A child crying – Art Blart _ art and cultural memory archive

Exhibition: ‘In Focus: Sound’ at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Exhibition dates: 28th June – 2nd October 2022

Curator: Karen Hellman, assistant curator in the Department of Photographs.

Maker unknown (American)
Phonograph Demonstration
about 1900-1905
Gelatin silver print
27 × 37.1cm (10 5/8 × 14 5/8 in)
Getty Museum

“Sometimes theory leads to an over determination. Something is gained but at a price. Finding images that evoke a sound can only be saved by paying the higher price of remembering how images look when their sound is removed.”

~ Ian Lobb

From my knowledge of photography, I have added further images that I can hear … but not in the exhibition that I know of. You may like to recall other photographs that you could include in the exhibition.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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

Though photographs are silent, photographers have long conjured sound in their images. Whether depicting crowded urban spaces, musicians performing, people engaged in conversations, or even more abstract depictions of sound, the pictures in this exhibition show photography’s power to communicate beyond the visual. The images date from the 19th century to the recent past, and in each, the audible plays as much of a role as the visual. As you look at these photographs, you are invited to imagine what you might “hear” as well.

Text from the J. Paul Getty Museum website

Florence Henri (American, 1893-1982)
Columbia Records
1931
Gelatin silver print
24.8 × 39.1cm (9 3/4 × 15 3/8 in)
Getty Museum
© Martini & Ronchetti, courtesy Archives Florence Henri

Gjon Mili (American born Albania, 1904-1984)
Tap Dancer, September 29, 1949
1949
Gelatin silver print
33.8 × 26cm (13 5/16 × 10 1/4 in)
Getty Museum
© Gjon Mili / The LIFE Picture Collection / Shutterstock

Photographs may be silent, but photographers have long conjured sound in their images.

Whether depicting crowded urban spaces, musicians performing, or people engaged in conversation, the pictures in this exhibition prove photography’s power to communicate beyond the visual.

Drawn from Getty’s permanent collection, In Focus: Sound, on view June 28 through September 2, 2022, unites two sensory perceptions – sight and sound – in photographs that record the visual while also imitating the audible.

“Photography and sound have more in common than one might expect,” says Karen Hellman, curator of the exhibition. “Photographs can evoke a sensory perception that they cannot actually depict. Looking at photographs while thinking about sound could provide a new way of viewing and appreciating photography.”

The 19th century saw a keen scientific and philosophical interest in reproducing ephemeral phenomena. This led to the development of the photograph as well as the phonograph. This interlinked history perhaps explains photography’s connection to sound and why photographers, even subconsciously, have endeavoured to picture it. In each image in this exhibition, which date from the 19th century to the recent past, the audible plays as much of a role as the visual.

This exhibition includes works by known and lesser-known makers from the 19th century to the recent past, including Julia Margaret Cameron, Walker Evans, Man Ray, Graciela Iturbide, Marco Breuer, Naoya Hatakeyama, and Christian Marclay.

In Focus: Sound will be on view June 28 through September 2, 2022, at the Getty Center.

Text from the J. Paul Getty Museum website

Naoya Hatakeyama (Japanese, b. 1958)
Blast #0608
1995
Chromogenic print
Getty Museum
Gift of James N. and Susan A. Phillips
© Naoya Hatakeyama

Man Ray (American, 1890-1976)
Record
1933
Gelatin silver print
28.9 × 22.5cm (11 3/8 × 8 7/8 in)
Getty Museum
© Man Ray Trust ARS-ADAGP

Albert Harlingue (French,1879-1963)
Abbot Rousselot’s Collection of Tuning Forks
about 1924
Gelatin silver print
17.9 × 12.7cm (7 1/16 × 5 in)
Getty Museum

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India,1815-1879)
The Echo
1868
Albumen silver print
27.1 × 22.7cm (10 11/16 × 8 15/16 in)
Getty Museum

Milton Rogovin (American,1909-2011)
Storefront Churches
1958-1961
Gelatin silver print
12.5 × 12cm (4 15/16 × 4 3/4 in.)
Getty Museum
Gift of Dr. John V. and Laura M. Knaus
© Milton Rogovin

Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
Untitled (Musical Score of “God Bless the Child”)
1995
From the series From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried
Chromogenic print with sandblasted musical notations on frame glass
45.6 × 45.6cm (17 15/16 × 17 15/16 in)
Getty Museum
Gift of Mary and Dan Solomon in honour of Weston Naef
© Carrie Mae Weems

Will Connell (American, 1898-1961)
Sound
1936
Gelatin silver print
34.2 × 26.7cm (13 7/16 × 10 1/2 in)
Getty Museum
Gift of Trish and Jan de Bont
© Will Connell

Lisette Model (American born Austria, 1901-1983)
[Singer, Sammy’s Bar, New York]
about 1940-1944
Gelatin silver print
Getty Museum
© Estate of Lisette Model, courtesy of Baudoin Lebon/Keitelman

“Bowery old-timers claim her voice has had no match for power and ferocity since Maggie Cline used to stun with “Knock ‘Em Down McCloskey”.”

The uncredited text, referring to this photograph of the bar singer known as “Tillie,” accompanied a group of Lisette Model’s photographs made at Sammy’s Bar that were reproduced in the September 1994 Harper’s Bazaar magazine. Taken from below and at a slight diagonal angle, the image captures the vitality and vibrancy of the performer belting it out on the stage at Sammy’s, a local favourite in the Bowery district of New York, also visited by photographers Weegee and Diane Arbus. The angle from which the photograph was made also emphasises the gleaming microphone, which seem to rise up to meet the challenge of projecting Tillie’s already powerful voice.

Text from the J. Paul Getty app

Ralph Eugene Meatyard (American, 1925-1972)
Untitled (“Motion-Sound” Landscape)
Negative 1969, printed 1974
Gelatin silver print
Gift of Weston J. and Mary M. Naef
© Estate of Ralph Eugene Meatyard

Christian Marclay (American-Swiss, b. 1955)
Untitled (Death)
2020
Chromogenic print
Courtesy of the artist, and Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
© Christian Marclay

Further images that I can hear … but not in the exhibition that I know of

Tracey Moffatt (Australian, b. 1960)
The Movie Star (David Gulpilil)
1985
Type C photograph on paper
Image: 50.7 x 77.3cm
Frame: 74.5 x 99.0cm
Gift of the artist 1998. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program
Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney
© Tracey Moffatt

Marion Kalter (Austrian, b. 1951)
John Cage chez Dorothea Tanning, Paris
Paris 1979
Gelatin silver print
Courtesy of the artist
© Bildrecht, Vienna, 2022

Larry Fink (American, 1941-2023)
Studio 54, New York City
May 1977
Silver gelatin print

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946)
Songs of the Sky
1924
Gelatin silver print

Eva Besnyö (Dutch, 1910-2003)
Boy With Cello, Balaton, Hungary
1931
Gelatin silver print
42.5 x 39.2cm (16.7 x 15.4 in)

Arnold Newman (American, 1918-2006)
Igor Stravinsky
1945
Gelatin silver contact sheet

Santu Mofokeng (South African, b. 1956)
Opening Song, Hand Clapping and Bells
1986
From the series Train Church
Gelatin silver print
Image: 19 x 28.5cm

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
The Sound of One Hand Clapping, Pultneyville, New York
1957
Gelatin silver print
24.4 x 25.1cm (9 5/8 x 9 7/8 in.)
Purchased in part with funds provided by Daniel Greenberg, Susan Steinhauser, and the Greenberg Foundation
Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum
© Trustees of Princeton University

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Street diversions (or B organ)
1898-1899
Albumen print

Walker Evans (Walker Evans, 1903-1975)
Church Organ and Pews
1936
Gelatin silver print

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Bar, Las Vegas
1955-1956
Gelatin silver print

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Political Rally, Chicago
1956
Gelatin silver print
35.1 x 23.7cm (13 13/16 x 9 5/16 in)

André Kertész (Hungarian, 1894-1985)
Cellist
1916
Gelatin silver print

André Kertész (Hungarian, 1894-1985)
Violoniste ambulant, Abony
Traveling violinist, Abony
1921
Gelatin silver print

André Kertész (Hungarian, 1894-1985)
Eiffel Tower, Summer Storm
1927
Gelatin silver print

Platt D Babbitt (American, 1822-1879)
Niagara Falls from the American side
c. 1855
Whole plate daguerreotype

Platt D Babbitt (American, 1822-1879)
[Scene at Niagara Falls]
c. 1855
Daguerreotype

Platt D Babbitt (American, 1822-1879)
Niagara Falls
c. 1860
Daguerreotype

Henri Huet (French, 1927-1971)/AP
‘Life’ magazine photographer Larry Burrows (far left) struggles through elephant grass and the rotor wash of an American evacuation helicopter as he helps GIs carry a wounded soldier on a stretcher from the jungle to the chopper in Mimot, Cambodia
4 May 1970
Gelatin silver print

Henri Huet (French, 1927-1971)
The body of an American paratrooper killed in action in the jungle near the Cambodian border is raised up to an evacuation helicopter, Vietnam
1966
Gelatin silver print

James Barnor (Ghanian, b. 1929)
E. K. Nyame, the legendary Ghanaian musician, photographed for a record cover, Accra
c. 1975
Gelatin silver print

Roger Scott (Australian, b. 1944)
Ghost train
1972
Gelatin silver print

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
The House of Horrors
1961
Gelatin silver print

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
A child crying, N.J.
1967
Gelatin silver print

Stephen Shore (American, b. 1947)
Lookout Hotel, Ogunquit, Maine, July 16, 1974
1974
Chromogenic colour print, printed 2013
17 × 21 3/4 in. (43.2 × 55.2cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Acquired through the generosity of an anonymous donor
© 2017 Stephen Shore

Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006)
Shooting Victim in Cook County Morgue, Chicago, Illinois
1957
Pigmented inkjet print, printed 2019
11 7/8 × 17 15/16″ (30.1 × 45.6cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
The Family of Man Fund
© 2021 Gordon Parks Foundation

Robert H. Jackson (American, born 1934)
FATAL BULLET HITS OSWALD. Jack Ruby fires bullet point blank into the body of Lee Harvey Oswald at Dallas Police Station. Oswald grimaces in agony
November 24, 1963

Robert H. Jackson (American, b. 1934)
Jack Ruby (52) shoots Lee Harvey Oswald (24)
24 November 1963

Originally published in the Dallas Times Herald, November 25, 1963. Cropped from the source image to the portion that was published in 1963. Winner of the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for Photography.

Unknown photographer
Survivors of the atomic bomb attack of Nagasaki walk through the destruction as fire rages in the background Aug. 9 1945
1945

John Williams (Australian, 1933-2016)
Open Air Shower, Bronte Beach
1964
Gelatin silver print

Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965)
Man Stepping from Cable Car, San Francisco
1956
Gelatin silver print

Ansel Adams (American, 1902-1984)
Upper Yosemite Fall
1946
Gelatin silver print

Ansel Adams (American, 1902-1984)
Nevada Fall Profile
1946
Gelatin silver print

Kaho Yu (Australian)
Untitled from the series Infinitesimal Residual Vibration of An Unknown Sound
2009-2011

The photographs in this series were taken during a period when I was feeling existentially bored. Instead of distracting myself with activities and accumulating new sensations, I decided to “look” at boredom, to study, and perhaps to understand it. The most natural strategy was to observe the immediate environments where my daily activities take place – train stations, cubicles, copy machines room, etc. I carried a medium format camera on a tripod and spent the odd hours wandering alone through those familiar spaces.

My “study” did not lead me to any revelation or answer. Instead, I found myself spending a lot of time waiting in a long silence, between the opening and the closing of the camera shutter.

Charles Babbage, a scientist in 1837, postulated that every voice and sound, once imparted on the air particles, does not dissipate but remains in the diffused movements of all the particles in the atmosphere. Thus, there might one day come a person equipped with the right mathematical knowledge of these motions who will be able to capture the infinitesimal vibrations and to trace back to their ultimate source.

Taking a long exposure, letting the light slowly accumulate an image on the celluloid surface, to me, is not unlike a sound seeker searching in the air particles, for the tiny residual movements that have been conveyed through the history of mankind, from the beginning of time.

Kaho Yu artist statement

… i listen to the wind that obliterates my traces

… i listen to the wind that obliterates my traces brings together a collection of early photographs related to music, a group of 78rpm recordings, and short excerpts from various literary sources that are contemporary with the sound and images. It is a somewhat intuitive gathering, culled from artist Steve Roden’s collection of thousands of vernacular photographs related to music, sound, and listening. The subjects range from the PT Barnum-esque Professor McRea – “Ontario’s Musical Wonder” (pictured with his complex sculptural one man band contraption) – to anonymous African-American guitar players and images of early phonographs. The images range from professional portraits to ethereal, accidental, double exposures – and include a range of photographic print processes, such as tintypes, ambrotypes, cdvs, cabinet cards, real photo postcards, albumen prints, and turn-of-the-century snapshots.

The two CDs display a variety of recordings, including one-off amateur recordings, regular commercial releases, and early sound effects records. there is no narrative structure to the book, but the collision of literary quotes (Hamsun, Lagarkvist, Wordsworth, Nabokov, etc.). Recordings and images conspire towards a consistent mood that is anchored by the book’s title, which binds such disparate things as an early recording of an American cowboy ballad, a poem by a Swedish Nobel laureate, a recording of crickets created artificially, and an image of an itinerant anonymous woman sitting in a field, playing a guitar. The book also contains an essay by Roden.

Text from the Dust to Digital website Nd [Online] Cited 23/07/2022. Published by Dust-to-Digital, 2011. The book is out of stock but available on Abe.com website.

… i listen to the wind that obliterates my traces book cover (2011)

The J. Paul Getty Museum
1200 Getty Center Drive
Los Angeles, California 90049

Opening hours:
Daily 10am – 5pm

The J. Paul Getty Museum website

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Exhibition: ‘Diane Arbus’ at the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff

Exhibition dates: 9th May – 31st August 2009

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
Tattooed Man at a Carnival, Md.
1970
Gelatin silver print
15 x 14 5/8 in. (38.3 x 37.3 cm)

Diane Arbus is one of my favourite photographs – how I would love to see this exhibition!

I have posted some photographs from the exhibition, including all ten images from the Box of Ten 1971 that features in the show.

Marcus

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

“A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know.”

.
Diane Arbus

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
A young man with curlers at home on West 20th Street, N.Y.C.
1966
Gelatin silver print

One of National Museum Cardiff’s main art exhibitions in 2009 reveals the work of legendary New York photographer Diane Arbus (1923 -1971), who transformed the art of photography. Diane Arbus, which comprises 69 black and white photographs including the rare and important portfolio of ten vintage prints: Box of Ten, 1971, is one of the best collections of Arbus’s work in existence. A large selection of these images will be on display at the Museum from 9 May until 31 August 2009.

Capturing 1950s and 1960s America, Arbus is renowned for portraits of people who were then classed on the outskirts of society nudists, transvestites, circus performers and zealots. In one of her most famous works, Identical Twins, Roselle, NJ of 1967, the twins are photographed as if joined at the shoulder and hip with only three arms between them.

Her powerful, sometimes controversial, images often frame the familiar as strange and the strange or exotic as familiar. This singular vision and her ability to engage in such an uncompromising way with her subjects has made Arbus one of the most important and influential photographers of the twentieth century.

This singular vision and her ability to engage in such an uncompromising way with her subjects has made Arbus one of the most important and influential photographers of the twentieth century.

Text from the National Museum of Cardiff website [Online] Cited 18/05/2009 no longer available online

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
A Jewish Giant at home with his parents in the Bronx
1967
Gelatin silver print

From 1969 to 1971 Arbus was absorbed in the creation of a limited edition portfolio, A box of ten photographs. The portfolio was intended to present her work as an artist in the manner of the special print editions offered by new artists’ presses such as Crown Point and Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE). This group of pictures and its presentation was a very conscious statement of what she stood for, and how she regarded her own photography. The pictures range from the relatively early ones of the Nudists in their summer home and Xmas tree in a living room in Levittown, L.I., both of 1963; through the now iconic Identical twins, Roselle, N.J., 1967 and Westchester Couple sunning themselves on their lawn, to the later pictures of the Jewish giant, the Mexican Dwarf in his hotel room, N.Y.C. and the King and Queen of a senior citizens’ dance, N.Y.C., all of 1970. There is clearly an attempt to be representative of the general idea, the larger plan behind her work. There is also a significant stylistic range, from the graceful daylight in the picture of the older couple in the nudist camp, to the later picture of the elderly king and queen, whom she photographed with sharp flash. She included Xmas tree, a work without human subjects. The prints for this portfolio were selected three years after the New Documents exhibition, before there was thought of another show. But the pictures constituted a kind of exhibition in and of themselves, to be examined one at a time, rather than all at once. From her letters, we know that the idea of a clear box was very important; it was to serve as both a container and a display case allowing the owner to reorder and display the pictures easily. Just as she had wanted the black border of the print to show in the New Documents exhibition, here she wished to exhibit the entire print as it appeared on the photographic paper …

Most of the pictures in the portfolio either depict families or refer to the family. Even the corner of the cellophane-looking room in Levittown is made by peering over the two outstretched arms of a family armchair, posed like the trousered knees of the empty chair in the picture of the Jewish giant. The idea of the family album was a private but expressive metaphor for her. As in a family album, each member is part of the larger group; they are related, perhaps even tolerated, and harmony may be rare and perhaps even uninteresting. But they are all considered with the same intelligent and human regard. She photographed the Jewish giant as a mythic figure, enclosed in a modest Bronx living room, an unconventional member of an otherwise conventional family: ‘I know a Jewish giant who lives in Washington Heights or the Bronx with his little parents. He is tragic with a curious bitter somewhat stupid wit. The parents are orthodox and repressive and classic and disapprove of his carnival career…They are truly a metaphorical family. When he stands with his arms around each he looks like he would gladly crush them. They fight terribly in an utterly typical fashion which seems only exaggerated by their tragedy… Arrogant, anguished, even silly.’

Sandra S. Phillips, senior curator of photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art from the book Diane Arbus Revelations.1

Phillips, Sandra. “The Question of Belief,” in Diane Arbus Revelations. London: Random House, 2003, pp. 66-67.

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
Mexican Dwarf in his hotel room, N.Y.C.
1970
Gelatin silver print

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
Xmas tree in a living room in Levittown, L.I.
1963
Gelatin silver print

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
Identical twins, Roselle, N.J.
1967
Gelatin silver print

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
King and Queen of a senior citizens’ dance, N.Y.C.
1970
Gelatin silver print

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
A family on their lawn one Sunday in Westchester, N.Y., 1968
1968
Gelatin silver print

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
Retired man and his wife at home in a nudist camp one morning, N.J.
1963
Gelatin silver print

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
Boy with a straw hat waiting to march in a pro-war parade, N.Y.C., 1967
1967
Gelatin silver print

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
A young Brooklyn family going for a Sunday outing, NYC., 1966
1966
Gelatin silver print

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
A child crying, N.J.
1967
Gelatin silver print

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
A young man and his pregnant wife in Washington Square Park, N.Y.C., 1965
1965
Gelatin silver print

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
Untitled (1)
1970-1971
Gelatin silver print

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
Untitled
1970-1971
Gelatin silver print

National Museum of Wales, Cardiff
Cathays Park, Cardiff CF10 3NP

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday, 10 – 5pm

National Museum of Wales website

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