print Library of Congress
This summer, Barbican Art Gallery stages the first ever UK retrospective of one of the most influential female photographers of the 20th century, the American documentary photographer Dorothea Lange (1895-1965). A formidable woman of unparalleled vigour and resilience, the exhibition charts Lange’s outstanding photographic vision from her early studio portraits of San Francisco’s bourgeoisie to her celebrated Farm Security Administration work (1935-1939) that captured the devastating impact of the Great Depression on the American population. Rarely seen photographs of the internment of Japanese-Americans during the Second World War are also presented as well as the later collaborations with fellow photographers Ansel Adams and Pirkle Jones documenting the changing face of the social and physical landscape of 1950s America. Opening 22 June at Barbican Art Gallery, Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing is part of the Barbican’s 2018 season, The Art of Change, which explores how the arts respond to, reflect and potentially effect change in the social and political landscape.
Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing encompasses over 300 objects from vintage prints and original book publications to ephemera, field notes, letters, and documentary film. Largely chronological, the exhibition presents eight series in Lange’s oeuvre spanning from 1919 to 1957.
Jane Alison, Head of Visual Arts, Barbican, said: “This is an incredible opportunity for our visitors to see the first UK survey of the work of such a significant photographer. Dorothea Lange is undoubtedly one of the great photographers of the twentieth century and the issues raised through her work have powerful resonance with issues we’re facing in society today. Staged alongside contemporary photographer Vanessa Winship as part of The Art of Change, these two shows are unmissable.”
Opening the exhibition are Lange’s little known early portrait photographs taken during her time running a successful portrait studio in San Francisco between 1919 and 1935. Lange was at the heart of San Francisco’s creative community and her studio became a centre in which bohemian and artistic friends gathered after hours, including Edward Weston, Anne Brigman, Alma Lavenson, Imogen Cunningham, and Willard van Dyke. Works from this period include intimate portraits of wealthy West Coast families as well as of Lange’s inner circle, counting amongst others photographer Roi Partridge and painter Maynard Dixon, Lange’s first husband and father of her two sons.
The Great Depression in the early 1930s heralded a shift in her photographic language as she felt increasingly compelled to document the changes visible on the streets of San Francisco. Taking her camera out of the studio, she captured street demonstrations, unemployed workers, and breadline queues. These early explorations of her social documentary work are also on display.
The exhibition charts Lange’s work with the newly established historical division of the Farm Security Administration (FSA), the government agency tasked with the promotion of Roosevelt’s New Deal programme. Alongside Lange, the FSA employed a number of photographers, including Walker Evans, Ben Shahn and Arthur Rothstein, to document living conditions across America during the Great Depression: from urban poverty in San Francisco to tenant farmers driven off the land by dust storms and mechanisation in the states of Oklahoma, Arkansas and Texas; the plight of homeless families on the road in search of better livelihoods in the West; and the tragic conditions of migrant workers and camps across California. Lange used her camera as a political tool to critique themes of injustice, inequality, migration and displacement, and to effect government relief.
Highlights in this section are, among others, a series on sharecroppers in the Deep South that exposes relations of race and power, and the iconic Migrant Mother, a photograph which has become a symbol of the Great Depression, alongside images of vernacular architecture and landscapes, motifs often overlooked within Lange’s oeuvre. Vintage prints in the exhibition are complemented by the display of original publications from the 1930s to foreground the widespread use of Lange’s FSA photographs and her influence on authors including John Steinbeck, whose ground-breaking novel The Grapes of Wrath was informed by Lange’s photographs. Travelling for many months at a time and working in the field, she collaborated extensively with her second husband Paul Schuster Taylor, a prominent social economist and expert in farm labour with whom she published the seminal photo book An American Exodus: A Record of Human Erosion in 1939, also on display in the exhibition.
The exhibition continues with rarely seen photographs of the internment of more than 100,000 American citizens of Japanese descent that Lange produced on commission for the War Relocation Authority following the Japanese attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in 1941. Lange’s critical perspective of this little discussed chapter in US history however meant that her photographs remained unpublished during the war and stored at the National Archives in Washington. It is the first time that this series will be shown comprehensively outside of the US and Canada.
Following her documentation of the Japanese American internment, Lange produced a photographic series of the wartime shipyards of Richmond, California with friend and fellow photographer Ansel Adams (1902-1984). Lange and Adams documented the war effort in the shipyards for Fortune magazine in 1944, recording the explosive increase in population numbers and the endlessly changing shifts of shipyard workers. Capturing the mass recruitment of workers, Lange turned her camera on both female and black workers, for the first time part of the workforce, and their defiance of sexist and racist attitudes.
The exhibition features several of Lange’s post-war series, when she photographed extensively in California. Her series Public Defender (1955-1957) explores the US legal defence system for the poor and disadvantaged through the work of a public defender at the Alameda County Courthouse in Oakland. Death of a Valley (1956-1957), made in collaboration with photographer Pirkle Jones, documents the disappearance of the small rural town of Monticello in California’s Berryessa Valley as a consequence of the damming of the Putah Creek. Capturing the destruction of a landscape and traditional way of life, the photographs testify to Lange’s environmentalist politics and have not been displayed or published since the 1960s.
The exhibition concludes with Lange’s series of Ireland (1954), the first made outside the US. Spending six weeks in County Clare in western Ireland, Lange captured the experience of life in and around the farming town of Ennis in stark and evocative photographs that symbolise Lange’s attraction to the traditional life of rural communities.
An activist, feminist and environmentalist, Lange used her camera as a political tool to critique themes of injustice, inequality, migration and displacement that bear great resonance with today’s world, a prime example of which is her most iconic image the Migrant Mother (1936). Working in urban and rural contexts across America and beyond, she focused her lens on human suffering and hardship to create compassionate and piercing portraits of people as well as place in the hope to forge social and political reform – from the plight of sharecroppers in the Deep South to Dust Bowl refugees trekking along the highways of California in search of better livelihoods.
Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing is organised by the Oakland Museum of California. The European presentation has been produced in collaboration with Barbican Art Gallery, London and Jeu de Paume, Paris.
Press release from the Barbican Art Gallery
Installation views of the exhibition Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing at the Barbican Art Gallery, London showing in the bottom image at left, Lange’s Displaced Tennant Farmers, Goodlet, Hardeman Co., Texas 1937. ‘All displaced tenant farmers, the oldest 33. None able to vote because of Texas poll tax. They support an average of four persons each on $22.80 a month’; and at second left, Woman of the High Plains, Texas Panhandle June 1938 (below) Photos: Ian Gavan/Getty Images for Barbican Art Gallery
Installation view of the exhibition Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing at the Barbican Art Gallery, London showing at second left top, Lange’s Mexican field labourer at station in Sacramento after 5 day trip from Mexico City. Imported by arrangements between Mexican and US governments to work in sugar beets. 6 October 1942; at second left bottom, Filipino Field Worker, Spring Plowing, Cauliflower Fields, Guadalupe, California. March 1937 (below); and at right, Damaged Child, Shacktown, Elm Grove, Oklahoma. 1936 (below) Photos: Ian Gavan/Getty Images for Barbican Art Gallery
Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965) San Francisco, California. Flag of allegiance pledge at Raphael Weill Public School, Geary and Buchanan Streets. Children in families of Japanese ancestry were evacuated with their parents and will be housed for the duration in War Relocation Authority centers where facilities will be provided for them to continue their education 1942 Silver gelatin print Courtesy National Archives, photo no. 210-G-C122
Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965) Centerville, California. This evacuee stands by her baggage as she waits for evacuation bus. Evacuees of Japanese ancestry will be housed in War Relocation Authority centers for the duration 1942 Silver gelatin print Courtesy National Archives, photo no. 210-G-C241
Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965) Manzanar Relocation Center, Manzanar, California. An evacuee is shown in the lath house sorting seedlings for transplanting. These plants are year-old seedlings from the Salinas Experiment Station 1942 Silver gelatin print Courtesy National Archives, photo no. 210-GC737
Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965) Sacramento, California. College students of Japanese ancestry who have been evacuated from Sacramento to the Assembly Center 1942 Silver gelatin print Courtesy National Archives, photo no. 210-GC471
Installation views of the exhibition Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing at the Barbican Art Gallery, London showing in the bottom image, Lange’s photographs of Japanese Americans Photos: Ian Gavan/Getty Images for Barbican Art Gallery
Installation view of the exhibition Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing at the Barbican Art Gallery, London showing Lange’s ‘Shipyards of Richmond’ photographs Photos: Ian Gavan/Getty Images for Barbican Art Gallery
Boom Town: Shipyards of Richmond
In December 1941 the United States entered the Second World War ushering in a period of economic prosperity triggered by an exponential growth in defence spending. Almost overnight, the city of Richmond, located to the north of Oakland, became one of California’s major shipbuilding hubs producing large merchant vessels used to supply Allied troops.
Lured by the promised of work, the population of the San Francisco Bay Area exploded as men and women flocked to the west in vast numbers, prompting the San Francisco Chronicle to claim that the region was in the grips of a ‘second gold rush’. This huge expansion of population and industry also brought new social pressures as housing and other services were extremely limited. For African American community arriving from the rural South however such shortages were further exacerbated by racial discrimination and segregation.
In collaboration with Ansel Adams (1902-1984), Lange secured a commission from Fortune magazine to document 24-hours in the lives of the shipyard workers. Capturing the ever changing shifts of the round-the-clock shipyard population, Lange focused once again on the substandard living conditions of workers and their families, who were often forced to live in cramped temporary shelters, as well as on the lack of social cohesion.
Drawn to images that transgressed accepted attitudes towards gender and race, Lange settled her lens on African American female welders and stylishly dressed women flaunting their newfound independence and spending power. Creating heroic images of women at work, Lange’s photographs contributed to the archetypal image of ‘Rosie the Riveter’.
Wall text from the exhibition
Installation views of the exhibition Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing at the Barbican Art Gallery, London showing in the bottom image, Lange’s ‘Ireland’ photographs Photos: Ian Gavan/Getty Images for Barbican Art Gallery
“There is no sense of hurry, and there is no sense of want, or wanting, or urge to buy more and more, and of bombardment of new goods and advertising. Just the name of the family over the store … A contented and relaxed people live on this island.
Dorothea Lange
Ireland
Inspired by a book titled The Irish Countryman (1937) the the eminent anthropologist Conrad M. Arensberg, Lange persuaded the editors of LIFE to commission her and her son Daniel Dixon, a writer, to create an in-depth study of rural life in Ireland. The trip was her first overseas, and Lange spent six weeks in the autumn of 1954 photographing the experience of life around County Clare in western Ireland, a poor farming community whose younger inhabitants were flocking to the US in great numbers in the hope of realising the American Dream.
Lange was perhaps drawn to these tight-knit, rural communities because they symbolised a simpler, more self-sufficient way of life in contrast to the post-industrial thrust of the city that reflected her own Californian reality. Steeped in a romantic socialism, Lange’s evocative photographs depict County Clare’s inhabitants by and large as content and carefree in their rootedness to the land, oblivious to the seismic global changes taking place around them.
Travelling around the countryside from Tubber to Ennis, Lange captured country markets and fairs, pubs, local shops, and church-goers attending mass on the ‘island of the devout’, as LIFE later dubbed the country. The magazine published her story with 21 photographs in the 21 March 1955 issue, but largely omitted Dixon’s text.
Wall text from the exhibition
Barbican Art Gallery Barbican Centre Silk Street, London, EC2Y 8DS
Artists: Drager Meurtant (assemblages, NL) and Petra Senn (photography, D); Jeanine Keuchenius (paintings, NL) Kelly Elmendorp, Stijn Geutjes, Robert van der Kroft, Drager Meurtant, Winny de Meij, Petra Senn.
Drager Meurtant (Dutch, b. 1951) Green bird day 2017
When the green bird / came to live / we agreed to call / it a day
Accumulating, life
I first had contact with Gerard Rutteman (artist alias Drager Meurtant) when he emailed me about a posting I had done on Art Blart about the Japanese photographer Shomei Tomatsu in 2015. Since then we have become firm friends. In 2017 on a trip to Europe, I caught a high speed train from Paris to the French city of Reims to meet him and his vivacious wife Jeanine. We spent a glorious day wandering the city, taking photographs, talking art, and eating a hearty lunch at a local brasserie. This pair of self-taught artists, creative human beings, are so talented.
While I greatly admire Jeanine’s paintings with their powerful and poetic muscularity (in my mind, I note the influence of artists such as Pierre Soulages, Cy Twombly and Anselm Kiefer) and their use of colour which can be seen in other paintings on her website – and observe the photographs of Petra Senn (I would need to see more to make constructive comment) – it is the work of Drager Meurtant to which I am going to focus my attention in this text.
The path of Drager Meurtant reminds me of that of Australian artist Rosalie Gascoigne.
“Gascoigne worked as a teacher before moving to Australia in 1943 following her marriage to astronomer Ben Gascoigne. She discovered a natural talent for creating assemblages through the ensuing seventeen years spent in relative isolation on the stony terrain of Mount Stromlo, home to Stromlo Observatory, and the wheat belt of Monaro near Canberra, a landscape she designated as the crucible from which her art emerged…Â Gascoigne’s lifelong passion for collecting and arranging developed initially from the Sogetsu school of ikebana, with its emphasis on form and line rather than colour. Its general principles of valuing immediate response, the experience of materials, process and experiment with variations can be seen as underpinning all of her later work. The collection of discarded materials, such as farm machinery parts, for use as suitable vessels for her arrangements, led her to also make sculptural assemblages…Â Gascoigne had no formal art training, often asserting that her fifty-year apprenticeship was in looking. She began exhibiting in 1974 at the age of 57.”1
Gascoigne went on to become one of Australia’s most loved and respected artists.
Drager Meurtant spent most of his life as a veterinarian-biomedical researcher. He is an autodidact and, like Gascoigne, his apprenticeship as an artist was one of looking and writing poetry. Only in the last five years has he really been able to fully concentrate on his art practice. To my mind, he has the potential to become a much beloved artist of his country, and an international artist of high repute. I am palpably excited by his art and its development. There is a frisson of expectation every time I see new work; that frisson enhanced by the amplitude of the music he creates and the temperature of the environment that surrounds his work.
Drager is true to the integrity of his materials, the inherent qualities of natural and man made materials, and his vision. He incorporates primitive, mythical, spiritual and folkloric elements into his art. And his pleasure is in the layering and painting, in the materials, forms and, finally, in the art itself. Here is humour (The snake kept its mouth shut, 2018 below; the moustache of The Orator, 2016 below), ecology and spirit. A sense of mystery and purpose at one and the same time.
While I believe that some of the most important qualities in this world have their meanings proscribed by their opposite, some of these qualities have to be understood by reference only to themselves – which is very difficult – but must be attempted. A lot of things have been made too simple (taught in art schools?) by constructing fraught dichotomies. In other words, as an artist and as a human being, do not rely on binaries but just “on the thing itself”. Let it reveal itself to you – whether that is through Dada, an enigmatic self, of movement and form – or through some other mechanism. Drager has enough intellect and talent not to fall into the too simple, too easy, trap.
In this small regional gallery in the Netherlands, this visionary of the romantic, otherworldy (definition: devoted to intellectual or imaginative pursuits), utopian / dystopian unification of art and life constructs his paradoxes. I love the poetry that accompanies and informs his work; I love the brown butchers paper that covered “the happenings” before the unveiling; and I love the energy, the concern for the environment, and the construction and conceptualisation of his assemblages. I am challenged, in a good way, by his art.
The next step on the path for my friend is to keep the faith, is to keep making the art for himself and no one else. To keep them free and not contained by unwanted concerns. For, as he said to me, “in the end the path followed will be more interesting than the stakes raised in passing.” But curators please take note… here is a star of the future!
Dr Marcus Bunyan
1/ Anonymous. “Rosalie Gascoigne,” on the Art Gallery of New South Wales website 08/08/2018. No longer available online
2/ Guy Debord (1958) Definitions. Internationale Situationniste #1 (Paris, June 1958). Translated by Ken Knabb.
Many thankx to the artists and Kunstwerk! Liemers Museum for allowing me to publish the art work in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
“The creation of art, to me, is not work. The end-result is not seen as a piece, but as a whole. Since it brings me comfort and relieves stress, I call my assemblages ‘art-peaces’.”
“The essence of working with found objects (or scrap material) is that their different natures will enrich the composition as they are expressed in its different layers. This effect is based upon the divergent origins, structures and functions of these elements: wood, metal, glass, stone, cloth, plastic, etc. As a consequence, each bears a different weight and ease for ‘penetrance’ (transparency), that will influence the final form of the composition.”
Drager Meurtant
“Nearly every work of assemblage, in its relational structure, approaches abstract art” [but] “the practice of assemblage raises materials from the level of formal relations to that of associational poetry.”
Seitz, W. C. The Art of Assemblage. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1961, p. 25, 84.
“It’s not where you take things from, it’s where you take them to.”
Jean-Luc Godard
Before the exhibition Now, the new form of the past opening
Before the opening of the exhibition Now, the new form of the past at Kunstwerk! Liemers Museum, Netherlands
Now, the new form of the past is an exhibition based on international collaboration between Drager Meurtant (assemblages, NL) and Petra Senn (photography, D) with the theme Recycling Art . Both artists place most of the energy in their art and demand attention for its creativity, in the reuse of materials and objects.
The artists Drager Meurtant and Petra Senn first met on ‘pictify’, a social medium for artists (at present no longer accepting new art submissions.) After an exchange of some ‘faves’ and views, the retrospective The Trauma of Painting by Alberto Burro in the museum K21 in Düsseldorf, Germany, became the place where at the end of June 2016 the three, Petra Senn, Drager Meurtant and his artist-partner Jeanine Keuchenius, met in person. With the overwhelming artistic environment, the basis of a human and artistic interest became established. Thus, when Stijn Geutjes, the curator of Kunstwerk! Liemers Museum asked Drager about willingness to exhibit his art in the museum, the answer came with the suggestion of the theme “Now, the new form of the past”, and introduction of colleague Petra Senn as associate, and Jeanine to come with an addition of the theme “Senses”. After some discussion, and rising interest of Stijn Geutjes in the abstract photographies of Petra Senn, the decision came to exhibit in a collaborative effort, that included partaking in the selection process of works of the curator and the three artists.
The term relates directly to Marcel Duchamp’s readymades, Dada and Fluxus art. Art critics have coined the terms arte povera (Italian) and junk art (Anglo-American) to signify art which incorporates said objects.
Arte Povera is basically the legitimate justification for creating art of junk and found objects. Arte Povera was a term coined by the Italian art critic Germano Celant. He used the word to sum up a type of art which combined elements of conceptual art, minimal art and performance art. He conceived the idea of the art movement in reaction to the ever increasing commercialism within the art world. The artists embrace the ideas of using valueless materials such as earth, gravel, rocks or litter in order to create works of art.
Junk art is the flattering name is given to 20th and 21st-century art in which the artist uses refuse, scrap metal, urban waste or just anything viewed as useless or cast of from modern society. Junk art is very much synonymous with American artist Robert Rauschenberg. It is also very much part of the 1960s Italian movement Arte Povera. The movement was the product of Antoni TÃ pies, Alberto Burri, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Piero Manzoni, and Lucio Fontana.
Found objects derive their identity as art from the designation placed upon them by the artist and from the social history that comes with the object. This may be indicated by either its anonymous wear and tear (as in collages of Kurt Schwitters) or by its recognisability as a consumer icon (as in the sculptures of Haim Steinbach). The context into which it is placed is also a highly relevant factor. The idea of dignifying commonplace objects in this way was originally a shocking challenge to the accepted distinction between what was considered art as opposed to not art. …
As an art form, found objects tend to include the artist’s output – at the very least an idea about it, i.e. the artist’s designation of the object as art – which is nearly always reinforced with a title. There is usually some degree of modification of the found object, although not always to the extent that it cannot be recognised, as is the case with ready-mades. Recent critical theory, however, would argue that the mere designation and relocation of any object, ready-mades included, constitutes a modification of the object because it changes our perception of its utility, its lifespan, or its status.
Installation views of the exhibition Now, the new form of the past
Installation views of the exhibition Now, the new form of the past at Kunstwerk! Liemers Museum, Netherlands showing the work of Drager Meurtant and Petra Senn
Installation view of the exhibition Now, the new form of the past at Kunstwerk! Liemers Museum, Netherlands showing Drager Meurtant’s work connection not wireless (2014) top left, and Petra Senn’s Persuasiveness (2012) top right
Installation view of the exhibition Now, the new form of the past at Kunstwerk! Liemers Museum, Netherlands showing Drager Meurtant’s Under way Nd
Installation view of the exhibition Now, the new form of the past at Kunstwerk! Liemers Museum, Netherlands showing Drager Meurtant’s work Swan in essence (2014) at centre, with Petra Senn’s Insubordination (2017) top left and someone from the past I (Nd) top right
Installation view of the exhibition Now, the new form of the past at Kunstwerk! Liemers Museum, Netherlands showing the work of Drager Meurtant and Petra Senn with DM’s The promised land (2016) at right
About Drager Meurtant
In almost four decades since his training as as veterinarian-biomedical researcher, Drager Meurtant (artist alias of Gerard Rutteman) has channeled much creativity towards scientific publications and – in his free time – poetry. In more recent years, through a rapid learning curve, his creations have taken form as sculptures (in particular assemblages), collages, paintings and graphical works.
The sculptures made by David Smith and (box) assemblages by Joseph Cornell, but also installations by Dieter Roth inspire Drager, as does the art by Joan Miró and members of CoBrA. The making of photographs is considered complementary to the assemblages, in an attempt to capture the fleeting world in which we live.
Drager Meurtant (Dutch, b. 1951) Movement from within 2016 Three-dimensional sculpture, mixed media Assemblage (relief), wood, paper, paint, sand, image 40 x 50 x 7cm
“When the pieces were seen fit / and fixed in their proper position / the movement was undeniable / as it arose from within”
Drager Meurtant (Dutch, b. 1951) Crawling, again 2018 Three-dimensional sculpture, mixed media 47 x 34 x 20cm
“How to make connections / of elements and the outside world? The answer to my question / came crawling, again”
Drager Meurtant (Dutch, b. 1951) Crawling, again (installation view) 2018 Three-dimensional sculpture, mixed media 47 x 34 x 20cm
Drager Meurtant (Dutch, b. 1951) Number 53 (installation view) 2016 Mixed media sculpture Assemblage, wood, paper, metal, plaster, paint 31 x 36 x 9cm
“In former times / you could buy / petroleum, paraffin and coal / at number 53”
Drager Meurtant (Dutch, b. 1951) The Orator (installation view) 2016 Sculpture, wood, paint
Drager Meurtant (Dutch, b. 1951) Tegut 2018 Collage, paper 11 x 15cm
“The next generation / has more generations / to lean upon”
Drager Meurtant (Dutch, b. 1951) Three of a kind (installation view) 2018 Mixed media 24 x 32 x 1cm
“When presented three figures / of different size / and writing / and colour”
Drager Meurtant (Dutch, b. 1951) Three of a kind 2018 Mixed media 24 x 32 x 1cm
Drager Meurtant (Dutch, b. 1951) Mon Combat 2018 Installation of book, metal 60 x 30 x 5cm
Installation view of the exhibition Now, the new form of the past at Kunstwerk! Liemers Museum, Netherlands showing Drager Meurtant’s works the listener (needs protection) (2018) at left, and The Mechanic (2018) at right
Drager Meurtant (Dutch, b. 1951) The Mechanic 2018 Mixed media (wood, iron, paint) 105 x 65 x 65cm
“With good tools / you get everything moving”
Drager Meurtant (Dutch, b. 1951) The snake kept its mouth shut 2018 Mixed media, trash 35 x 25 x 500cm
“Curling, the snake kept its mouth shut”
Drager Meurtant (Dutch, b. 1951) Destiny (installation view) 2018 Painting on discarded radiator with support 60 x 130cm
Drager Meurtant (Dutch, b. 1951) All humans are equal (installation view) 2018 Mixed media 100 x 50 x 200cm
All humans are equal. // To test this assumption / take two / and tilt the angle / and position towards, one another.
Drager Meurtant (Dutch, b. 1951) Rudimentary (installation view) 2016 Mixed media 23 x 13 x 16cm
“Mental metal / rudimentary face / mind you!”
Drager Meurtant (Dutch, b. 1951) The promised land 2016 Box assemblage Mixed media, wood, board, metal, paint 34 x 44 x 10cm
“The promised land / cannot be for outsiders. // They may look / how it is, yonder.”
Drager Meurtant (Dutch, b. 1951) Steep-2 (installation view) 2014 Mixed media, wood partly rotten, metal, paint and glass 35 x 23 x 10cm
Steep-2: The Monte Rotondo / is left behind / it weighs too much / for me. // The climbing rock of Feyr / I leave / to the climbers. // But / this wooden rock / serves as model / of a viewpoint on imagination.
Drager Meurtant (Dutch, b. 1951) The avail of propaganda 2016 Mixed media Assemblage, wood, cloth, metal, paper, paint 43 x 21 x 8cm
“The avail of propaganda / is that you and I / do what / we detest.”
Drager Meurtant (Dutch, b. 1951) Twosome (installation view) Nd Mixed media
Drager Meurtant (Dutch, b. 1951) fact-ohry (installation view) 2013 Mixed media 24 x 32 x 42cm
I said / now I will build a fact-ohry / and that / became factual. // With grabbing and placing / elements that together / took progressively the shape / of a fact-ohry / I became part of it. // Could shape the further design / and steer it at minor extent / but the end-result / was determined / by the starting point. // Voila.
(Note: This Fact-ohry is the only one with guarantee that risks during drilling for shale gas are secured.)
Drager Meurtant (Dutch, b. 1951) Progress (halted) (installation view) 2016 Bronze 26 x 18 x 21cm
“When going forth / from wood to bronze / and grasping the result / I realised progress had halted. // A result stands in the way / of the learning process.”
Drager Meurtant (Dutch, b. 1951) Progress (halted) 2016 Bronze 26 x 18 x 21cm
About Petra Senn
Petra’s work has mostly to do with memories and emotions. Her photos directly respond to the surrounding environment and use everyday experiences from the artist as a starting point. These experiences are often framed instances that would go unnoticed in their original context.
By contesting the division between the realm of memory and the realm of experience, she wants to amplify the astonishment of the spectator by creating compositions or settings that generate tranquil poetic images that leave traces and balances on the edge of recognition and alienation.
Her works appear as dreamlike images in which fiction and reality meet, well-known tropes merge, meanings shift, past and present fuse. Time and memory always play a key role. By applying abstraction, she absorbs the tradition of remembrance art into daily practice. She has a deep inner desire to protect the past from vanishing, both physically and, inevitably, mentally.
In her work Petra takes great care neither to simply reflect reality nor to just make visual statements. There is always left space for the spectators own emotions and opinions. She considers her work as visual stimulus, an invitation to enter ones inner world, knowing well that this process only works if she perceives deeper emotions while taking the pictures herself. Her search is for poetry in almost every item and condition.
Artist statement
Petra Senn Her Lips 2015
Petra Senn Insubordination 2017
Petra Senn Persuasiveness 2012
About Jeanine Keuchenius
Jeanine Keuchenius (1953, Indonesia) is a creative artist, dancer, and performer. Her background is as an art therapist (independent and within psychiatry) and social worker / pastoral worker. In the visual art she is an autodidact (a self-taught person), acquiring some skills at high school (teacher in visual art), she then followed several courses / workshops given by professional artists.
Jeanine’s painting uses paper, linen or panel, with palette filled with gouache, acrylic, oil, ink, with at times addition of tar, sand, and glue. Artists that inspire her are Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Edvard Munch, Antoni Tapies and Emil Schumacher, but also the medium of modern dance moves her in her work, which is mostly abstract, but at times features more figurative elements. Sometimes echoes from mountain landscapes and abandoned hamlets (e.g. on the island of Corsica) are visualised. Her motto is: “In duet with myself.”
Installation views of the exhibition Senses
Installation views of the exhibition Senses at Kunstwerk! Liemers Museum, Netherlands
Jeanine Keuchenius (Dutch born Indonesia, b. 1953) Amulet (installation view) 2011 Gouache on paper 50 x 65cm
Jeanine Keuchenius (Dutch born Indonesia, b. 1953) Amulet 2011 Gouache on paper 50 x 65cm
Jeanine Keuchenius (Dutch born Indonesia, b. 1953) Pink and grey (installation view) 2012 Gouache on paper 50 x 65cm
Each painting is the reflection of memory or dream.
Jeanine Keuchenius (Dutch born Indonesia, b. 1953) Pink and grey 2012 Gouache on paper 50 x 65cm
Jeanine Keuchenius (Dutch born Indonesia, b. 1953) Lying figure 2 (installation view) 2017 Two-dimensional plaster cut, printed on newspaper 22 x 26cm
Jeanine Keuchenius (Dutch born Indonesia, b. 1953) Beautiful stay (installation view) 2014 Gouache on paper
Jeanine Keuchenius (Dutch born Indonesia, b. 1953) Unchained (installation view) 2016 Mixed media on panel (bitumen, acrylic, sand on panel) 45 x 57cm
Jeanine Keuchenius (Dutch born Indonesia, b. 1953) Memory 1 (installation view) 2018 Mixed media on panel (acrylic, sand, plaster, oil on panel) 60 x 70cm
Jeanine Keuchenius (Dutch born Indonesia, b. 1953) Gribusella 2014 Acrylic on paper 50 x 65cm
Form and colour accompany depth and emotion
Jeanine Keuchenius (Dutch born Indonesia, b. 1953) Senses 2012 Acrylic on paper 50 x 65cm
Jeanine Keuchenius (Dutch born Indonesia, b. 1953) Bwual ènzo 2014 Gouache on paper 50 x 65cm
Both when handling and avoiding themes, you sometimes walk in a circle.
Poster for the exhibitions Now, the new form of the past and Senses
Kunstwerk! Liemers Museum Kerkstraat 16, 6901 AB Zevenaar, Nederland Phone: +31 85 040 9971
Dale Cox (Australian, b. 1969) Usurper Ruminant 2016 Acrylic on gold enamel on board 120cm x 90cm
Clarion call
The sky is blue, the sun is shining and yet, in this era of the Anthropocene, the Earth is in deep shit. Through the activities of a virus, a contagion that infests the planet… that is – the ego, the selfishness of the individual human and, collectively, of the human race – “we are perhaps amongst the first to contemplate not just our own finite existence, but the doomed fate of the Earth itself.”
My friend Dale Cox’s exhibition Inner Logic at Australian Galleries dissects this situation in a most intelligent and imaginative manner. Instead of didactic protest, Cox uses the language of Australian pastoral landscape, iconic edifice and stratigraphic cross section to make ironic comment on popular culture, history and religion. As you dissect the various influences and concepts within the work you chuckle to yourself at the artist’s inventiveness and humour.
Mixing the tight style and formal, classical beauty of Australian colonial painting (with reference in particular to the work of John Glover) with the uncanny sense of reality and precision found in the paintings of Jeffrey Smart, Cox twists his realities and points of view. Shopping trolleys have a strange perspective when filled with Australian colonial landscapes; aircraft stairs seem strangely twisted as they lead to a geological cross-section topped with verdant greenery (a journey through time); clouds in the burning landscape look like that of an atomic bomb; an Uluru-like profile of Elvis in the Australian bush is dotted with tents and encampments; and Australian ute’s of unlikely shape sit at the base of a constructed Elvis edifice, the most prominent thing to my mind in the painting being the four air conditioning units at the base of the construction cabin, sitting in an absolutely barren landscape. The perspicacity of Cox’s (re)marks is exemplary.
My favourite works in the exhibition are the Usurper paintings. Here Cox condenses the customs, traditions and rituals of the human race (colonisation, farming, habitation – power, possession, destruction and modification of the environment and its animals) onto the body of the (b)ovine family, the livestock “genetically modified over time through the artificial selection of desirable traits by humans, with a view to increasing the docility of the animals, their size and productivity, their quality as agricultural products, and other culturally desired features,”1 to serve humans who are substantially dependent on their livestock for sustenance and other purposes. These artificial bodies, these illegitimate usurpers, float on a sea of gold enamel and wood grain form.
Cox’s declamations, his inner logic if you like, document in the most inventive way the liturgy of errors of the human race. His work is a clarion call for humans to be better custodians (for that is what we are) of the Earth. Through his subversive paintings, the artist “challenges the myopic tendency for us humans to fixate on ourselves in a way that bodes poorly for our ability to see the bigger picture and act as stewards for the entire planet rather than as self serving, selfish species.” (Email to the author, 28 July 2018). His humors (basic substances which are in balance when a person, or in this case the Earth, is healthy) add to the raised voices against the naysayers of global warming, the backward looking fossil fuel industry, the power of nations and corporations, and the vested interests of the rich and powerful, mainly men. It’s time for the dreamers, the artists, and the spiritual to confront these dinosaurs of the past, so that they may shape the future. So that the human race can cast aside their shadow and learn to walk on the Earth without leaving tracks.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to Dale Cox for allowing me to publish the text and the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Shaman
“There are two kinds of people in this world.
There are those who are dreamers and those who are being dreamed.
There comes a time in every mans life when he must encounter his past.
For those that are dreamed, who have no more than a passing acquaintance with power, this moment is usually played out on their death beds as they try to bargain with fate for a few more moments of life time.
But for the dreamer, the person of power, this moment takes place alone, before a fire, when he calls upon the spectres of his personal past to stand before him like witnesses before the court…
I am not speaking of remembering the past. Anyone can remember the past, and in remembering we frame it to serve and justify the present. Remembering is a conscious act and therefore subject to embellishment. Remembering is easy.
The person of power sits alone before the fire and confronts his past. He hears the testimony of these spectres and he dismisses them one by one. He acquits himself of his past. If you comprehend this, the man of power has no past. No history that can claim him. He has cast aside his shadow and learnt to walk in the snow without leaving tracks.”
Dr Alberto Villoldo
Dale Cox (Australian, b. 1969) Usurper Transplant 2016 Acrylic on gold enamel on board 120cm x 90cm
Dale Cox (Australian, b. 1969) Usurper Glover 2016 Acrylic on gold enamel on board 120cm x 90cm
John Glover (England 1767 – Australia 1849, Australia from 1831) The River Nile, Van Diemen’s Land, from Mr Glover’s farm 1837 Oil on canvas 76.4 x 114.6cm National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Felton Bequest, 1956
John Glover’s colonial landscapes can be divided into two groups: pastoral scenes of the land surrounding his own property, and pre-contact Aboriginal Arcadias. Although the Aboriginal figures are at times generic, they are shown as active participants in the landscape. Such scenes were, however, entirely imagined, as Glover encountered very few Tasmanian Aboriginal people while in the colony. Glover had not experienced the conflict or witnessed the violence between Tasmanian Aboriginal resistance fighters and white settlers during the 1820s. By the time of his arrival in 1831, the Tasmanian Aboriginal survivors had been forced to leave Country and relocate to Flinders Island.
Dale Cox (Australian, b. 1969) Tract 38 (Burning landscape) 2012 Acrylic on canvas 102 x 152cm
Dale Cox (Australian, b. 1969) Tract 38 (Burning landscape) (detail) 2012 Acrylic on canvas 102 x 152cm
Dale Cox (Australian, b. 1969) Flight SQ2118 to Thailand 2018 Acrylic on board 81 x 122cm
Dale Cox (Australian, b. 1969) Rewilding II 2018 Acrylic on board 81 x 122cm
Dale Cox (Australian, b. 1969) Anticolonial 2018 Acrylic on board 81 x 122cm
Inner Logic 2018
The motifs and elements in this exhibition are all related to our human predicament; to this era of the Anthropocene and our unique capacity amongst living things to contemplate our own mortality. While we have grappled with our impermanence for thousands of years, we are perhaps amongst the first to contemplate not just our own finite existence, but the doomed fate of the Earth itself. A kind of double death.
It’s a lot to take on board.
Perhaps, unsurprisingly, we are well practiced at diversion, denial and a kind of wishful thinking when it comes to our fate. Religion has served us rather well as a kind of ‘soft landing’ into the unknown; furnishing us cradle to grave with a reassuring framework towards a life after death.
It is an intoxicating idea that when we die we go elsewhere. Anything but death seems like a plan. Indeed, many opine that a belief in an afterlife is essential to the very fabric of humanity, that our lives would be meaningless if it simply ended. Perhaps there is an inner logic to this: Is there a point to a life that simply ends?
Our aversion to annihilation runs deep, and in light of some fairly compelling arguments that it is so, humanity is slow to accept the deal. And now that we are facing mounting evidence that we are hurtling towards an environmental collapse of our own making, it seems the all too human ability to simply avert our gaze is once again at play. Desperate times call for desperate measures in collective denial, and so it seems we enter the post-truth era.
There are myriad ways in which we pull off this practised art of self-delusion. Central to it is our unerring fascination with ourselves, our own species. ‘Anthropocentricity’ has served us for millennia as an essential tool of survival by strengthening our ties as family units, tribes, villages and, by extension, nations. The gods we created invariably took a patriarchal form, and we still cling to these heroic manifestations of our own image.
Even our innate altruism appears limited to all things ‘us’. We seem ill-equipped as stewards of the planet of being capable of seeing the bigger picture, of accommodating the survival of all species. All animals are necessarily hardwired to fixate on their own collective survival at the expense of other species, but it is humans alone who can progress that exclusivity to global obliteration.
I generalise, of course. Many manage to stare reality squarely in the face, and many more understand the importance of the broader environment. And it will get harder to remain wilfully ignorant, as the ecological collapse is well underway, overtaking even the gloomiest of predictive models. It is in plain sight and will only become harder to ignore.
The environmental problems we face appear too colossal for individuals to consider; it all seems too overwhelming, too daunting. These are not ‘human-sized’ problems after all. But if we can apply the same collective fervour and inventiveness we applied to bettering our human lot, if we can find a global will to turn our remarkable capacity for enterprise in science, technology and innovation to repairing the planet as a whole, we may have just cause for hope.
Dale Cox
Dale Cox (Australian, b. 1969) The Bungle Bungles 2018 Acrylic on board 122 x 244cm
Dale Cox (Australian, b. 1969) Always on my mind 2018 Acrylic on board 101 x 244cm
Anthropocene definition
Relating to or denoting the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.
Evolutionary psychology definition
Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach to psychology that attempts to explain useful mental and psychological traits – such as memory, perception, or language – as adaptations, i.e., as the functional products of natural selection.
The purpose of this approach is to bring the functional way of thinking about biological mechanisms such as the immune system into the field of psychology, and to approach psychological mechanisms in a similar way.
In short, evolutionary psychology is focused on how evolution has shaped the mind and behaviour. Though applicable to any organism with a nervous system, most research in evolutionary psychology focuses on humans.
Evolutionary psychologists argue that much of human behaviour is the output of psychological adaptations that evolved to solve recurrent problems in human ancestral environments…
Evolutionary psychologists hold that behaviours or traits that occur universally in all cultures are good candidates for evolutionary adaptations including the abilities to infer others’ emotions, discern kin from non-kin, identify and prefer healthier mates, and cooperate with others.
A short piece of writing, especially on a religious or political subject, that is intended to influence other people’s opinions; a large area of land; a major passage in the body, large bundle of nerve fibres, or other continuous elongated anatomical structure or region.
Usurper definition
A usurper is an illegitimate or controversial claimant to power, often but not always in a monarchy. In other words, a person who takes the power of a country, city, or established region for themselves without any formal or legal right to claim it as their own. Usurpers are both those who overtake a region by often unexpected physical force, as well as individuals or organisations who overtake a region through political influence and subterfuge – though the word “usurper” denotes a single person; either an individual who acted alone, or the leader of a group which supported their controversial claim.
Dale Cox (Australian, b. 1969) Untitled (Lunar lander of wood) 2012 Acrylic on board 51 x 77cm
Dale Cox (Australian, b. 1969) Cold War Reliquary 2014 Mixed media Wood acrylics gold enamel metal rock glass Dimensions variable Created for the Blake Prize
Cold War Reliquary 2015-2016
A reliquary (also referred to as a shrine or by the French term châsse) is a container for relics. These may be the purported physical remains of saints, such as bones, pieces of clothing, or some object associated with saints or other religious figures. (Wikipedia definition)
. My sculpture is a vessel – a craft, a portal, a reliquary. Like many Religious objects its serves as a nexus, a transport between Earth and Heaven. The Apollo Lunar Module carried the first Human to the Moon landing on July 20 1969. I was 3 months old. Russia had landed an unmanned craft safely on the moon ten years earlier. The ‘Space Race’ was chiefly an assertion of Ideological superiority between Communism and Capitalism, and the most symbolic battlefield of the ‘Cold War’.
I have long thought of mans tentative forays into space as a kind of membrane piercing journey into the Spiritual – the body released of its Earthly mass and transcended into the Heavens. The reference to a Religious Relic and object of Art – a reliquary for the precious moon rock it houses within the glass dome, elevates a Mechanical Machine to the status of a Religious Relic and is intended to supplant and parody the Christian Canon that asserts our ascension to Heaven (or Hell) upon death.
The essential role of Science as the facilitator of Space Exploration is significant, and as such the Spacecraft itself is venerated here as a Religious object.
The use of Quasi Religious painted panels directly references early Christian Art, whilst most of the Latin Inscriptions are direct translations of NASA Radio Transcripts between (Earth) Base Command and the Astronauts during the critical stages of the Moon landing, and the first historic moments upon landing. Buzz Aldrins remark as he first set foot on the moon was “Beautiful, beautiful. Magnificent desolation.” In Latin Magnificus in desertum.
Dale Cox
Cold War Reliquary
The Cold War Reliquary is a vessel – a spacecraft, and a Holy Relic. Like many Religious objects, it serves as a nexus, a transport between Earth and Heaven. I have long thought of man’s forays into space as a kind of membrane piercing journey into the Spiritual – the body released of its Earthly mass and transcended into the Heavens. This reliquary for the precious moon rock it houses within a glass dome, elevates a Mechanical Machine to the status of a Religious Relic and playfully parodies the Space Race as the era in which Science finally transcended Religion.
Inner Logic continues Dale Cox’s insightful and evocative explorations into environmental, spiritual and anthropological themes; investigating the impact of humankind on this planet and our collective search for meaning.
“The motifs and elements within the current exhibition of my paintings all are in some way or another related to our human predicament and this era of the anthropocene and our unique capacity amongst living things to contemplate our own mortality,” says Cox, “We humans have been grappling with our own mortality for thousands of years. Are we today, however amongst the first generations to contemplate not just our own finite existence, but also the doomed fate of the Earth itself? A kind of double death…”
Inner Logic presents a dynamic series of recent paintings in Dale Cox’s highly distinctive visual language, in which elements from the natural world and icons from popular, religious, industrial and historical culture are assembled in precarious, yet harmonious balance upon a backdrop of the vast unknown. Meticulously executed in acrylic paint, these works are visually intricate and conceptually dense, yet the clarity and significance of their message resonates with immediacy and power.
Dale Cox is equally proficient in sculpture as he is in painting and works across a wide range of media. This exhibition presents the artist’s compelling Cold War Reliquary (Finalist in the 64th Blake Prize); a magnificent recreation of the Lunar Lander spacecraft realised as a gilded religious receptacle, “My sculpture is a vessel – a spacecraft, a portal, a reliquary. Like many religious objects its serves as a nexus, a transport between Earth and Heaven. I have long thought of man’s forays into space as a kind of membrane piercing journey into the spiritual – the body released of its Earthly mass and transcended into the Heavens. This reliquary for the precious moon rock it houses within a glass dome, elevates a Mechanical Machine to the status of a Religious Relic and playfully parodies and challenges the Christian Church.” Dale Cox, 2018
Press release from Australian Galleries
Dale Cox (Australian, b. 1969) Art Mart 2018 Acrylic on board 120 x 89cm
Dale Cox (Australian, b. 1969) Albert 2018 Acrylic on board 160 x 122cm
Dale Cox (Australian, b. 1969) The wonder of you 2018 Acrylic on board 120 x 90cm
Dale Cox (Australian, b. 1969) The wonder of you (detail) 2018 Acrylic on board 120 x 90cm
Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) (Portrait of Indigenous Brazilian tradeswoman) 1861-1862 From Ethnographic portraits of indigenous women of Pernambuco and Bahia Salt paper print, hand-painted
Art Blart has been mining a rich vein of (anti-)colonial art and photography over the past few months, and the next two posts continue this trend.
Tonight we have Ethnographic portraits of Indigenous women of Pernambuco and Bahia (Brazil, 1861-1862) by unknown local photographers, collected and compiled by the Swiss photographer Hermann Kummler in 1888-1891 into an album. These were vintage prints when he purchased them and already had significant historical interest.
Thus, we have unknown sitters photographed by unknown photographers, removed from their original context(s) – the family, business or photographers album perhaps – to be annotated in a foreign hand, the machinations of (colonial, male) power evidenced through the gaze of the camera. And text. Mulatto; Mestizo; Negress.
The underprivileged of society being punished in their men/iality: servile; submissive: menial attitudes; pertaining to or suitable for domestic servants. Mistress punishing a native child. Teacher with a schoolgirl in Bahia in one picture, becomes Native Brazilian lady-in-waiting and young child attend to a veiled aristocrat in another (note the same background curtain).
None of the sitters look happy. Most scowl at the camera, unsmiling at their lot, probably being forced to have their photograph taken. The hand-coloured photographs are even more absurd, the lurid colours creating caricatures of human beings, cut out figures with all semblance of humanity removed. Rather than reinforcing “the sense of individual style associated with these remarkable figures”, the photographs become pure representation of figurative form. The camera enacts the shaping of disputed, contested identities into a particular figure, a particular palatable form.
Why it is valuable to show these photographs is that we must be ever vigilant in understanding the networks of power, dispossession and enslavement that patriarchal societies use to marginalise the poor, the weak, the different for their gain. For it is men that are looking.
“The category of “masculinity” should be seen as always ambivalent, always complicated, always dependent on the exigencies (necessary conditions and requirements) of personal and institutional power … [masculinity is] an interplay of emotional and intellectual factors – an interplay that directly implicates women as well as men, and is mediated by other social factors, including race, sexuality, nationality, and class … Far from being just about men, the idea of masculinity engages, inflects, and shapes everyone.”1
Dr Marcus Bunyan
PS. “two of the Indigenous women (one of whom wears a cross), simply pose in the studio” – they are not in a studio, a curtain has been drawn over a back wall.
1/ Berger, Maurice; Wallis, Brian and Watson, Simon. Constructing Masculinity. Introduction. New York: Routledge, 1995, pp. 3-7.
These digitally cleaned photographs are published under “fair use” for the purposes of academic research and critical commentary. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Overview
Group of 19 ethnographic portraits of Indigenous women of Pernambuco and Bahia that were compiled by the Swiss photographer Hermann (Ermano) Kummler (1863-1949). With subjects of Indian and mixed-race descent, including vendors, wet nurses, maids, mothers and children, and merchants, including a mistress punishing a native child. Salted paper prints with trimmed corners, the images measuring 7 x 3 3/8 to 7 1/4 x 4 1/2 inches (17.8 x 8.4 to 18.4 x 11.4 cm).
7 are hand-coloured with gouache; the original mounts, 9 bright blue or green, 6 double mounted, measuring 9 1/4 x 7 to 8 1/4 x 11 1/4 inches (24.1 x 17.8 to 21 x 29.8 cm), most with Kummler’s caption notations, in ink, and each with his red hand stamp on prints (one) or mounts recto. 1861-1862
Kummler was a Swiss photographer who accompanied Als Kaufmann to Brazil, where they traveled extensively from 1888-91. Kummler apparently purchased vintage prints by local photographers (which he stamped and annotated), and eventually set up his own commercial studio in the town of Aarau. During the three year period he was in Brazil with Kaufmann, Kummler apparently made more than 130 photographs. Their journey was the subject of a monograph entitled Als Kaufmann in Pernambuco, Ein Reisebericht mit Bildern aus Brasiilien von Hermann Kummler (Als Kaufmann in Pernambuco 1888-1891. A travelogue with pictures from Brazil by Hermann Kummler), copiously illustrated with his images.
Tradeswomen are depicted with a teapot on a table, a comb, a basket laden with bottles or wares carefully balanced on their heads; maids hold embroidered cloth and a wet nurse is shown with an infant. A native lady-in-waiting (and a young child) attend to a gorgeously dressed aristocrat, who wears a long veil. The hand-coloured prints reinforce the sense of individual style associated with these remarkable figures; two of the Indigenous women (one of whom wears a cross), simply pose in the studio with trade womens objects.
Text from an auction house website
Pernambuco and Bahia
Pernambuco is a state of Brazil, located in the Northeast region of the country. Bahia is one of the 26 states of Brazil and is located in the Northeastern part of the country on the Atlantic coast.
Charles Darwin visited Bahia in 1832 on his famous voyage on the Beagle. In 1835, Bahia was the site of an urban slave revolt, particularly notable as the only predominately-Muslim slave rebellion in the history of the Americas. Under the Empire, Bahia returned 14 deputies to the general assembly and 7 senators; its own provincial assembly consisted of 36 members. In the 19th century, cotton, coffee, and tobacco plantations joined those for sugarcane and the discovery of diamonds in 1844 led to large influx of “washers” (garimpeiros = an independent prospector for minerals) until the still-larger deposits in South Africa came to light.
Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) Mullatin (Portrait of a Indigenous Brazilian woman wearing a cross) 1861-1862 From Ethnographic portraits of indigenous women of Pernambuco and Bahia Salt paper print, hand-painted
Mulatto
Mulatto is a term used to refer to people born of one white parent and one black parent or to people born of a mulatto parent or parents. In English, the term is today generally confined to historical contexts. English speakers of mixed white and black ancestry seldom choose to identify themselves as “mulatto.” …
Mulattoes represent a significant part of the population of various Latin American and Caribbean countries: Brazil (49.1% mixed-race, Gypsy and Black, Mulattoes (20.5%), Mestiços, Mamelucos or Caboclos (21.3%), Blacks (7.1%) and Eurasian (0.2%).
In colonial Latin America, mulato could also refer to an individual of mixed African and Native American ancestry. In the 21st century, persons with indigenous and black African ancestry in Latin America are more frequently called zambos in Spanish or cafuzo in Portuguese.
According to the IBGE 2000 census, 38.5% of Brazilians identified as pardo, i.e. of mixed ancestry. This figure includes mulatto and other multiracial people, such as people who have European and Amerindian ancestry (called caboclos), as well as assimilated, westernised Amerindians, and mestizos with some Asian ancestry. A majority of mixed-race Brazilians have all three ancestries: Amerindian, European, and African. According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics census 2006, some 42.6% of Brazilian identify as pardo, an increase over the 2000 census.
Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) Mestize (Portrait of a Brazilian woman) 1861-1862 From Ethnographic portraits of indigenous women of Pernambuco and Bahia Salt paper print, hand-painted
Mestizo: (in Latin America) a person of mixed race, especially one having Spanish and American Indian parentage.
Mixed-race Brazilian
Brazilian censuses do not use a “multiracial” category. Instead, the censuses use skin colour categories. Most Brazilians of visibly mixed racial origins self-identify as pardos. However, many white Brazilians have distant non-white ancestry, while the group known as pardos likely contains non-mixed acculturated Amerindians. According to the 2010 census, “pardos” make up 82.277 million people, or 43.13% of Brazil’s population. …
History
Before the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500, Brazil was inhabited by nearly five million Amerindians. The Portuguese colonisation of Brazil started in the sixteenth century. In the first two centuries of colonisation, 100,000 Portuguese arrived in Brazil (around 500 colonists per year). In the eighteenth century, 600,000 Portuguese arrived (6,000 per year). Another race, Blacks, were brought from Africa as slaves, starting around 1550. Many came from Guinea, or from West African countries – by the end of the eighteenth century many had been taken from Congo, Angola and Mozambique (or, in Bahia, from Benin). By the time of the end of the slave trade in 1850, around 3.5 million slaves had been brought to Brazil – 37% of all slave traffic between Africa and the Americas.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a considerable influx of mainly European immigrants arrived in Brazil. According to the Memorial do Imigrante, Brazil attracted nearly 5 million immigrants between 1870 and 1953. Most of the immigrants were from Italy or Portugal, but also significant numbers of Germans, Spaniards, Japanese and Syrian-Lebanese.
The Portuguese settlers were the ones to start the intensive race-mixing process in Brazil. Miscegenation in Brazil… was not a pacific process as some used to believe: it was a form of domination from the Portuguese against the Native Brazilian and African populations. …
White/Amerindian
Most of the first colonists from Portugal who arrived in Brazil were singles or did not bring their wives. For that reason the first interracial marriages in Brazil occurred between Portuguese males and Amerindian females.
In Brazil, people of White/Indian ancestry are historically known as caboclos or mamelucos. They predominated in many regions of Brazil. One example are the Bandeirantes (Brazilian colonial scouts who took part in the Bandeiras, exploration expeditions) who operated out of São Paulo, home base for the most famous bandeirantes.
Indians, mostly free men and mamelucos, predominated in the society of São Paulo in the 16th and early 17th centuries and outnumbered Europeans. The influential families generally bore some Indian blood and provided most of the leaders of the bandeiras, with a few notable exceptions such as Antonio Raposo Tavares (1598-1658), who was European born.
White/Black
According to some historians, Portuguese settlers in Brazil used to prefer to marry Portuguese-born females. If not possible, the second option were Brazilian-born females of recent Portuguese background. The third option were Brazilian-born women of distant Portuguese ancestry. However, the number of White females in Brazil was very low during the Colonial period, causing a large number of interracial relationships in the country.
White/Black relationships in Brazil started as early as the first Africans were brought as slaves in 1550 where many Portuguese men starting marrying black women. The Mulattoes (people of White/Black ancestry) were also enslaved, though some children of rich aristocrats and owners of gold mines were educated and became important people in Colonial Brazil. Probably, the most famous case was Chica da Silva, a mixed-race Brazilian slave who married a rich gold mine owner and became one of the richest people in Brazil.
Other mulattoes largely contributed to Brazil’s culture: Aleijadinho (sculptor and architect), Machado de Assis (writer), Lima Barreto (writer), Chiquinha Gonzaga (composer), etc. In 1835, Blacks would have made up the majority of Brazil’s population, according to a more recent estimate quoted by Thomas Skidmore. In 1872, their number was shown to be much smaller according to the census of that time, outnumbered by pardos and Whites. …
Black/Amerindian
People of Black African and Native Brazilian ancestry are known as Cafuzos and are historically the less numerous group. Most of them have origin in black women who escaped slavery and were welcomed by indigenous communities, where started families with local amerindian men.
Modesto Brocos (Brazilian born Spain, 1853-1936) A Redenção de Cam (Ham’s Redemption) 1895 Oil on canvas 199cm (78.3 in) x 166cm (65.3 in) Public domain / Museu Nacional de Belas Artes
The painting shows a Brazilian family each generation becoming “whiter” (black grandmother, mulatto mother and white baby).
Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) (Portrait of Indigenous Brazilian tradeswoman) 1861-1862 From Ethnographic portraits of indigenous women of Pernambuco and Bahia Salt paper print, hand-painted
Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) (Portrait of Indigenous Brazilian tradeswoman) 1861-1862 From Ethnographic portraits of indigenous women of Pernambuco and Bahia Salt paper print, hand-painted
Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) (Portrait of a maid holding an embroidered cloth) 1861-1862 From Ethnographic portraits of indigenous women of Pernambuco and Bahia Salt paper print, hand-painted
Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) (Portrait of wet nurse with infant) 1861-1862 From Ethnographic portraits of indigenous women of Pernambuco and Bahia Salt paper print, hand-painted
Indigenous peoples in Brazil
Indigenous peoples in Brazil (Portuguese: povos indÃgenas no Brasil), or Indigenous Brazilians (Portuguese: indÃgenas brasileiros), comprise a large number of distinct ethnic groups who have inhabited what is now the country of Brazil since prior to the European contact around 1500. Unlike Christopher Columbus, who thought he had reached the East Indies, the Portuguese, most notably Vasco da Gama, had already reached India via the Indian Ocean route when they reached Brazil.
Nevertheless, the word Ãndios (“Indians”) was by then established to designate the people of the New World and continues to be used today in the Portuguese language to designate these people, while a person from India is called indiano in order to distinguish the two.
At the time of European contact, some of the indigenous people were traditionally mostly semi-nomadic tribes who subsisted on hunting, fishing, gathering, and migrant agriculture. Many of the estimated 2,000 nations and tribes which existed in the 16th century suffered extinction as a consequence of the European settlement, and many were assimilated into the Brazilian population.
The indigenous population was largely killed by European diseases, declining from a pre-Columbian high of millions to some 300,000 (1997), grouped into 200 tribes. However, the number could be much higher if the urban indigenous populations are counted in all the Brazilian cities today. A somewhat dated linguistic survey found 188 living indigenous languages with 155,000 total speakers.
The rubber trade
The 1840s brought trade and wealth to the Amazon. The process for vulcanising rubber was developed, and worldwide demand for the product skyrocketed. The best rubber trees in the world grew in the Amazon, and thousands of rubber tappers began to work the plantations. When the Indians proved to be a difficult labor force, peasants from surrounding areas were brought into the region. In a dynamic that continues to this day, the indigenous population was at constant odds with the peasants, who the Indians felt had invaded their lands in search of treasure.
Urban Rights Movement
The urban rights movement is a recent development in the rights of indigenous peoples. Brazil has one of the highest income inequalities in the world, and much of that population includes indigenous tribes migrating toward urban areas both by choice and by displacement. Beyond the urban rights movement, studies have shown that the suicide risk among the indigenous population is 8.1 times higher than the non-indigenous population.
Many indigenous rights movements have been created through the meeting of many indigenous tribes in urban areas. For example, in Barcelos, an indigenous rights movement arose because of “local migratory circulation.” This is how many alliances form to create a stronger network for mobilisation. Indigenous populations also living in urban areas have struggles regarding work. They are pressured into doing cheap labor. Programs like Oxfam have been used to help indigenous people gain partnerships to begin grassroots movements. Some of their projects overlap with environmental activism as well.
Many Brazilian youths are mobilising through the increased social contact, since some indigenous tribes stay isolated while others adapt to the change. Access to education also affects these youths, and therefore, more groups are mobilising to fight for indigenous rights.
Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) (Portrait of Indigenous Brazilian tradeswoman) 1861-1862 From Ethnographic portraits of indigenous women of Pernambuco and Bahia Salt paper print
Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) (Kellnerinnen im Grand Hotel / Waitresses in Grand Hotel) 1861-1862 From Ethnographic portraits of indigenous women of Pernambuco and Bahia Salt paper print
Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) (Lehrerin mit Schülerin im Bahia / Teacher with a schoolgirl in Bahia) 1861-1862 From Ethnographic portraits of indigenous women of Pernambuco and Bahia Salt paper print
Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) (Native Brazilian lady-in-waiting and young child attend to a veiled aristocrat) 1861-1862 From Ethnographic portraits of indigenous women of Pernambuco and Bahia Salt paper print
Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) (Negerin mit dem Knaben in schlechter Stimmung / Negress with a boy in a bad mood) 1861-1862 From Ethnographic portraits of indigenous women of Pernambuco and Bahia Salt paper print
Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) (Portrait of Brazilian woman servant and child) 1861-1862 From Ethnographic portraits of indigenous women of Pernambuco and Bahia Salt paper print
Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) (Portrait of a young Brazilian woman) 1861-1862 From Ethnographic portraits of indigenous women of Pernambuco and Bahia Salt paper print
Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) (Portrait of a Brazilian woman) 1861-1862 From Ethnographic portraits of indigenous women of Pernambuco and Bahia Salt paper print
Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) (Portrait of a Brazilian woman) 1861-1862 From Ethnographic portraits of indigenous women of Pernambuco and Bahia Salt paper print
Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) (Portrait of a Brazilian woman with two children) 1861-1862 From Ethnographic portraits of indigenous women of Pernambuco and Bahia Salt paper print
Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) (Portrait of a Brazilian mother and child) 1861-1862 From Ethnographic portraits of indigenous women of Pernambuco and Bahia Salt paper print
Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) (Mistress punishing a native child) 1861-1862 From Ethnographic portraits of indigenous women of Pernambuco and Bahia Salt paper print
Published in: The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.) : Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5
The North American Indian: List of Large Plates Supplementing Volume Five
On the one hand, it is a privilege to post the complete large plates supplementing Volume Five of Edward S. Curtis’ The North American Indian, together with the complimentary biographical sketches of the subject as they appear in the volume, and supplementary research that I undertook into Native American customs and dress. There is no doubt that these are beautiful and atmospheric photographs of a supposedly “Vanishing Race”.
From a technical point of view we can observe the close cropping, the contextless backgrounds of the portraits, the low depth of field, the beautiful light, the direct gaze of the sitter, and the profile view; and in the exterior shots, the balance between sky and earth, how the horizon line moves up and down, how Curtis often looks up at his subject, and how he crops the negative to obtain different effects (Arikara Medicine Ceremony – The Ducks; Arikara chief).
On the other hand, these photographs can only be viewed as “constructions”, flights of fancy, imagined by Curtis to depict and capture traditional culture, a way of life that had almost disappeared by the time he took these photographs.
Talking to Executive Director Shannon Keller O’Loughlin (Choctaw) of the Association on American Indian Affairs (AAIA) he observed that,
“There is no one person who can give you one opinion about the Curtis photographs – there is definitely a variety of opinion in Indian Country about them both good and bad. If you find someone in Indian Country that says there is only one way to look at the Curtis photographs, then you have the wrong person!
Personally, I understand those pictures were posed to capture what Curtis and others thought were the vanishing Indian. They do not necessarily represent reality, but a posed amalgamation of pieces of Tribal life and existence at that time. So, like so many cultural items and ancestors that have been stolen and put in museums and in private collections, American society viewed the Indian in that manner too.
Those photos are not who we are but what someone has posed as the story they (Curtis) wanted to tell. On the other hand, they show us today some things that we may no longer have access to and give us a window into eyes of real human beings who were in the process of losing the lives they had known for centuries.” (Email to the author, 1 June 2018)
I thank Shannon very much for his insightful words. His powerful, evocative statement has just as much relevance here in Australia as in America: for these photographs picture ghosts from the past, made manifest as real human beings in the present, together with their commensurate strength and suffering. They give us a window into eyes of real human beings who were in the process of losing the lives they had known for centuries.
Colonisation, and all that it entails – here in Australia, invasion, massacres, religious conversion, Stolen Generation – is so appalling. These “staged” photographs of a “vanishing race” – again, the same photographs taken here in Australia – show the contempt of the invader for centuries of life, culture and tradition even as they document their “existence.” Culture just becomes a circus, a spectacle to be captured, owned and destroyed.
The effects of colonisation are ever present and continuing. The hurt is ongoing.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
These digitally cleaned photographs are published under “fair use” for the purposes of academic research and critical commentary. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) Yellow Owl – Mandan c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 148
A face approaching the type of pure Mandan. The neck ornament consists of beads and cylindrical bones, and from the eagle-feather war-bonnet hang numerous weasel-tails.
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) Spotted Bull – Mandan c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 149
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) Bear’s Belly, Arikara Indian half-length portrait, facing front, wearing bearskin c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 150
A member of the medicine fraternity, wrapped in his sacred bearskin.
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) Four Horns – Arikara c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 151
A biographical sketch of this subject appears in Volume V, page 179 (below)
Born in 1847 near Fort Berthold. At the age of fourteen he accompanied a war-party against the Sioux. Two years later he enlisted as scout at Fort Buford; he served served also at Fort Phil. Kearny, where in a skirmish with Sioux he had a horse shot under him. Returning that summer to the village at Fort Berthold he led a party in pursuit of some Chippewa who had murdered a Hidatsa, and succeeded in killing two of them. Twice he joined in successful pursuit of Sioux horse-raiders. He fasted several times. On the third morning of his first fast three horse-skulls and a buffalo-skull were fastened with rawhide ropes to the muscles of his back. He dragged them a mile to the Hidatsa village, encircled it, and returned to the starting-point, but no vision was experienced. The following summer the Sun Dance was observed, and his father, determined that Four Horns should receive a vision, took him to the burial-ground and fastened him to a post by slits through his back-muscles. From sunset to sunrise he walked around the post, constantly puling on the rope. The next year his father led him to the same place and had another man tie four horse-skulls and a buffalo-skull to his back, and these he dragged some three miles; but the task occupied fully six hours, as the skulls became entangled in the roots of a stump and he had to free them without using his hands. During the Sun Dance of the succeeding year he was fastened, again by his father, to a resilient ash pole, which, springing back when he pulled on the ropes, greatly increased the torture. Thus he remained from mid-afternoon until well after sunset – about six hours – but no vision was vouchsafed him. Four Horns married at the age of fifteen, being eligible by reason of his experience in war gained during the previous year. Portrait, folio plate 151.
Vision Quests
Numerous Native American practiced the rite of Vision Quests, which was often taken by older children before puberty to “find themselves” and their life’s direction. How the rite was taken, its length and intensity, and at what age varied greatly from tribe to tribe. In most cases the vision quest was a “supernatural” experience in which the individual seeks to interact with a guardian spirit, usually an animal, to obtain advice or protection.
Much preparation was often taken before the vision quest was undertaken in order to determine the sincerity and commitment of the person. Sometimes the quest required the individual to go alone into the wilderness for several days, in order to become attuned to the spirit world.
Other tribes required the individual to take a long walk, or were confined to a small room. Often the individual was required to fast prior to the quest, and was not allowed to sleep. During this period of sensory deprivation, the individual was to search for a a guardian spirit’s presence or a sign that would be given to them. Once the presence or sign was “seen,” and the individual had realized his/her direction in life, they would return to the tribe to pursue their life’s journey.
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) White Shield – Arikara c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 152
A mixed-blood member of the medicine fraternity.
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) Sitting Bear – Arikara c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 153
A biographical sketch of this subject will be found in Volume V, page 180 (below)
Born in 1844 on the west side of the Missouri, opposite present Washburn, North Dakota. He was eighteen years of age before making his first trial at war, and even then he took no part in the actual conflict with the Assiniboin whom his party encountered. The following year he engaged in the fight when a hunting party near the Fort Berthold village was surrounded by Sioux, and he even acquired some distinction by being first to strike one of the horses of the enemy. In all the was participant in twelve battles, himself being the leader six times, but only twice did he conduct his warriors into the enemy’s country. On the other occasions the encounters were brought on by Sioux attacking the village. The first expedition of which he was chief was made down the Missouri in bull-boats. After travelling for nine night, concealing themselves by day, they killed a woman that came to the river for water, and then made their escape after a minor engagement with the men of the hostile camp. Sitting Bear was the leader of the Arikara in a combined party of Hidatsa, Mandan, and Arikara into the Sioux country. A camp was raided and Sitting bear captured five horses. The retreat to Fort Berthold consumed six days. Sitting Bear conted a first coup in a fight near Fort Berthold being the first Arikara to strike one of the enemy, although a Hidatsa had already counted coup on him. He married at nineteen, and like his father and grandfather he became the tribal chief. Portrait, folio plate 153.
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) Bear’s Teeth – Arikara c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 154
A member of the Night order of the medicine fraternity.
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) Little Sioux – Arikara c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 155
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) Bull Neck – Arikara c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 156
A member of the Buffalo order of the medicine fraternity. Bull Neck is portrayed wearing his head-dress of buffalo horns and hide. A biographical sketch is given in Volume V, page 178 (below)
Born in 1836. His first experience in war was gained at the age of sixteen, when with a party of six others he floated down the Missouri into what is now South Dakota. They succeeded in running off some horses from a Sioux encampment, and Bull Neck, the youngest of the seven, was charged with the duty of driving them home, while the others retuned afoot on the other side of the river. His second war experience came while on another expedition down the Missouri. Four Sioux horses were captured, and three of the party turned back with the spoils; but the remaining four, of whom Bull Neck was one, went on southward into a region of heavy timber, where more Sioux horses were taken. On another down-river raid, about twenty-five Arikara, camping one night among the trees, heard the neighing of a horse. They prepared to fight, believing the Sioux were upon them. Bull Neck went out to make a reconnoissance and found a stray horse. The party proceeded on its way and came to a camp of wood-cutters providing fuel for the river steamboats. One of the white men, speaking in Arikara, told them of a nearby camp of Sioux, and the war-party, having found the enemy, made an attack. One Sioux and two Arikara were killed. Bull Neck participated in numerous encounters with the same enemy, some of them being engagements of his own seeking, others the result of attacks upon the Fort Berthold village. He counted a first coup in a winter campaign. Bull Neck was a Buffalo medicine-man in the medicine fraternity. Portrait, folio plate 156.
Fort Berthold Indian Reservation is in the upper-left corner on this map.
The Fort Berthold Indian Reservation is a U.S. Indian reservation in western North Dakota that is home for the federally recognised Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation, also known as the Three Affiliated Tribes. The reservation includes lands on both sides of the Missouri River.
Created in 1870, the reservation is a small part of the lands originally reserved to the tribes by the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851, which allocated nearly 12 million acres (49,000 km²) in North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Nebraska and Wyoming.
The population of the reservation was 6,341 as of the 2010 census. The Tribe reported a total enrolment of 15,013 registered tribe members in March 2016. Many members live in cities because there are more job opportunities. Unemployment on the reservation was at 42%. The 2000 census reported a reservation population of 5,915 persons living on a land area of 1,318.895 sq mi (3,415.923 km²).
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) Arikara medicine fraternity c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 157
In this group are shown the principal participants in the reenactment of the Arikara medicine ceremony, which was given for the author’s observation and study in July, 1908.
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) Arikara medicine ceremony – Dance of the fraternity c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 158
After each order has performed its dance about the sacred cedar, the entire fraternity, group by group, emerges from the lodge and dances.
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) Announcement – Arikara c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 159
Among the Missouri River Indians of the earthen lodges – the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara – the chiefs and priests made their announcements from the housetops. This picture is of Bear’s Teeth standing on the roof of the ceremonial lodge in which occurred the medicine ceremony described in Volume V, pages 70-76.
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) The rush gatherer c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 160
The Arikaras, as well as their close neighbours, the Mandan and Hidatsa, made many mats of rushes. These were used largely as floor coverings.
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) (Arikara medicine ceremony – the Bears) c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 161
After dancing around the sacred cedar, the members of the Bear order halt and complete their songs before reentering the medicine-lodge.
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) Arikara medicine ceremony – Dance of the black-tail deer c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 162
The two dark figures are painted in a manner suggesting the elk, the others the antelope.
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) Arikara Medicine Ceremony – The Ducks c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 163
Three members of the medicine fraternity, painted to represent ducks and holding the rushes among which waterfowl rest, in their dance around the sacred cedar.
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) Arikara Medicine Ceremony – The Ducks c. 1908 LC-DIG-ppmsca-39866 Library of Congress
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) Arikara medicine fraternity – The prayer c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 164
Photograph shows Arikara shamans, without shirts, backs to camera, seated in a semi-circle around a sacred cedar tree, tipis in background. This impressive picture from the Arikara medicine ceremony shows the priests in a semi-circle about the sacred cedar.
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) Arikara girl c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 165
A type produced by several generations of tribal and racial intermarriage. The subject is considered by her tribesmen to be a pure Arikara, but her features point unmistakably to a white ancestor, and there is little doubt that the blood of other tribes than the one which claims her flows in her veins.
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) Arikara chief c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 166
The tribal chief, Sitting Bear, is portrayed in full costume of scalp-shirt, leggings, and moccasins, all of deerskin, and eagle-feather war-bonnet and coup-stick. (Curtis)
Photograph shows Sitting Bear, an Arikara chief, in full regalia, with a medallion around his neck. The medallion appears to bear the image of Millard Fillmore and the words: … President of the United States, 1851(?).
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) Arikara chief c. 1908 LC-USZ62-136605 (b&w film copy neg.) Library of Congress
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) No Bear – Atsina c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 167
A biographical sketch of this subject is given in Volume V, page 182 (below)
Born in 1841 near the mouth of Marias river. He counted a third coup when, at the age of fifteen, he first accompanied a war-party. On another raid a solitary Indian was seen. The Atsina charged, and no Bear was the first to reach him. The enemy fired but missed, and No Bear then shot him tomahawked him, took his scalp, medicine bundle, and gun, and counted coup before the rest of the warriors reached the spot. On another occasion, while fighting some Cree who were in the timber, No Bear ran up to one who was pointing an arrow at him and counted first coup. Later another charged him, but he rushed to meet the Cree, who fired and missed, and No Bear then attacked him with his tomahawk, missing the first time, but burying the blade in his opponent’s skull at the next stroke. No Bear tomahawked an enemy during a fight with the Bloods, and counted a second coup. He was in the battle in which the twenty-one Piegan were killed (page 109), and captured a bow and a quiver. In another battle he went back and rescued an unhorsed friend. He married at the age of thirty. Portrait, folio plate 167.
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) Eagle Child – Atsina c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 168
A biographical sketch of this subject will be found in Volume V, page 181 (below)
Born in 1862 east of the Little Rockies. He first followed the war-path when twenty years of age, but gained no honours on this occasion. His next experience was in an expedition against the Piegan. Three of the enemy charged a small party of the Atsina, and one, singling him out, came so close that when the Piegan shot, the powder burned Eagle Child. Another Atsina shot the Piegan, and Eagle Child counted second coup and took the scalp. Portrait, folio plate 168.
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) The land of the Atsina c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 169
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) Horse Capture – Atsina c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 170
A biographical sketch of this subject will be found in Volume V, page 182 (below)
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) Assiniboin Boy – Atsina c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 171
The head-band, so commonly used by many tribes of the Southwest, notably the Apache and Navaho, is often worn in the Northwest. A biographical sketch of Assiniboin Boy appears in Volume V, page 180 (below)
Born in 1861 in western Montana. He first went on the war-path at the age of eighteen, but gained no honours. During a fight against the Piegan he counted a second coup. He participated in the battle in which the twenty-one Piegan were killed (page 109), and slew one in the pits with the knife of the enemy. On another expedition he killed two horses of the Piegan, and shot a man through both legs. He married at the age of twenty-two. Portrait, folio plate 171.
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) Atsina chiefs c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 172
Two Atsina chiefs on horseback, one with feathered staff and one with a coup stick.
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) On the war path – Atsina c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 173
These grim-visaged old warriors made a thrilling picture as they rode along, breaking out now and then into a wild song of the chase or the raid. (Curtis)
Small band of Atsina men on horseback, some carrying staffs with feathers, one wearing a war bonnet.
War bonnet
War bonnets (also called warbonnets or headdresses) are feathered headgear traditionally worn by male leaders of the American Plains Indians Nations who have earned a place of great respect in their tribe. Originally they were sometimes worn into battle, but they are now primarily used for ceremonial occasions. They are seen as items of great spiritual and political importance, only to be worn by those who have earned the right and honour through formal recognition by their people.
Native American tribes consider the presentation of an eagle feather to be one of their highest marks of respect. Any honoured person must have earned their feather through selfless acts of courage and honour, or been gifted them in gratitude for their work or service to their tribe. Traditional deeds that brought honour would include acts of valour in battle, but also political and diplomatic gains or acts that helped their community survive and prosper. The esteem attached to eagle feathers was so high that in many cases, such as a warrior (e.g. Dog Soldiers of the Cheyenne), only two or three honour feathers might be awarded in their whole lifetime. Historically, the warrior who was the first to touch an enemy in battle and escape unscathed received an eagle feather. When enough feathers were collected, they might be incorporated into a headdress or some other form of worn regalia. Headdresses were usually reserved exclusively for the tribe’s chosen political and spiritual leaders. …
Plains-style bonnets
Plains Indians normally use eagle feathers as the most significant part of the bonnet to represent honour and respect. Some Plains-style bonnet forms are the “horned” bonnet, “flaring” eagle feather bonnet, and the “fluttering feather” bonnet. The “horned” bonnet can consist of a buckskin skull cap, shaved bison or cow horns, and dyed horsehair with bunches of owl feathers beneath the skull cap. The “flaring” eagle feather bonnet is often made of golden eagle tail feathers connected to a buckskin or felt crown. There are slits at the base of the crown that allow the bonnet to have a “flaring” look. An unusual form of bonnet that is no longer used would be the “fluttering feather” bonnet. This can have golden eagle, hawk, and owl feathers loosely attached to a felt or buckskin cap to make it hang at the sides.
Unknown maker (Native American) Feather headdress from ‘Wolf Chief’, Hidatsa c. 1830 Red-dyed eagle feathers Ethnological Museum, Berlin Copyright free image
Unknown maker (Native American) War bonnet, Plains Indian style c. 1900 Eagle feathers Robbins Museum – Middleborough, Massachusetts Copyright free image
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) Atsina Indian, Red Whip, half-length portrait, seated, facing front, wearing feather, beaded buckskin shirt, holding pipe in left hand c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 174
A biographical sketch of this subject is given in Volume V, page 183 (below)
Born in 1858 near Fort McGinnis, Montana. At the age of seventeen he went out on his first war expedition, going against the Sioux. The enemy was camped at Lodepole creek, and the Atsina attacked them at dawn, capturing several horses. Red Whip was in the lead of the charge and took a few of the animals single-handed. During a battle with the Piegan, he rushed in the enemy’s line and captured a gun, counting first coup on the owner. On another expedition the Atsina met a Sioux scout whom Red Whip charged and killed, then counted first coup and took his scalp. Later, the main body of the Sioux charged the Atsina; one singled out Red Whip and fired at him, but missed, and the young warrior shot him down. Red Whip was scouting on Tongue river with General Miles, when the Sioux charged a small body of soldiers, routing them. Red Whip says he stood firm and stopped the onrushing enemy until the troops escaped. His medicine, given to him by an uncle, is a strip of otter-fur. Portrait, folio plate 174.
Counting coup
Counting coup was the winning of prestige against an enemy by the Plains Indians of North America. Warriors won prestige by acts of bravery in the face of the enemy, which could be recorded in various ways and retold as stories. Any blow struck against the enemy counted as a coup, but the most prestigious acts included touching an enemy warrior with the hand, bow, or coup stick and escaping unharmed. Touching the first enemy to die in battle or touching the enemy’s defensive works also counted as coup. Counting coup could also involve stealing an enemy’s weapons or horses tied up to his lodge in camp. Risk of injury or death was required to count coup.
Escaping unharmed while counting coup was considered a higher honour than being wounded in the attempt. A warrior who won coup was permitted to wear an eagle feather in his hair. If he had been wounded in the attempt, however, he was required to paint the feather red to indicate this.
After a battle or exploit, the people of a tribe would gather together to recount their acts of bravery and “count coup.” Coups were recorded by putting notches in a coup stick. Indians of the Pacific Northwest would tie an eagle feather to their coup stick for each coup counted, but many tribes did not do so. Among the Blackfoot tribe of the upper Missouri River Valley, coup could be recorded by the placement of “coup bars” on the sleeves and shoulders of special shirts that bore paintings of the warrior’s exploits in battle.
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) Atsina Camp c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 175
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) The scout – Atsina c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 176
The scouts of many tribes, among which were the Atsina, carried a wolf-skin which they used in waving signals to their chief. That which is apparently hair-ornamentation, standing high above the head of the subject, is in reality coarse stalks of grass, indicating that the wearer is a scout. The origin of the custom was in the practice of scouts to wear on their head thick masses of grass, which enabled them to peer over hilltops without being discovered by the enemy.
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) Head Dress – Atsina c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 177
A biographical sketch of this subject appears in Volume V, page 181 (below)
Born about 1855, near Marias river, Montana. He first took the war-path when twenty years of age, going against the Assiniboin. One woman was killed by his party, but Head-dress gained no honours. A war-party composed of a few Atsina, Apsaroke, and Assiniboin, went westward and found a Flathead camp, which they charged killing one man; Head-dress was with them, but accomplished nothing. While he and another were scouting in the Piegan country, they found two of the enemy, who took refuge behind a bank. The two Atsina charged and captured both, counting coups on them. While hunting buffalo, the Atsina met a party of Sioux with a band of stolen horses, and, charging them, forced them to abandon their booty. Head-dress captured two horses himself, each with a saddle. He counted a first coup against the Piegan, and while fighting the Sioux he and another struck first coup at the same time. Head-dress has had no visions, nor has he ever fasted, but has the medicine of an eagle down-feather, which was given to him. He married at the age of thirty. Portrait, folio plate 177.
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) War party’s farewell – Atsina c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 178
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) Atsina warriors c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 179
Several Atsina warriors on horseback some with feathered staffs and one with a headdress.
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) Lone Flag – Atsina c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 180
An eagle-wing fan is held in the hand. A biographical sketch of this subject will be found in Volume V, page 182 (below)
Born in 1854 in northwest Montana. His first experience in war was gained in the great battle with the Piegan (page 109), on which occasion he killed one and captured his medicine bundle. In an engagement with the Sioux near what is now St. Paul’s Mission, in the Little Rockies, he saved a comrade in the thick of the fight. Lone Flag married at the age of thirty-four. Portrait, folio plate 180.
Little Rocky Mountains
The Little Rocky Mountains, also known as the Little Rockies, are a group of buttes, roughly 765 km2 in area, located towards the southern end of the Fort Belknap Agency in Blaine County and Phillips County in north-central Montana. Their highest summit is Antoine Butte ~5720 ft (1743 m). The nearest town is Dodson, Montana.
“Many Indian people believe that spirits dwell in north central Montana’s “island” mountains”: the Sweet Grass hills and the Bears Paw and Little Rocky ranges. Their rugged peaks, clustered like tepees in a camp, offer access to the supernatural and provide a nesting place for eagles, the messengers of the spirits who lived there. Generations of Blackfeet, Gros Ventre [the older name for Hidatsas], Assiniboine, and Chippewa-Cree have used these isolated areas for fasting, prayer and vision questing. Here are the precious gifts of water, plants, animals, and solitude from the Great Spirit. Stories describing the supernatural powers of the Little Rocky Mountains abound. One such story, handed down in many variations, tells of a terrible water-monster called Bax’aa that inhabited the spring on Eagle Child Mountain, frightening or even slaying some who attempted to fast there. Another well known site at the western end of the Little Rockies is a battleground remembered among northern Montana tribes for its spiritual significance. The great Gros Ventre warrior Red Whip won victory there over the Sioux against incredible odds. His success is attributed to a powerful war charm and a vision that foretold the battle.”
A Native American medicine bag or medicine bundle is a container for items believed to protect or give spiritual powers to its owner. Varying in size, it could be small enough to wear around the neck or it could be a large bag with a long strap called a “bandolier.” The size of the bag is determined by how many items need to be carried.
In historic times, medicine men and shamans generally carried a large medicine bundle that could hold numerous items such as seeds, herbs, pine cones, grass, animal teeth or claws, horse hair, rocks, tobacco, beads, arrowheads, bones, or anything else of relatively small size that possessed spiritual value to the bundle’s owner. Warriors also carried bundles that included items that were important to him such as rattles, animal furs, special stones, or anything that meant something to the owner.
Because the medicine bag is considered a very precious possession which represents a person’s spiritual life, it and its contents are generally considered holy by the tribal community and its contents are meant to be kept secret by the owner. The bundle should never touch the ground which is why the bundles are to be securely wrapped. Prayers and rituals usually accompany the manufacture and opening of medicine bundles. …
In many cultures some of the items that would be carried in the bag would often be procured through a vision quest, a right of passage that includes personal sacrifice such as fasting and prayer over several days in an isolated location. The purpose is to make contact with natural spiritual forces that will guide the individual in reaching his or her potential and increase his or her understanding of him/herself, community, and the world. During the vision quest a guardian spirit will generally come to the individual in a dream or a vision, which is afterwards interpreted with the help of a Shaman. Some items within the individual’s medicine bag would represent their guardian spirit.
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) Awaiting the scouts return, Atsina c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 181
The war-party sent scouts in advance, who kept a constant lookout for the enemy. From time to time they returned to the main party to report, and when they were sighted the warriors formed in line and chanted a song of welcome.
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) Scout’s report – Atsina c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 182
The Chief of the scouts, returning to the main party, tells in the vigorous and picturesque language so natural to the Indians what he has seen and experienced. While he speaks, the war-leader stands slightly in advance of his men, and carefully listening to the words of the scout, quickly forms his plan of action.
Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) Otter Robe – Atsina c. 1908 Photogravure on vellum The North American Indian / Edward S. Curtis. (Seattle, Wash.): Edward S. Curtis, 1907-1930 suppl., v. 5, pl. 183
A biographical sketch of this subject is given in Volume V, page 182 (below)
Born in 1851 near Fort Benton. When sixteen years of age he joined a war-party against the Piegan, but on this first expedition he gained no honours. On another raid against the same people he counted a first coup. A party of Atsina, of which he was a member, camped one night near a war-party of Sioux, not knowing of their presence. At dawn the enemy charged, but were driven back, and during the skirmish he counted another first coup. A party of Piegan stole some horses; the Atsina followed, overtaking the enemy and forcing them to abandon their booty; during the fight he killed one Piegan. On another expedition against the same tribe Otter Robe killed one with the stock of his gun and counted a first coup. In another battle with the Piegan, he rushed in, pulled a warrior from his horse, and killed him with his knife. When a young man he fasted two days and two nights by a river, and had a vision in which a tree became transformed to a warrior who told him he was to obtain many honours. The faster was instructed to paint as was the spirit – yellow on the temples, with a streak of red across the forehead – and to wear a strip of otter-fur around his scalp-lock. Otter Robe married at the age of thirty. Portrait, folio plate 183.
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Paris in film
These photographs were taken on a trip to Paris in 2017 using my Mamiya twin-lens C220 medium format camera shot on Kodak Ektra 100 colour negative film.
It was strange taking these photographs over numerous, adventurous, energised days in Paris. Different from the yet to be sorted 4,000+ digital photographs I took, the act of taking these photographs allowed me to fully concentrate, to immerse myself in the environment, to loose myself in the process – with a commensurate dropping away of ego. I just was in the moment, “in the zone” as athletes would say.
They are reasonable scans of the negatives, full frame, no cropping, and I have colour corrected as best I can, noting that all digital images look different from computer monitor to monitor – one of the perennial hazards of looking at work online. They have not been sequenced at the moment.
The photographs seem to hang well together as a body of work.
Through their clear visualisation, the photographs speak directly to the viewer.
Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Photographs are available from this series for purchase. As a guide, a digital colour 16″ x 20″ costs $1000 plus tracked and insured shipping. For more information please see my Store web page.
“The great goal that we must all pursue is to kill off the great evil that eats away at us: egotism.”
“Sometimes I think I love nature just as much, if not more, for not being capable of translation into words… No words can describe some things. The more one says the less one sees. You see… nature is like love, it’s in the heart and you must not talk about it too much. You diminish what you try to describe. As for myself, I have no idea of my own nature when I act unselfconsciously. I only see what there is between the sky and myself. I have no part in it all. If I think of you, in my odd way I am you and I cease to exist.”
George Sand
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Fontainebleau 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Fontainebleau 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Animaux Nuisibles 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Animaux Nuisibles 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Animaux Nuisibles 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Rats Surmulots Captures aux Halles vers 1925 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Saint-Eustache Church 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Saint-Eustache Church 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Saint-Eustache Church 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Saint-Eustache Church 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Saint-Eustache Church 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Saint-Eustache Church 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Saint-Eustache Church 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Dying light, Keith Haring in Saint-Eustache Church 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Fontainebleau 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Paris in film
These photographs were taken on a trip to Paris in 2017 using my Mamiya twin-lens C220 medium format camera shot on Kodak Ektra 100 colour negative film.
They are reasonable scans of the negatives, full frame, no cropping, and I have colour corrected as best I can, noting that all digital images look different from computer monitor to monitor – one of the perennial hazards of looking at work online. They have not been sequenced at the moment.
The photographs seem to hang well together as a body of work.
Through their clear visualisation, the photographs speak directly to the viewer.
Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Photographs are available from this series for purchase. As a guide, a digital colour 16″ x 20″ costs $1000 plus tracked and insured shipping. For more information please see my Store web page.
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Fontainebleau 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Fontainebleau 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Fontainebleau 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Fontainebleau 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Fontainebleau 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Cimetière du Père Lachaise 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Cimetière du Père Lachaise 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Cimetière du Père Lachaise 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Cimetière du Père Lachaise 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Cimetière du Père Lachaise 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Cimetière du Père Lachaise 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Cimetière du Père Lachaise 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Fontainebleau 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Fontainebleau 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Fontainebleau 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Fontainebleau 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Fontainebleau 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Fontainebleau 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Fontainebleau 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Fontainebleau 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Parc de Sceaux 2018 From the series Paris in film Digital photograph
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![Weegee (Arthur Fellig) (American, 1899-1968) 'Untitled [Crime scene]' c. 1930](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/weegee-a-group-of-9-crime-scene-photographs-c-1930-web5.jpg "Weegee (Arthur Fellig) (American, 1899-1968) 'Untitled [Crime scene]' c. 1930")
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![Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Portrait of Indigenous Brazilian tradeswoman]' 1861-1862](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ethnographic-portraits-of-indigenous-women14-web.jpg "Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Portrait of Indigenous Brazilian tradeswoman]' 1861-1862")
![Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) 'Mullatin [Portrait of a Indigenous Brazilian woman wearing a cross]' 1861-1862](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ethnographic-portraits-of-indigenous-women1-web.jpg "Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) 'Mullatin [Portrait of a Indigenous Brazilian woman wearing a cross]' 1861-1862")
![Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) 'Mestize [Portrait of a Brazilian woman]' 1861-1862](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ethnographic-portraits-of-indigenous-women2-web.jpg "Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) 'Mestize [Portrait of a Brazilian woman]' 1861-1862")
![Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Portrait of Indigenous Brazilian tradeswoman]' 1861-1862](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ethnographic-portraits-of-indigenous-women15-web.jpg "Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Portrait of Indigenous Brazilian tradeswoman]' 1861-1862")
![Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Portrait of Indigenous Brazilian tradeswoman]' 1861-1862](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ethnographic-portraits-of-indigenous-women12-web.jpg "Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Portrait of Indigenous Brazilian tradeswoman]' 1861-1862")
![Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Portrait of a maid holding an embroidered cloth]' 1861-1862](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ethnographic-portraits-of-indigenous-women13-web.jpg "Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Portrait of a maid holding an embroidered cloth]' 1861-1862")
![Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Portrait of wet nurse with infant]' 1861-1862](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ethnographic-portraits-of-indigenous-women11-web.jpg "Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Portrait of wet nurse with infant]' 1861-1862")
![Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Portrait of Indigenous Brazilian tradeswoman]' 1861-1862](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ethnographic-portraits-of-indigenous-women3-web.jpg "Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Portrait of Indigenous Brazilian tradeswoman]' 1861-1862")
![Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) 'Hermann Kummler (compiler) (1863-1949) '[Kellnerinnen im Grand Hotel / Waitresses in Grand Hotel]' 1861-1862' 1861-1862](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ethnographic-portraits-of-indigenous-women6-web.jpg "Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) 'Hermann Kummler (compiler) (1863-1949) '[Kellnerinnen im Grand Hotel / Waitresses in Grand Hotel]' 1861-1862' 1861-1862")
![Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Lehrerin mit Schülerin im Bahia / Teacher with a schoolgirl in Bahia]' 1861-1862](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ethnographic-portraits-of-indigenous-women4-web.jpg "Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Lehrerin mit Schülerin im Bahia / Teacher with a schoolgirl in Bahia]' 1861-1862")
![Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Native Brazilian lady-in-waiting and young child attend to a veiled aristocrat]' 1861-1862](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ethnographic-portraits-of-indigenous-women5-web.jpg "Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Native Brazilian lady-in-waiting and young child attend to a veiled aristocrat]' 1861-1862")
![Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Negerin mit dem Knaben in schlechter Stimmung / Negress with a boy in a bad mood]' 1861-1862](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ethnographic-portraits-of-indigenous-women10-web.jpg "Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Negerin mit dem Knaben in schlechter Stimmung / Negress with a boy in a bad mood]' 1861-1862")
![Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Portrait of Brazilian woman servant and child]' 1861-1862](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ethnographic-portraits-of-indigenous-women18-web.jpg "Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Portrait of Brazilian woman servant and child]' 1861-1862")
![Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Portrait of a young Brazilian woman]' 1861-1862](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ethnographic-portraits-of-indigenous-women17-web.jpg "Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Portrait of a young Brazilian woman]' 1861-1862")
![Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Portrait of a Brazilian woman]' 1861-1862](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ethnographic-portraits-of-indigenous-women8-web.jpg "Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Portrait of a Brazilian woman]' 1861-1862")
![Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Portrait of a Brazilian woman]' 1861-1862](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ethnographic-portraits-of-indigenous-women19-web.jpg "Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Portrait of a Brazilian woman]' 1861-1862")
![Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Portrait of a Brazilian woman with two children]' 1861-1862](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ethnographic-portraits-of-indigenous-women16-web.jpg "Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Portrait of a Brazilian woman with two children]' 1861-1862")
![Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Portrait of a Brazilian mother and child]' 1861-1862](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ethnographic-portraits-of-indigenous-women9-web.jpg "Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Portrait of a Brazilian mother and child]' 1861-1862")
![Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Mistress punishing a native child]' 1861-1862](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ethnographic-portraits-of-indigenous-women7-web.jpg "Hermann Kummler (compiler) (Swiss, 1863-1949) '[Mistress punishing a native child]' 1861-1862")
![Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) '[Bear's Belly, Arikara Indian half-length portrait, facing front, wearing bearskin]' c. 1908 from 'Edward S. Curtis (1868-1952) – The North American Indian' List of Large Plates Supplementing Volume V](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/edward-s-curtis-1868-1952-the-north-american-indian-portfolio-v-1907-photogravure-on-vellum1-web.jpg "Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) '[Bear's Belly, Arikara Indian half-length portrait, facing front, wearing bearskin]' c. 1908 from 'Edward S. Curtis (1868-1952) – The North American Indian' List of Large Plates Supplementing Volume V")
![Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) '[Arikara medicine ceremony - the Bears]' c. 1908](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/edward-s-curtis-1868-1952-the-north-american-indian-portfolio-v-1907-photogravure-on-vellum6-web.jpg "Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) '[Arikara medicine ceremony - the Bears]' c. 1908")
![Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) '[Atsina Indian, Red Whip, half-length portrait, seated, facing front, wearing feather, beaded buckskin shirt, holding pipe in left hand]' c. 1908](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/edward-s-curtis-1868-1952-the-north-american-indian-portfolio-v-1907-photogravure-on-vellum19-web.jpg "Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952) '[Atsina Indian, Red Whip, half-length portrait, seated, facing front, wearing feather, beaded buckskin shirt, holding pipe in left hand]' c. 1908")
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