December 2014
Tag: Art Blart
1000th post on Art Blart
June 2014
This is the 1000th post on Art Blart.
I started the archive 6 years ago with 11 people a day reading it. Today the archive averages between 3-4,000 people a day and has over 3,000 Likes on Facebook.
Reproduced below are a couple of postings from the archive on its very first day 13/11/2008 – just text please note, no images – and a mandala image of the Sahasrãra or Crown Chakra (for creativity) to celebrate the milestone.
Namaste
Marcus
The artist does not turn money into time
“The artist does not turn time into money, the artist turns time into energy, time into intensity, time into vision. The exchange that art offers is an exchange in kind; energy for energy, intensity for intensity, vision for vision… Can we afford to live imaginatively, contemplatively?”
Winterson, Jeanette. Art Objects. London: Vintage, 1996, p. 139.
After Light
“And on the other end of the spectrum, there is the AFTER LIGHT, a light of the past, which are echoes from past experiences so intense that they sometimes appear in front of us in the form of unexpected shadows. They hide on clear days under the roofs of houses. It is believed to be the same light seen by people we knew many years ago that survives like a message in a bottle, but always in a precarious way and often vanishes into thin air.”
Helguera, Pablo. “How to Understand the Light on a Landscape,” in Patt, Lise (ed.,). Searching for Sebald: Photography After W. G. Sebald. Los Angeles: The Institute of Cultural Inquiry, 2007, p. 119.
Sahasrãra or Crown Chakra / Thousand Petal Lotus
Â
“That for which they seek is that which searches.”
Saint Francis of Assissi
Symbol
The Crown Chakra is known as the Thousand Petal Lotus. The number 1000, adds up and reduces to the number 1 in numerology. The number one represents strong leadership and will power, a courageous person who is goal oriented and driven. A number one person is a pioneer who is independent and individualistic and approaches issues from a unique perspective. A number one is original and sometimes unconventional. They possess tremendous potential for success in life.
Throughout history it has been depicted in paintings of Jesus the Christ, Buddha, Saints, Angels and other highly evolved beings as a golden white halo around their heads.
Colour
The Crown Chakra is associated with the colour violet. Some references link it to the colour white as well. Violet is the highest colour in the light spectrum. It represents the spiritual or higher self, wisdom, vitality, intuitive awareness, passion and dignity. White is purity and the colour of the Divine light. Red, which is the lowest colour on our physical perceptual light spectrum, and just above infrared light, rules the Root Chakra. Conversely, violet, the highest colour on our physical perceptual light spectrum, and just below ultra-violet light, rules the Crown Chakra.
Sense
Our multidimensional and extrasensory senses are ruled by the seventh chakra. Once this chakra is opened, our sense of empathy and unity expands. When we raise our consciousness, we experience another person, place or object as if we are inside of them or as if we are “being” them. It is important, then, that we remember that with this power comes responsibility. We should activate these senses only to provide help or healing – NEVER for mere curiosity or with any malicious intent.
Compassion is the main sense that develops as our Crown Chakra opens. We have two kinds of compassion: Crown Compassion, which is more about perception and communication, and Heart Compassion, which is more about emotions and empathy.
Element
The element of this Chakra is the Cosmic Energy, which is often experienced as an inner light emanating from the deepest part of our being. This Cosmic Energy, which rules the higher kingdoms and stems from the Source, feels like an ultimate intelligence and a sense of all-knowing. When our Crown Chakra opens we can also experience the complete isolation and blackness of the Great Void. This Void, which resonates just below the fifth dimension, represents the raw potential for all that can, or will be. The total darkness is representative of the centre of a seed before it opens into the light of manifestation. when we can perceive from our Crown Chakra, we can identify both extremes of all polarities.
The opening of the Crown Chakra expands our perception into the fifth dimension where there are NO polarities. Therefore, there are many paradoxes associated with this Chakra as it represents the “end of all paradox.” As we travel through the higher dimensions, it is important that we release all judgments associated with the polarities of light and dark. We must instead consult our own inner knowing and higher consciousness to navigate us through our inner worlds. Eventually, we will all be aware of our fifth dimensional selves; they know no judgment and hold no fear. For what is judgment, if not a form of fear?
Consciousness
Since our Crown Chakra represents our multidimensional consciousness, as we open this Chakra our reality will no longer be limited to the third and fourth dimension. When our Brow Chakra, the sixth Chakra, opens we begin to travel into the higher sub planes of the fourth dimension. With the opening of our seventh Chakra, and the subsequent activation of our Third Eye, our consciousness can now enter the fifth dimension. It is then that the many realities around and within us gradually become consciously apparent to us.
The process of our awakening begins with expanding the consciousness of our physical selves and working to clear our etheric bodies. Then the astral, the mental, the causal and the spiritual I AM consciousness can align themselves in preparation to ascend into the fifth dimension. Until we reach the fifth dimension we can “work” towards enlightenment, but from the fifth dimension on, we must simply “BE”. “Doing” is not important then; consciousness alone is important. And finally, in the sixth and seventh dimensions even consciousness is not important as there is only the “Isness”, the “Nowness” and the “Hereness.”
Source: www.chakras.net
Review: ‘The Rennie Ellis Show’ at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne
Exhibition dates:Â 3rd April – 8th June, 2014
Curator: Gareth Syvret
Ponch Hawkes (Australian, b. 1946)
Rennie Ellis photographing at the Gay Liberation march, Elizabeth Street, Melbourne, 1973
1973
Silver gelatin photograph
© Ponch Hawkes
In researching photographs for the upcoming exhibition Out of the closets, onto the streets: Gay Liberation photography 1971-73 I came across this photograph taken by Ponch Hawkes of the Gay Liberation march that was part of Gay Pride week in 1973. Ponch had never seen this image before until I scanned the negative. And there, front and centre as always, is Rennie Ellis capturing the action… What a special find and a wonderful photograph by Ponch!
We Are Family
This is FAB, one of the best experiences I have had this year at an exhibition in Melbourne. You know you are having a good time when you laugh out loud at so many photographs, sharing the experience of the artist as though you had been there. As indeed I had, for in many cases the clubs pictured in Rennie Ellis’ photographs are the ones I went to.
I remember: Wednesday nights at Inflation in the late 80s, where to satisfy licensing restrictions you had to be served a “meal” so that you could drink alcohol (Dining Out, Inflation, 1980 below). The famous Razor Club (1986-1992), based at the Light Car Club of Australia’s clubrooms on the corner of Queens Road and Roy Street, opposite the Albert Park Lake and golf course. “It was Melbourne’s version of Studio 54, the hedonistic, off-the-wall New York disco of the late ’70s – both places notoriously hard to get into but once inside a wonderland of celebrities, freaks, transvestites and fantastic music free from the tyranny of genre.” Once on a big party night the gang of us tried to get in but the queue was so long it was impossible – so I went down the side, climbed up the drain pipes past the ladies loo, and up to the first floor balcony where someone pulled me over – completely off my face, just to get my friends in. Zu Zu’s, Cadillac Bar, 397, Commerce Club, Tasty, Freakazoid, Dome, Baseline, Hardware Club, The Peel and so many parties you could poke a stick at – what a time we had!
There to capture it all – affectionately, non-judgementally – was Rennie Ellis. He wasn’t like Diane Arbus, who thrust her camera as an outsider at people, waiting for a reaction. He was always part of the action because he was part of the family. He was a humanist photographer in the true sense of the word, for he loved photographing human beings, their social relations and their habitats, whatever that might be – sunning, partying, boozing, smoking, picking up. He referred to himself as a “people perv.”
Ellis had an eloquently “clumsy” eye, and for the type of baroque photographs he took this is a great thing. No perfect framing, no perfect tension points within the image, no regular alignment of horizontals, verticals or diagonals – just instinctual images taken in a split second, with his own particular brand of humour embedded in them. And always with this slight eccentricity in his vision. Look at the image of Dancing People, Razor Club (1991, below) and notice the odd hand poking in at the left hand side and the attitude of the dancers, or Fully equipped, Albert Park Beach (c. 1981, below), with the angle of the three cigarettes, the drink and the bottle of sun tan lotion strapped to the hip – FIERCE!
But he was not averse to understanding the structure of his images either, as can be seen by my comparison between the tight, formal structure of Paul Strand’s The Family, Luzzara, Italy (1953, below) and the looser, more natural gathering in Ellis’ The Gang, Windsor (1976, below); or the influence of other artists on his work, for example Norman Lindsay in his My Bare Lady, The Ritz, St Kilda (1977, below). Ellis also liked to push and pull at the pictorial plane; he liked to use pairs of people; he was not afraid of out of focus elements in the foreground of his images; he used chiaroscuro; and his use of light is always excellent. Above all, there is a consistency to his vision that never falters – a concatenation of images that is his style?
This is not just nostalgia. These are bloody good images, and Ellis takes these insightful type of images over and over again – the excesses of hedonism, the influences of wealth, the see-and-be-seen syndrome, things erotic and bizarre and, most importantly, enduring friendships. He photographs what he sees with a love and affection for his subject matter. None of this “staged” vernacular photography that I recently featured in an exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. This is the real deal. A friend said to me recently, “Ah, but you know, he never did in depth photo-essays like Mary Ellen Mark did of the circus, for example.” To which I have a one word reply: BULLSHIT.
His whole oeuvre is a huge photo-essay on the human race, specifically the construction of Australian identity as evidenced in sections like portraits, gangs, sharpies, Aboriginals, Kings Cross, Social Documentary, Decadence, Graffiti, Life’s a Parade, Life’s a Beach etc…
When you look at his photography it would seem to me that his images dissolve the barriers between image / subject / viewer. It’s a strange phenomena to feel so connected to a person’s work. It’s the journey that he takes us on, that we went on too – not so much the destination but the rejoicing in this journey… of company, of environment, friends, places – the joy of being human. He was allowed entry into these public/private spaces because he earned our trust. He lived with the people, and they allowed him to take a bit of their life with him – as a photographic memory, to be retold and relived in the present, allowing us all to relive those times and places. It’s the love, trust, humour and anticipation of the journey that make Ellis’ images truly unique in the history of Australian photography.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to Manuela Furci, Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive and the Monash Gallery of Art for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Rennie Ellis (Australian, 1940-2003)
Dancing People, Razor Club
1991
Selenium-toned gelatin silver print
26.7 x 40.7cm
Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive
Robyn Dean (Australian)
Marcus dancing at an unknown club, Melbourne
c. 1991-1992
Rennie Ellis (Australian, 1940-2003)
Dining Out, Inflation
1980
Selenium-toned gelatin silver print
26.7 x 40.7cm
Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive
Sister Sledge – We Are Family (1979) Official Video
Rennie Ellis (Australian, 1940-2003)
Fitzroy extrovert
1974
Selenium-toned gelatin silver print
40.5 x 50.8cm
Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive
Rennie Ellis (Australian, 1940-2003)
Dino Ferrari, Toorak Road
1976
Selenium-toned gelatin silver print
26.7 x 40.7cm
Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive
Rennie Ellis (Australian, 1940-2003)
Bon Scott and Angus Young, Atlanta, Georgia
1978
Selenium-toned gelatin silver print
26.7 x 40.7cm
Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive
Ronald Belford “Bon” Scott (9 July 1946 – 19 February 1980) was a Scottish-born Australian rock musician, best known for being the lead singer and lyricist of Australian hard rock band AC/DC from 1974 until his death in 1980.
Angus McKinnon Young (born 31 March 1955) is a Scottish-born Australian guitarist best known as a co-founder, lead guitarist, and songwriter of the Australian hard rock band, AC/DC. Known for his energetic performances, schoolboy-uniform stage outfits, and popularisation of Chuck Berry’s duckwalk, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Young as the 24th greatest guitarist of all time.
AC/DC’s popularity grew throughout the 1970s, initially in Australia, and then internationally. Their 1979 album Highway to Hell reached the top twenty in the United States, and the band seemed on the verge of a commercial breakthrough. However, on 19 February 1980, Scott died after a night out in London. AC/DC briefly considered disbanding, but the group quickly recruited vocalist Brian Johnsonof the British glam rock band Geordie. AC/DC’s subsequent album, Back in Black, was released only five months later, and was a tribute to Scott.
Text from the Wikipedia website
AC/DC – Highways to Hell (Official Video)
Rennie Ellis (Australian, 1940-2003)
At the Pub, Brisbane
1982
Selenium-toned gelatin silver print
26.7 x 40.7cm
Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive
Rennie Ellis (Australian, 1940-2003)
The Gang, Windsor
1976
Selenium-toned gelatin silver print
26.7 x 40.7cm
Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive
Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976)
The Family, Luzzara, Italy
1953
Silver gelatin photograph
The photographer Rennie Ellis (1940-2003) is a key figure in Australian visual culture. Ellis is best remembered for his effervescent observations of Australian life during the 1970s-90s, including his now iconic book Life is a beach. Although invariably inflected with his own personality and wit, the thousands of social documentary photographs taken by Ellis during this period now form an important historical record.
The Rennie Ellis Show highlights some of the defining images of Australian life from the 1970s and ’80s. This is the period of Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, Paul Keating and Bob Hawke; AC/DC and punk rock; cheap petrol and coconut oil; Hare Krishnas and Hookers and Deviant balls.
This exhibition of over 100 photographs provides a personal account of what Ellis termed ‘a great period of change’. Photographs explore the cultures and subcultures of the period, and provide a strong sense of a place that now seems worlds away, a world free of risk, of affordable inner city housing, of social protest, of disco and pub rock, of youth and exuberance.
Text from the MGA website
Rennie Ellis (Australian, 1940-2003)
My son Josh learns to swim
1972
Selenium-toned gelatin silver print
26.7 x 40.7cm
Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive
Rennie Ellis (Australian, 1940-2003)
My Bare Lady, The Ritz, St Kilda
1977
Digital C Type photograph
Fuji Crystal Archive print
Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive
Norman Lindsay (Australian, 1879-1969)
The Olympians
Nd
Oil on canvas
Collection of Hamilton Art Gallery
Rennie Ellis (Australian, 1940-2003)
Mr Muscleman, Albert Park Beach
c. 1986
Chromogenic print
26.7 x 40.7cm
Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive
Rennie Ellis (Australian, 1940-2003)
Fully equipped, Albert Park Beach
c. 1981
Digital C Type photograph
Fuji Crystal Archive print
Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive
Rennie Ellis (Australian, 1940-2003)
Don and Patrizia, St Kilda Beach
1985
Chromogenic print
40.5 x 50.8cm
Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive
Rennie Ellis (Australian, 1940-2003)
Berlin Party, Inflation, Melbourne
1980
Digital C Type photograph
Fuji Crystal Archive print
Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive
Rennie Ellis book covers: Decade: 1970-1980 (left) and Decadent: 1980-2000 (right)
Decade: 1970-1980Â is a photography book showcasing Rennie Ellis’ (1940-2003) contribution to photography and social history. With an introduction by film maker and Rennie contemporary Paul Cox and an essay by academic Susan Van Wyk, Decade highlights Ellis as one of Australia’s most important chroniclers of the 1970s. The photographs, predominantly black and white, are drawn from a core selection originally made by Rennie from his own unpublished book, supplemented by other significant and iconic images from 1970 to 1980 drawn from the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive and the State Library of Victoria Rennie Ellis collection. Many of the photographs are accompanied by extended captions written by Rennie himself, published here for the first time. Decade explores the cultures and sub-cultures of the seventies: the political upheavals, alternative lifestyles and counter culture, the women’s movement, gay liberation, the new religions and cults, pop festivals, Vietnam and other protests, massage parlours, the disco scene, the blossoming of Australia’s film industry, the new sexual freedom, Aboriginal rights, street festivals, the new theatre, fashion, drugs and the emergence of a decadent and hedonistic society that would later characterise the 1980s.
Decadent: 1980-2000 is a photography book showcasing Rennie Ellis’ (1940-2003) contribution to photography and social history. It is a fascinating snapshot of the wild, opulent, sometimes tacky and always decadent 1980s in Australia by a true original. With an introduction by photographer and Rennie contemporary William Yang and an essay by photographer and art critic Robert McFarlane, Decadent highlights Ellis as one of Australia’s most important chroniclers of the 1980s. The photographs, both colour and black and white, are drawn from the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive and the State Library of Victoria Rennie Ellis collection. Decadent explores the rise of the hedonism that we now associate with the 1980s. Ellis’ boundary-pushing, racy and sometimes voyeuristic works capture a society that seems to be revelling in its abandonment of the politically charged 1970s documented in Decade.
About the Author
No other photographer has documented – in such depth – the life and times in Australia, throughout the 1970s until his death in 2003, with such insight into the human condition as Rennie Ellis. His non-judgmental approach was his ‘access-to-all-areas’ pass. Ellis used his camera as a key to open the doors to the social arenas of the rich and famous and to enter the underbelly of the nightclubs, bearing witness to the indulgences and excesses. In today’s post-[Bill] Henson era, these captured moments offer an intimate access to an Australia tantalisingly, but sadly, now almost out of reach.
Rennie Ellis (Australian, 1940-2003)
Richmond fans, Grand Final, MCG
1974
Chromogenic print
40.5 x 50.8 cm
Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive
Interesting to note that Ellis must have been shooting both black and white and colour film during the VFL Grand Final of 1974. He must have had two cameras with him (this is more likely than swapping between films in the same 35mm camera) to shoot the photograph above in colour and the black and white image of Robbie McGhie (1974, below).
Rennie Ellis (Australian, 1940-2003)
Robert McGhie, Grand Final, MCG
1974
Selenium-toned gelatin silver print
50.8 x 40.5cm
Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive
Robert ‘Robbie’ McGhie is a former Australian rules football player who played in the VFL between 1969 and 1972 and again in 1979 for the Footscray Football Club, from 1973 to 1978 for the Richmond Football Club and in 1980 and 1981 for the South Melbourne Football Club. His height was 192 cm and he weighed 85.5 kg. He played 46 games for Footscray, 80 games for Richmond and 16 games for South Melbourne. He was a Richmond Premiership Player 1973, 1974 (the year this photograph by Rennie Ellis was taken at the Grand Final).
Rennie Ellis (Australian, 1940-2003)
Property of Hells Angels, Kings Cross
1970-1971
Selenium-toned gelatin silver print
50.8 x 40.5cm
Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive
Invitation to The Rennie Ellis Show at the Monash Gallery of Art
Monash Gallery of Art
860 Ferntree Gully Road, Wheelers Hill
Victoria 3150 Australia
Phone:Â + 61 3 8544 0500
Opening hours:
Tue – Fri: 10am – 5pm
Sat – Sun: 10pm – 4pm
Mon/public holidays: closed
Exhibition: ‘Wols Photographer. The Guarded Look’ at Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin
Exhibition dates:Â 15th March –Â 22nd June, 2014
Curator: Kupferstich-Kabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden
![Wols (German, 1913-1951) 'Untitled [Still life - dining table]' 1937 from the exhibition 'Wols Photographer. The Guarded Look' at Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, March - June, 2014](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/wols_09_esstisch-web.jpg "Wols (German, 1913-1951) 'Untitled [Still life - dining table]' 1937 from the exhibition 'Wols Photographer. The Guarded Look' at Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, March - June, 2014")
Wols (German, 1913-1951)
Untitled [Still life – dining table]
1937
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2014
Some familiar images that were also seen in the posting Wols’ Photography: Images Regained are complimented by 5 new ones. The two portraits of the artist Max Ernst are eerie (is that a suitable word for a portrait that is strong and unsettling?) and perceptive, Wols responsive to the status of his sitter as a pioneer of the Dada movement and Surrealism.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to the Martin-Gropius-Bau for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Wols (German, 1913-1951)
Nicole Bouban
Autumn 1932 – October 1933 / January 1935 to 1937
© Kunst, Bonn 2014
Art Informel
The term Art Informel was originated by the French critic Michel Tapié and popularised in his 1952 book Un Art autre (Another art). A Parisian counterpart of Abstract Expressionism, Art Informel emphasised intuition and spontaneity over the Cubist tradition that had dominated School of Paris painting. The resulting abstractions took a variety of forms. For instance, Pierre Soulages’s black-on-black paintings composed of slashing strokes of velvety paint suggest the nocturnal mood of Europe immediately after the war.
![Wols (German, 1913-1951) 'Untitled [Pavilion de l'Elegance - Creating a home with Alix (Germaine Krebs)]' 1937](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/wols_05_pavillon_de_l_elegance_2-web.jpg "Wols (German, 1913-1951) 'Untitled [Pavilion de l'Elegance - Creating a home with Alix (Germaine Krebs)]' 1937")
Wols (German, 1913-1951)
Untitled [Pavilion de l’Elegance – Creating a home with Alix (Germaine Krebs)]
1937
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2014
Germaine Émilie Krebs (French, 1903-1993)
Germaine Émilie Krebs (1903-1993), known as Alix Barton and later as “Madame Grès”, relaunched her design house under the name Grès in Paris in 1942. Prior to this, she worked as “Alix” or “Alix Grès” during the 1930s. Formally trained as a sculptress, she produced haute couture designs for an array of fashionable women, including the Duchess of Windsor, Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, Jacqueline Kennedy, and Dolores del RÃo. Her signature was cut-outs on gowns that made exposed skin part of the design, yet still had a classical, sophisticated feel. She was renowned for being the last of the haute couture houses to establish a ready-to-wear line, which she called a “prostitution”.
The name Grès was a partial anagram of her husband’s first name and alias. He was Serge Czerefkov, a Russian painter, who left her soon after the house’s creation. Grès enjoyed years of critical successes but, after Grès herself sold the business in the 1980s to Yagi Tsucho, a Japanese company, it faltered. In 2012, the last Grès store in Paris was closed.
Text from Wikipedia website
![Wols (German, 1913-1951) 'Untitled [Swiss Pavilion - Wire Figure]' 1937](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/wols_04_pavillon_drahtfigurine-web.jpg "Wols (German, 1913-1951) 'Untitled [Swiss Pavilion - Wire Figure]' 1937")
Wols (German, 1913-1951)
Untitled [Swiss Pavilion – Wire Figure]
1937
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2014
Wolfgang Schulze, known as Wols, was born in Berlin in 1913. As a painter and graphic artist he is considered to have been an important trailblazer of Art Informel. For the first time the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin is presenting the largely unknown photographic oeuvre of Wols. These works foreshadow his development in the direction of non-representational art.
Wols grew up in Dresden, where he had an early encounter with photography as a profession through his attendance at a course in the studio of the Dresden photographer Genja Jonas. In 1932, after a brief sojourn in the milieu of the Berlin Bauhaus – then in the process of breaking up – the young Wols set off for Paris to realise his artistic ambitions.
Soon he was involved with the local Surrealists and made the acquaintance of other personalities in the theatrical, literary and art scenes. In this period Wols was mainly active as a photographer. In 1937 his works were exhibited for the first time in the prestigious Parisian Galérie de la Pléiade, which established his reputation as a photographer. It was at this time that he adopted the pseudonym Wols. One of his commissions was to document the Pavillon de l’Elégance at the 1937 World Exhibition in Paris.
At the same time he produced striking multiple black-and-white portraits of personalities such as Max Ernst, Nicole Boubant or Roger Blin. Over the years Wols’ imagery became increasingly radical. The representational motifs gradually acquired a more abstract dimension and forced the viewer to see the objects represented in a new light. In particular, an extraordinary set of photograms confirms his interest in replacing representational motifs with non-representational ones. Transferred to painting, this trend would later make him a pioneer of Art Informel.
Immediately after the outbreak of the Second World War Wols spent over a year in various internment camps in the south of France. In this period he turned more to watercolours, most of which were lost while he was fleeing from the Nazis.
Living in straitened circumstances Wols fought a losing battle with alcoholism and poor health. In 1951, as a result of his weakened physical condition, he died of food poisoning in Paris at the early age of 38. After his death, Wols’ work was displayed at the first three documenta exhibitions in Kassel (1955, 1959, 1964) and, in 1958, at the Venice Biennale. On 27 May 2014 he would have been 101.
The show covers all of his photographic work, including multiple portraits of famous artists, actors and writers, photographs of the “Pavillon de l’Élégance”, numerous still lifes, and many hitherto unknown motifs. The exhibition has been curated by the Kupferstich-Kabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, where this unique collection will be kept and systematically catalogued.
Press release from Martin-Gropius-Bau website
Wols (German, 1913-1951)
Max Ernst
Fall 1932 – October / January 1935 to 1936
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2014
Wols (German, 1913-1951)
Max Ernst
Fall 1932 – October / January 1935 to 1936
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2014
Wols permanently settled in Paris in 1933, producing his first paintings but also working as a photographer. His photographic work of this period showed the clear influence of Surrealism. In 1936, he received official permission to live in Paris with the help of Fernand Léger; as an army deserter, Schulze had to report to the Paris police on a monthly basis. In 1937, the year in which he adopted his pseudonym WOLS, his photographs began to appear in fashion magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, Femina as well as Revue de l’art. Many of these photographs anticipate the displays at the Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme held in Paris in the following year, in which much use was made of mannequins.
At the outbreak of World War II Wols, as a German citizen, was interned for 14 months in the notorious Les Milles camp – together with some 3500 other artists and intellectuals. He was not released until late 1940. After his release Wols moved for two years to Cassis, near Marseille, where he struggled to earn a living. The occupation of Southern France by the Germans in 1942 forced him to flee to Dieulefit, near Montélimar, where he met the writer Henri-Pierre Roché, one of his earliest collectors. He spent most of the war trying to emigrate to the United States, an unsuccessful and costly enterprise that may have driven him to alcoholism.
After the war Wols returned to Paris where he met Jean-Paul Sartre, Tristan Tzara and Jean Paulhan. He started to paint in oils in 1946 at the suggestion of the dealer René Drouin, who showed 40 of his paintings at his gallery in 1947. The same year Wols began to work on a number of illustrations for books by Paulhan, Sartre, Franz Kafka and Antonin Artaud. He fell ill but lacked the money to go to hospital, and throughout 1948 he worked largely in bed on these illustrations. In 1949 he took part in the exhibition Huit oeuvres nouvelles at the Galerie Drouin, along with Jean Dubuffet, Roberto Matta, Henri Michaux and other artists with whom he had a stylistic affinity.
Undergoing treatment for alcoholism, he moved to the country at Champigny-sur-Marne in June 1951. His early death later that year from food poisoning helped foster the legendary reputation that grew up around him soon afterwards. His paintings helped pioneer Art informel and Tachism, which dominated European art during and after the 1950s as a European counterpart to American Abstract Expressionism. Influenced by the writings of the philosopher Lao Tzu throughout his life, Wols also wrote poems and aphorisms that expressed his aesthetic and philosophical ideas.”
Text from the Weimar blog 2010
![Wols (German, 1913-1951) 'Untitled [Paris - Flea Market]' Autumn 1932 - October 1933 / January 1935 to 1936](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/wols_08_flohmarkt-web.jpg "Wols (German, 1913-1951) 'Untitled [Paris - Flea Market]' Autumn 1932 - October 1933 / January 1935 to 1936")
Wols (German, 1913-1951)
Untitled [Paris – Flea Market]
Autumn 1932 – October 1933 / January 1935 to 1936
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2014
![Wols (German, 1913-1951) 'Untitled [Paris - Palisade]' Fall 1932 - October 1933 / January 1935 - August 1939](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/wols_07_paris_palisade.jpg "Wols (German, 1913-1951) 'Untitled [Paris - Palisade]' Fall 1932 - October 1933 / January 1935 - August 1939")
Wols (German, 1913-1951)
Untitled [Paris – Palisade]
Fall 1932 – October 1933 / January 1935 – August 1939
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2014
![Wols (German, 1913-1951) 'Untitled [Paris - Eiffel Tower]' 1937](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/wols_03_eiffelturm-web.jpg "Wols (German, 1913-1951) 'Untitled [Paris - Eiffel Tower]' 1937")
Wols (German, 1913-1951)
Untitled [Paris – Eiffel Tower]
1937
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2014
![Wols (German, 1913-1951) 'Untitled [Still Life - Grapefruit]' 1938 - August 1939](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/wols_06_pampelmuse-web.jpg "Wols (German, 1913-1951) 'Untitled [Still Life - Grapefruit]' 1938 - August 1939")
Wols (German, 1913-1951)
Untitled [Still Life – Grapefruit]
1938 – August 1939
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2014
Wols (German, 1913-1951)
Self Portrait with Hat
1937-1938
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2014
Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin
Niederkirchnerstraße 7
Corner Stresemannstr. 110
10963 Berlin
Phone:Â +49 (0)30 254 86-0
Opening hours:
Wednesday to Monday 10 – 20 hrs
Tuesday closed
Exhibition: ‘Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video’ at The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Exhibition dates: 24th January – 14th May, 2014
Curators: Senior Curator of Photography Jennifer Blessing with Assistant Curator Susan Thompson
Installation view of the exhibition Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, January 24-May 14, 2014
Photo: David Heald © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.
A busy time with postings on the archive over the next week with a lot of exhibitions finishing on the 18th May 2014. The posting about this artist is one of the best of them. I have been wanting to show this artist on this site since it started, nearly 6 years ago. Finally, I get my chance!
I ask the question:
Who are the interesting photographers anywhere who are alive now?
That is – by looking at the ideas that are present in poetry, music, philosophy or even politics – who is there that is truly taking these ideas forward (or ideas that are as interesting). Or, who is arranging images with the elegance of a Sommer or an Atget or the dynamics of Arbus.
In other words whose acts am I hanging upon, so that I am waiting with great anticipation to see what they are going to do next?
Which living photographers would I walk over broken glass to see their work? = some
If I was being essential (and if you were walking over glass you would be), the list would be very short:
Carrie Mae Weems and Wolfgang Tillmans.
What both these image makers – for they are not photographers in the traditional sense – do, is problematise and reconfigure narration and visualisation in the conceptualisation of subject. Tillmans experiments with a sensory experiential backdrop against and within which the photographs are produced. Modes of perception and the regimes of emotion are inducted into the aesthetics of production and meaning so that, “the pictures communicate with each other in a way that is not bound to the pattern of a closed narrative or any particular line of argument.” The mobilisation and reversal of value and meaning are central strategies in Tillmans’ praxis, where realistic and abstract elements are never intentionally separated from each other, and where the physicality and space of the photographs is also acknowledged in the installation of the work.
A similar sensory experience can be observed in the work of Carrie Mae Weems, only this artist invites contemplation of issues surrounding race, gender, and class inequality – bringing to light the voices of marginalised and oppressed people and histories – through a multidimensional picture of history and humanity, intended to spur greater cultural awareness and compassion. As the press release observes, “Although her subjects are often African American, Weems wants “people of color to stand for the human multitudes” and for her art to resonate with audiences of all backgrounds… Weems often appropriates words and images, re-presenting them to viewers as biting reminders of the persistence of bigoted attitudes in the United States.”
This is the power of both artists work, the creation of open ended narratives, multidimensional pictures of history and humanity which allows the viewer to create a space beyond the art works.
Using ekphrasis – the structuring patterns of language, in Weems’ case emphasising the role of both spoken and written narrative – to vividly represent a wide range of perceptual experiences, she creates a complementary space outside of the art work in the reader’s mind. The author creates links, “designating the paths along which the reader may travel, and thus, in a much freer manner than modernist authors, structures the network of allusions, parallelisms, and juxtapositions that contribute to the sense of textual space.”1 This allows the viewer to create a language of personal associations and engages in them an autonomy of experience, one encouraged by the products, the texts and images that these authors create.
These thoughts come to mind. Some things we interpret and then remember that interpretation, but we are no longer involved in the actual act of interpretation – and there are other, probably fewer things that continue to involve us – where we never finish the first way of looking at them, we are always coming to them and not arriving. Unfortunately, I find a lot of things in the first group, and as much as theoreticians try to inspire me to re-interpret, the work they have done often only works as an adjunct to something that has settled.
The art of Weems and Tillmans resides, lives and breathes of the second category, for we can never be sure of the pattern of narrative, the form of aesthetic and thematic interaction and the specificity of the marginalised histories they examine. These histories apply to all of us.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
1/ Tolva, John. “Ut Pictura Hyperpoesis: Spatial Form, Visuality, and the Digital World,” in HYPERTEXT ’96 Proceedings of the the seventh ACM conference on Hypertext, 1996, p. 71.
Many thankx to The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
“Over the past thirty years, Carrie Mae Weems has yearned to insert marginalized peoples into the historical record. She does this not only to bring ignored or erased experiences to light but to provide a more multidimensional picture of humanity as a whole, a picture that ultimately will spur greater awareness and compassion. Weems believes deeply that “my responsibility as an artist is to … make art. beautiful and powerful, that adds and reveals; to beautify the mess of a messy world, to heal the sick and feed the helpless; to shout bravely from the roof-tops and storm barricaded doors and voice the specifics of our historic moment.””
Carrie Mae Weems quoted in Kathryn E. Delmez. “Introduction,” from Kathryn E. Delmez (ed.,). Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video. Yale University Press 2012, p. 1.
“Weems [work] exist at the intersection of photography and race, image and text.”
John Pultz
“Belying the myth that conceptual artists disdain the old-fashioned notion of aesthetics, Weems has long been consumed and galvanized by the idea of beauty. The notion of beauty encompasses and reaches beyond aesthetics. It is not a simple concept, as often there are unspoken political implications in her use. Beauty is a powerful adjective in her hands and an important tool in her work. Her work is always about beauty and purposely so. She seduces the viewer through the very process of creating luscious prints, or beautiful images, without ever using beauty purely to seduce. But no matter what one encounters within the text or within one’s own revelations about what the texts ultimately say, the religion of beauty always undergirds Weem’s vision and informs her work.”
Thelma Golden. “Some Thoughts on Carrie Mae Weems,” in Golden, T. and Piché Jr., T. Carrie Mae Weems: Recent Work, 1992-1998. New York: George Braziller, 1998, p. 32 quoted in Deborah Willis. “Photographing between the Lines: Beauty, Politics, and the Poetic Vision of Carrie Mae Weems,” in Kathryn E. Delmez (ed.,). Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video. Yale University Press 2012, p. 33.
Installation views: Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, January 24-May 14, 2014
Photos: David Heald © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum presents Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video, the first major New York museum retrospective devoted to this socially motivated artist. Weems has long been acclaimed as one of the most eloquent and respected interpreters of African American experiences, and she continues to be an important influence for many young artists today. Featuring more than 120 works – primarily photographs, but also texts, videos, and an audio recording – as well as a range of related educational programs, this comprehensive survey offers an opportunity to experience the full breadth of the artist’s oeuvre and gain new insight into her practice.
Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video is organised by the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, Tennessee. The exhibition has been curated by Kathryn Delmez, the Frist Center, where it opened in September 2012. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum presentation is organised by Jennifer Blessing, Senior Curator, Photography, with Susan Thompson, Assistant Curator. This exhibition is supported in part by The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. The Leadership Committee for Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video is also gratefully acknowledged for its support, including Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder, Robert Menschel Vital Projects, and Jack Shainman Gallery, as well as Henry Buhl, Crystal R. McCrary and Raymond J. McGuire, Beth Rudin DeWoody, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Toby Devan Lewis, Louise and Gerald W. Puschel, and Miyoung Lee and Neil Simpkins. Additional funding is provided by the William Talbott Hillman Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts.
The work of Carrie Mae Weems (b. 1953, Portland, Oregon) invites contemplation of issues surrounding race, gender, and class inequality. Over the past thirty years, Weems has used her art to bring to light the ignored or erased experiences of marginalised people. Her work proposes a multidimensional picture of history and humanity, intended to spur greater cultural awareness and compassion. Although her subjects are often African American, Weems wants “people of colour to stand for the human multitudes” and for her art to resonate with audiences of all backgrounds.
Organised in a loosely chronological order throughout two of the museum’s Annex Levels, the exhibition begins on Level 2 with the series Family Pictures and Stories (1978-1984). This series, like many of Weems’s early works, explores matters relating to contemporary black identity, highlighting individuals in social contexts – including in this case her own kin. Her landmark Kitchen Table Series (1990) employs text and photography to explore the range of women’s roles within a community, pointedly situating the photographs’ subject within a domestic setting. Selections from Weems’s Sea Islands Series (1991-1992), Africa (1993), and Slave Coast (1993) demonstrate her ongoing interest in language and storytelling. These works, made during the artist’s travels to the titular locales, pair images with evocative vernacular texts or etymological investigations that trace English words to African roots. The artist’s practice emphasises the role of both spoken and written narrative, reflecting her graduate studies in folklore.
Weems often appropriates words and images, re-presenting them to viewers as biting reminders of the persistence of bigoted attitudes in the United States. Her renowned series From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried (1995-1996), presented on Annex Level 4, layers new text over found historical imagery to critique and lament prejudiced attitudes toward African Americans throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A yearning to investigate the underlying causes and effects of racism, slavery, and imperialism has spurred Weems to travel widely throughout the United States, Africa, Europe, and the Caribbean. During extended visits to these places, depicted in series such as Dreaming in Cuba (2002), The Louisiana Project (2003), and Roaming (2006), all represented in the exhibition, she looks to the surrounding land and architecture in order to foster communion with inhabitants past and present.
Video is a natural extension of Weems’s narrative photographic practice, also providing an opportunity for the artist to include music in her work. Although she worked in film during her undergraduate years at the California Institute of the Arts, Weems’s first major endeavour in the medium came in 2003-2004 with Coming Up for Air, a work comprised of series of poetic vignettes that will be screened in the New Media Theater in the Guggenheim’s Sackler Center for Arts Education. Other video works, including Italian Dreams (2006), Afro Chic (2009), and Constructing History: A Requiem to Mark the Moment (2008) will be integrated into the exhibition near related photographs.
Press release from The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum website
Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
Blue Black Boy (from Colored People)
1989-90
Triptych, three toned gelatin silver prints with Prestype and frame
16 x 48 inches (40.6 x 121.9cm) overall
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Purchase, with funds from the Photography Committee
© Carrie Mae Weems
Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
An Anthropological Debate (from From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried)
1995-1996
Chromogenic print with etched text on glass
26 1/2 x 22 3/4 inches (67.3 x 57.8cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Gift on behalf of The Friends of Education of the Museum of Modern Art
From an original daguerreotype taken by J.T. Zealy, 1850. Peabody Museum, Harvard University.Copyright President & Fellows of Harvard College, 1977. All rights reserved.
Photo: © 2012, MoMA, NY
Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
Afro-Chic
2010
Digital colour video, with sound, 5 min., 30 sec.
Collection of the artist, courtesy Courtesy the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
© Carrie Mae Weems
Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
Family Reunion (from Family Pictures and Stories)
1978-1984
Gelatin silver print
30 x 40 inches (76.2 x 101.6cm)
Collection of the artist, courtesy Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
© Carrie Mae Weems
Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
Untitled (Man and mirror) (from Kitchen Table Series)
1990
Gelatin silver print
27 1/4 x 27 1/4 inches (69.2 x 69.2 cm)
Collection of Eric and Liz Lefkofsky, Promised gift to The Art Institute of Chicago
© Carrie Mae Weems
Photo: © The Art Institute of Chicago
Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
Untitled (Woman and daughter with makeup) (from Kitchen Table Series)
1990
Gelatin silver print
27 1/4 x 27 1/4 inches (69.2 x 69.2cm)
Collection of Eric and Liz Lefkofsky, Promised gift to The Art Institute of Chicago
© Carrie Mae Weems
Photo: © The Art Institute of Chicago
Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
A Broad and Expansive Sky – Ancient Rome (from Roaming)
2006
Chromogenic print
73 x 61 inches (185.4 x 154.9cm)
Private collection, Portland, Oregon
© Carrie Mae Weems
Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
Listening for the Sounds of Revolution (from Dreaming in Cuba)
2002
Gelatin silver print
28 1/2 x 28 1/2 inches (72.4 x 72.4cm)
Collection of the artist, courtesy Courtesy the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
© Carrie Mae Weems
Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
Untitled (Box Spring in Tree) (from Sea Islands Series)
1991-1992
Gelatin silver print
20 x 20 inches (50.8 x 50.8cm)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Gift of Carrie Mae Weems and P•P•O•W, 97.97.1
© Carrie Mae Weems
Photo: Robert Gerhardt
Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
Untitled (Colored People Grid)
2009-2010
11 inkjet prints and 31 coloured clay papers
Dimensions variable overall; individual components: 10 x 10 inches (25.4 x 25.4cm) each
Collection of Rodney M. Miller
© Carrie Mae Weems
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
1071 5th Avenue (at 89th Street)
New York
Opening hours:
Sunday – Monday, 11am – 6pm
Wednesday – Friday 11am – 6pm
Saturday 11am – 8pm
Closed Tuesday
Exhibition: ‘Brancusi, Rosso, Man Ray – Framing Sculpture’ at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
Exhibition dates:Â 8th February – 11th May, 2014
Curators: Francesco Stocchi and Peter van der Coelen
Installation photograph of the exhibition Brancusi, Rosso, Man Ray – Framing Sculpture
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, 2014
Foto / Photo: Gert-Jan de Rooij, Amsterdam
What a magnificent exhibition. We all know Brancusi and Man Ray but it is the work of Medardo Rosso that surprises and delights here, an artist I admit I knew nothing about before this posting. What a revelation, both his sculptures and photographs. I must try and do a whole posting just on his photographs!
The two self-portraits of the artists in the studio are telling… Rosso, pensive, brooding, with a stack of chopped wood surrounding him, face wreathed in shadow, head titled slightly down and hands stuffed in pockets; Brancusi, seated on a plinth, legs crossed, swarthy arms folded replete with large hands, staring directly at the camera and surrounded by his work. Rosso in malleable darkness, Brancusi in towering light. The photographs reflect their respective personalities and inform the art which represents them.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen for allowing me to publish the art work in the posting. Please click on the image for a larger version of the art.
Alessio delli Castelli considers the Italian sculptor’s photographic legacy.
“Medardo Rosso was born in Turin in 1858 and died in Milan 1928. However, he spent most of his life away from Italy, in Paris especially, from where he travelled to all the major European capitals. It was in Paris that, towards the close of the 19th century, he emerged alongside Auguste Rodin as a serious contender for the title of father of modern sculpture. Yet it was Rodin who achieved universal recognition. In spite of Rosso’s influence on sculptors such as Constantin Brancusi – whose Sleeping Muse (1909-10), with its radically abstracted features of a female head, is strongly reminiscent of Rosso’s Madame X (1896) – he was long held hostage by a provincial criticism which saw his practice confined, chronologically, thematically and formally, to the 19th century. Although it is true that Rosso only created two original sculptural works in the 20th century, to claim that he was no longer a practicing artist would be to overlook the variations he made of his sculptures, and the copies from antiquity. More importantly, it would be to dismiss his photographic work of that period merely as images of sculptures that already existed. This would mean ignoring the fact that his photography showed all the signs of rigorous artistic investigation – and was not, as critics in the 20th century often declared, indicative of either an accident that injured his leg and made him weak or a more general creative block.
It is only in recent years that Rosso’s photographs have acquired the status of art objects in and of themselves…”
Installation photographs of the exhibition Brancusi, Rosso, Man Ray – Framing Sculpture
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, 2014
Foto / Photos: Gert-Jan de Rooij, Amsterdam
In mythology, Leda is a girl who is seduced by Zeus who turns her into a swan. In the Brancusi sculpture, Leda (foreground, above) is that metamorphosis. The swan is an animal whose body is often associated with a hybrid identity between male and female. His neck is close to a phallic shape while her body has feminine attributes. The bird and woman, male and female mingle in the same sculptural movement. This transfiguration is reflected in the complex forms of sculpture, asymmetrical contours, the offset top shape intersecting with the lower form, giving rise to multiple passages and perceptions.
In 1932, Brancusi sculpture adds a large polished steel disc which suggests the presence of water and Leda is reflected in the mirror which changes its shape. Modifications qu’accentuera still provide a motor and a ball bearing arranged in the circular plate. Within the workshop, the body of Leda is in a state of constant metamorphosis. The shimmer of light on the surface of polished bronze sculpture blends with its reflection in the steel circle and absorbs its environment. Leda becomes a pure luminous presence. Weight and lightness, balance and imbalance are the same event within a continuous time duration in the sculptures of Constantin Brancusi.
Translated from the French on the Constantin Brancusi web page of the Centre Pompidou website [Online] Cited 05/05/2014. No longer available online. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
Installation photograph of the exhibition Brancusi, Rosso, Man Ray – Framing Sculpture
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, 2014
Foto / Photo: Gert-Jan de Rooij, Amsterdam
In the spring of 2014 Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen brings together works from all over the world by three artists who were decisive for the development of modern art. This is the first exhibition to combine sculptures by Brancusi, Rosso and Man Ray together with their photographs, affording a unique insight into the artists’ working methods.
Masterpieces that have rarely or never been seen in the Netherlands will be lent by important museums such as the Centre Pompidou, MoMA and Tate. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen will show more than 40 sculptures and hundred photographs by Constantin Brancusi (Hobita 1876 – Paris 1957), Medardo Rosso (Turin 1858 – Milan 1928) and Man Ray (Philadelphia 1890 – Paris 1976). The exhibition will feature sculptures such as Brancusi’s Princesse X (1915-1916) and Rosso’s Ecce Puer (1906) alongside works by Man Ray from the museum’s collection, including the sculpture L’Énigme d’Isidore Ducasse (1920 / 1971). Presenting the sculptures together with the artists’ photographs of their sculptures reveals their often-surprising perspectives on their own works.
Framing Sculpture
Brancusi, Rosso and Man Ray employed photography not so much as a means of recording their work. The photographs show how they interpreted their sculptures and how they wanted them to be seen by others. Brancusi is considered the father of modern sculpture with his highly simplified sculptures of people and animals. In his photographs he experimented with light and reflection so that his sculptures absorb their environment and appear to come to life. Rosso is the artist who introduced impressionism in sculpture. The indistinct contours of his apparently quickly modelled figures in plaster and wax make them appear to fuse with their surroundings. Rosso cut up the soft-focus photographs of his work, made them into collages and reworked them with ink so that the sculptures appear even flatter and more contourless. Man Ray is best known as a photographer but was also a painter and sculptor. His choice of materials was unconventional: he combined existing objects to create new works, comparable to the ‘readymades’ of his friend Marcel Duchamp. Man Ray’s experimental use of photography led him to make photographs without the use of a camera. He made these so-called ‘rayographs’ by placing objects directly on photographic paper and exposing them briefly to light, leaving behind a ghostly impression.
Press release from the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Man Ray (American, 1890-1976)
L’Énigme d’Isidore Ducasse (The Riddle of Isidore Ducasse)
1920 (1971)
Iron, textile, rope, cardboard
45.4 x 60 x 24cm
Collection Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
© Man Ray Trust / ADAGP, c/o Pictoright Amsterdam 2013.
Man Ray (American, 1890-1976)
L’Énigme d’Isidore Ducasse (The Riddle of Isidore Ducasse)
1920 (1975)
Gelatin silver print
47.5 x 59cm
Courtesy Fondazione Marconi, Milan
© Man Ray Trust / ADAGP, c/o Pictoright Amsterdam 2013
Medardo Rosso (Italian, 1858-1928)
Enfant à la Bouchée de pain (Child in the soup kitchen)
1897 (1892-1893)
Wax over plaster
46 x 49 x 37cm
Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome
Medardo Rosso (Italian, 1858-1928)
Enfant à la Bouchée de pain in the Cézanne room at the Salon d’Automne
1904
Felatin silver print
12.3 x 15.5cm
Private collection
The Italian sculptor Medardo Rosso (1858-1928) is the oldest and most traditional of the three artists. He stands in the Impressionist tradition of French sculptor August Rodin. Rosso has made many portraits of children, which he adored. They were one of his favourite subjects. Rosso kept working on the same pieces throughout his career, making changes to their titles, shapes or materials. Sometimes he combined materials or poured another substance over the original. A work of plaster then became a wax sculpture. Other times he made two different versions of the same image, using different materials…
Rosso… used his camera to present his art in the way he preferred. By taking pictures and displaying them next to the actual sculptures he could show the audience what was, in his opinion, the right angle to look at his piece. Of course, everyone is free to walk around the sculpture, but the photographs show what the artist had in mind when he created it. Many times he would cut up his pictures, tear away corners or colour them with ink. This way he even reinterpreted his interpretations. Together the sculptures, photographs and collages give a complete picture of the work by Medardo Rosso. Never before have there been so many of his works on display in the Netherlands.
Text by Evita Bookelmann on the Kunstpedia website [Online] Cited 05/05/2014. No longer available online. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
Constantin Brancusi (Romanian, 1876-1957)
Tête d’enfant endormi (Head of a Sleeping Child)
1906-1907
Plaster, coloured dark brown
10.8 x 13.6 x 15.2cm
Private collection
A previously unknown sculpture by Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957) can be seen in Brancusi, Rosso, Man Ray – Framing Sculpture, the exhibition opening at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen on Saturday. The museum is especially delighted by the arrival of Tête d’enfant endormie (Head of a Sleeping Child, 1906-07). This early sculpture is an important key work in Brancusi’s development of his famous ‘ovoid’.
The exhibition, which features more than forty sculptures by Constantin Brancusi, Medardo Rosso and Man Ray and a hundred vintage photographs taken by them, runs in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen for three months from 8 February. The plaster sculpture was purchased at a sale by a French private collector. Leading expert Friedrich Teja Bach has recently confirmed that it is a version of the ‘head of a sleeping child’. Curators Francesco Stocchi and Peter van der Coelen remarked, “It is unusual for a previously unknown work by Brancusi to turn up at a sale. Works by Brancusi are rare and almost all of them are in prominent museum collections like those of the Centre Pompidou, the Tate and MoMA.”
The Road to Abstraction
The child’s head with natural features is in the tradition of the contemporary Impressionists Auguste Rodin and Medardo Rosso. At the same time, this early work is a starting point in Brancusi’s journey towards a more abstract style, which culminated in an entirely smooth oval form, devoid of any facial features. This process can also be seen in the photographs taken by Brancusi himself, in which he pictured Tête d’enfant endormie in his studio with Le Nouveau-Ne II, a work he made ten years later. The exhibition in Rotterdam examines the artistic practices and development of Brancusi, Rosso and Man Ray by showing the sculptures alongside the photographs they took of them.
Painted Bronze
Brancusi’s oeuvre contains a number of recurring subjects, which the artist executed in a variety of materials, including plaster, marble and bronze. This allowed Brancusi to explore various effects, such as the reflection of light. The signed Tête d’enfant endormie is an early version in the series. It is unusual that Brancusi painted the plaster, making it look like bronze.
Press release from the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Constantin Brancusi (Romanian, 1876-1957)
La Muse endormie (Sleeping muse)
1910
Bronze
16.1 x 27.7 x 19.3cm
Arthur Jerome Eddy Memorial Collection. The Art Institute of Chicago
© 2013 c/o Pictoright Amsterdam
Man Ray (American, 1890-1976)
Noire et blanche (Black and white)
1926
Gelatin silver print
18 x 23.5cm
© Man Ray Trust / ADAGP – PICTORIGHT / Telimage – 2013
Man Ray’s Noire et blanche is a photograph exemplary of Surrealist art. The striking faces of the pale model and the dark mask have a doubling effect. This repetition is a reminder that a photograph is a double of what it represents, namely, a sign or an index of reality. In Surrealism the act of doubling indicates that we are all divided subjects made up of the conscious and unconscious. In reading this photograph as typical of primitivism, the woman can be understood as European civilisation and the mask as “primitive” Africa. The image draws a parallel between the two faces presenting them as related to each another. The title “black and white” is a word play because the order is reversed when reading the image left to right. The artist also printed a negative version of this image. The photograph was first published in Vogue. It is a portrait of Kiki of Montparnasse, Man Ray’s lover and model at the time the photograph was taken.
Text from the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam website [Online] Cited 05/05/2014. No longer available online. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
Medardo Rosso (Italian, 1858-1928)
Enfant malade (Ziek kind)
c. 1909
Aristotype
7.9 x 6.3cm
Private collection
Medardo Rosso (Italian, 1858-1928)
Enfant malade (Ziek kind)
1895 (1903-1904)
Bronze
25.5 x 14.5 x 16.5cm
Collectie Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Milan
Medardo Rosso (Italian, 1858-1928)
Madame X
1896
Wax
300mm
Venice, Ca’ Pesaro
Con una coerenza assoluta, insensibile alle polemiche e alle controversie che la sua arte suscitava, e più ancora al disprezzo oltraggioso di cui lo faceva segno la cultura ufficiale, il Rosso deduceva alle estreme conseguenze le premesse fondamentali della sua visione. Davanti ai nostri occhi una sgomentante superficie d’ombra da cui emerge la lama trepida e vibrante di un essere vivente, che contesta al nulla misterioso che lo incalza e in cui in un soffio si dissolverà , il suo diritto alla luce, cioè all’essenza vitale. Le premesse letterarie, le suggestioni filosofiche o vagamente esoteriche sono totalmente assorbite nella suprema qualità stilistica: lo scultore modula ed assottiglia la materia al limite del possibile, sull’orlo dell’astrazione assoluta, ricercandone spasmodicamente ogni vibrazione musicale; l’equazione scultura-luce-pittura poteva dirsi verificata.”
“With absolute consistency, insensitive to the controversies and disputes that his art aroused, and even more outrageous contempt of which he did hold official culture, Rosso deduced to the extreme the basic premises of his vision. Before our eyes a daunting shadow surface which shows the blade trembling and vibrating of a living being, which criticises the mysterious anything that presses him and when you blow in a dissolver, its right in the light, that all ‘vital’ essence. The premises literary, philosophical or vaguely esoteric suggestions are totally absorbed in the supreme quality of style: the sculptor modulation and tapering the matter to the extent possible, the absolute brink of abstraction, seeking spasmodically every musical vibration; the equation of light-sculpture-painting could be said to be verified.
Terrible translation by Google translate of an anonymous text = but so beautiful at the same time!
Constantin Brancusi (Romanian, 1876-1957)
Princesse X (Princess X)
c. 1930
Gelatin silver print
29.7 x 23.7cm
Collection Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Paris
© 2013 c/o Pictoright Amsterdam
Photo: Bertrand Prévost
Constantin Brancusi (Romanian, 1876-1957)
Princesse X (Princess X)
1915-1916
Bronze
61.7 x 40.5 x 22.2cm
Collection Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Paris
© 2013 c/o Pictoright Amsterdam
Photo:Â Adam Rzepka
Princess X is a sculptured rendering of the French princess, Marie Bonaparte, by the artist Constantin Brâncusi. Princess Bonaparte was the great-grand niece of the emperor Napoleon Bonaparte…
According to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Brâncusi had been “at the center of two of modern arts most notorious scandals.” One of the scandals being that the Salon des Indépendants, in Paris where Brâncusi practiced his trade, discontinued the display of Princess X from its establishment for its apparent obscene content, as some thought it looked like a penis. After having his art taken off display, Brâncusi was shocked. He declared the incident a misunderstanding. He had created Princess X not as a sculpture depicting a more masculine subject, but the object of feminine desire and vanity.
After much accusation, BrâncuÈ™i insisted the sculpture had been his rendition of Marie Bonaparte. Brâncusi discussed the comparison of the bronze figure to the princess. He described his detest of Marie, as a “vain woman.” He claimed she went as far as placing a hand mirror on the table at mealtimes, so she could gaze upon herself. The sculpture’s C-like form reveals a woman looking over and gazing down, as if looking into an object. The large anchors of the sculpture resemble the “beautiful bust” which she possessed. Without knowing the context, to a viewer Princess X could look like an erect penis. Brâncusi allows the princess to gaze upon herself in an eternal loop locked in the bronze sculpture.
The style of Brâncusi is one that “was largely fuelled by myths, folklore, and primitive culture,” this combined with the modern materials and tools BrâncuÈ™i used to sculpt, “formed a unique contrast… resulting in a distinctive kind of modernity and timelessness.” The technique Brâncusi was known for and used on Princess X could be mistaken for a penis, but in fact it was the simple form of a woman.
“What my art is aiming at, is above all realism; pursue the inner hidden reality, the very essence of objects in their own intrinsic fundamental nature: this is my only preoccupation.” – Constantine Brâncusi.
Text from the Wikipedia website
Constantin Brancusi (Romanian, 1876-1957)
View of the Studio with Maïastra
1917
Gelatin silver print
23.9 x 17.8cm
Collection Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Paris
© 2013 c/o Pictoright Amsterdam
According to Constantin Brancusi’s own testimony, his preoccupation with the image of the bird as a plastic form began as early as 1910. With the theme of the Maiastra (1910-18), he initiated a series of about thirty sculptures of birds.
The word maïastra means “master” or “chief” in Brancusi’s native Romanian, but the title refers specifically to a magically beneficent, dazzlingly plumed bird in Romanian folklore. Brancusi’s mystical inclinations and his deeply rooted interest in peasant superstition make the motif an apt one. The golden plumage of the Maiastra is expressed in the reflective surface of the bronze; the bird’s restorative song seems to issue from within the monumental puffed chest, through the arched neck, out of the open beak. The heraldic, geometric aspect of the figure contrasts with details such as the inconsistent size of the eyes, the distortion of the beak aperture, and the cocking of the head slightly to one side. The elevation of the bird on a saw-tooth base lends it the illusion of perching. The subtle tapering of form, the relationship of curved to hard-edge surfaces, and the changes of axis tune the sculpture so finely that the slightest alteration from version to version reflects a crucial decision in Brancusi’s development of the theme.
Seven other versions of Maiastra have been identified and located: three are marble and four bronze…
Extract from Lucy Flint. “Constantin Brancusi: Maiastra,” on the Guggenheim website [Online] Cited 17/03/2021. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
Constantin Brancusi (Romanian, 1876-1957)
Self-portrait in the studio
c. 1934
Gelatin silver print
39.7 x 29.7cm
Collection Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Paris
© 2013 c/o Pictoright Amsterdam
Photo:Â Philippe Migeat
Man Ray (American, 1890-1976)
Rayographie (Rayograph)
1925
Photogram
50 x 40.5cm
Collection Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
© Man Ray Trust / ADAGP, c/o Pictoright Amsterdam 2013
Man Ray (American, 1890-1976)
Le Violon d’Ingres (Ingres’s Violin or The Hobby)
1924
Gelatine silver print
17.2 x 22.4cm
Private collection Turin
© Man Ray Trust / ADAGP, c/o Pictoright Amsterdam 2013
Man Ray (American, 1890-1976)
Self-portrait with the lamp
1934
Gelatin silver print
10. 8 x 8cm
© Man Ray Trust / ADAGP, c/o Pictoright Amsterdam 2013
Medardo Rosso (Italian, 1858-1928)
Self-portrait in the studio
c. 1906
Modern contact print of the original glass negative
12.7 x 13cm
Private collection
Brancusi, Rosso, Man Ray – Framing Sculpture exhibition poster
Constantin Brancusi
La Muse endormie
1910
Arthur Jerome Eddy Memorial Collection
The Art Institute of Chicago
© 2013 c/o Pictoright Amsterdam /
Medardo Rosso
Enfant malade
c. 1909
Private collection
Man Ray
Noire et blanche
1926
© Man Ray Trust / ADAGP – PICTORIGHT / Telimage – 2013
Design: Thonik.
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Museumpark 18-20
3015 CX Rotterdam
The Netherlands
Phone: +31 (0)10 44.19.400
Opening hours:
Tuesdays to Sundays, 11am – 5pm
Exhibition: ‘Cai Guo-Qiang: Falling Back to Earth’ at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA), Brisbane
Exhibition dates: 23rd November 2013 – 11th May, 2014
Curator: Russell Storer, Curatorial Manager, Asian and Pacific Art at GOMA
Cai Guo-Qiang (China, b. 1957)
Heritage
2013
99 life-sized replicas of animals, water, sand, drip mechanism
Installed dimensions variable
Commissioned for the exhibition Falling Back to Earth, 2013
Purchased 2013 with funds from Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Diversity Foundation through and with the assistance of the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation
Photo: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art
99 wolves a leaping
99 replicas of animals a drinking
31-metre suspended eucalyptus tree a leaning
170 tonnes of water a seeping
3,000 square metres of GOMA’s ground floor a taking
and not a partridge in a pear tree in sight…
FANTASTIC ART!
Many thankx to the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Cai Guo-Qiang (China, b. 1957)
Heritage
2013
99 life-sized replicas of animals, water, sand, drip mechanism
Installed dimensions variable
Commissioned for the exhibition Falling Back to Earth, 2013
Purchased 2013 with funds from Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Diversity Foundation through and with the assistance of the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation
Photos: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art
Thought-provoking and spectacular new installations inspired by Queensland landscapes will premiere in the first Australian solo exhibition of leading international contemporary artist Cai Guo-Qiang, opening tomorrow at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA). Cai Guo-Qiang: Falling Back to Earth, on display from November 23 to May 11, 2014, builds on a longstanding working relationship between the artist and the Gallery, which dates back to Cai’s participation in the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art exhibitions in 1996 and 1999.
For the first time ever, all 3,000 square metres of GOMA’s ground floor will be dedicated to an exhibition of work by a single living artist. Falling Back to Earth features installations of 99 replicas of animals drinking from a pristine lake; 99 wolves leaping en masse and colliding with a glass wall; a suspended 31-metre eucalyptus tree, creating a space for contemplation; and a tea pavilion where visitors can pause, drink tea, and find out more about the artist and the exhibition. There will also be an interactive installation for children and a chronological display of the artist’s career, with photographs, ephemera, and original art works selected by the artist.
Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) Director Chris Saines said Cai Guo-Qiang’s ground-breaking practice over 25 years used unexpected materials to create transformative event-based and social projects. “This exhibition is a significant evolution for one of today’s most compelling and highly respected global artists, realised with a level of ambition unprecedented for an Australian art museum,” Mr Saines said. “Cai is shifting his focus from the cosmos to the Earth and to humanity’s complex relationship with nature, while maintaining his keen eye on both the seen and unseen forces that impact life.”
Cai Guo-Qiang said the exhibition title Falling Back to Earth was inspired by fourth-century poet Tao Yuanming’s well-known prose poem, Ah, homeward bound I go! “The text captures the concept behind the exhibition, and expresses the idea of going home, returning to the harmonious relationship between man and nature, and re-embracing the tranquillity in the landscape,” he said.
Exhibition curator Russell Storer, Curatorial Manager of Asian and Pacific Art, QAGOMA, said the new commissions drew on the striking beauty of Queensland landscapes and the exquisite imagery in historical Chinese painting and poetry, to express concerns regarding the ecological and social issues of our time. “Heritage 2013 is an installation of 99 replicas of animals including pandas, tigers, bears, giraffes and kangaroos, lowering their heads to drink water together from a lake that is surrounded by white sand, evoking the islands of Brisbane’s Moreton Bay,” Mr Storer said. “Seemingly a peaceful gathering of predator and prey, the menagerie of Heritage conveys an almost reverential solemnity, in a lyrical utopian vision loaded with uncertainty. It embodies Cai’s image of a ‘last paradise’ and his awareness of a sense of crisis in contemporary societies across the world.”
The first single artwork to take up the entire 1,100m2 of GOMA’s largest gallery space, Heritage presents animals drinking from a lake filled with 170 tonnes of water, which is viewable from a walkway that circles the entire installation. The Gallery will acquire Heritage thanks to a generous contribution from benefactor Win Schubert, through the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Diversity Foundation with the assistance of the QAGOMA Foundation.
“Eucalyptus 2013, a 31-metre tree suspended along GOMA’s central Long Gallery, came from a plantation earmarked for clearing for urban community development. The work was inspired by the ancient trees of Lamington National Park, and creates a meditative, immersive experience for visitors,” Mr Storer said. “Drawing on his history of socially provocative projects, Cai presents Eucalyptus as an unfinished work to be completed by the audience, who are invited to draw and write their ideas on the tree’s past and future. A third major installation, Head On 2006 – Cai’s signature work of 99 life-size sculptures of wolves, which was commissioned by Deutsche Bank, Berlin – is appearing in Australia for the first time.”
In the free interactive installation, Let’s Create an Exhibition with a Boy Named Cai 2013, Cai Guo-Qiang and the QAGOMA Children’s Art Centre invite children to participate, using the artist’s working methods to create their own exhibition through hands-on and multimedia activities, which include an online ‘gunpowder drawing’ making program. An illustrated storybook written by the artist and created in collaboration with the Children’s Art Centre will be available from the QAGOMA Store.
The Tea Pavilion in the River Room invites visitors to pause, rest and reflect on the works in the exhibition. Visitors can sample Tie Guan Yin tea from Cai’s home province of Fujian and watch a documentary created especially for ‘Falling Back to Earth’ to learn more about the processes behind the exhibition. A detailed chronology of Cai’s work, including early works, ephemera, photographs and artefacts selected by the artist from his private collection and the QAGOMA Research Library, will be presented in the GOMA Foyer. The display will offer insights into the artist’s history with QAGOMA and the complexity and risk involved in Cai’s work. The exhibition will be fully documented in a major publication, available in January 2014. The book will feature photography of the new works and essays from leading curators, as well as reflections from Cai Guo-Qiang on his collaboration with children throughout his career.
Cai’s recent solo exhibitions and projects have included the retrospective Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe, presented at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, the National Art Museum of China in Beijing in 2008 and the Guggenheim Bilbao in 2009. He was Director of Visual and Special Effects for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics in 2008, and his first exhibition in the Middle East was staged in Doha, Qatar, in 2011. In 2012, the artist appeared in solo exhibitions in Los Angeles, Hangzhou and Copenhagen. His first South American exhibition toured to BrasÃlia, São Paolo and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil in 2013.
Press release from the Gallery of Modern Art website
Cai Guo-Qiang (China, b. 1957)
Tea Pavilion
2013
Spotted gum (Corymbia maculata), wooden stools, Fujian Tie Guan Yin tea and video documentary
Commissioned for the exhibition Falling Back to Earth, 2013
Photo: Yuyu Chen, courtesy Cai Studio
Cai Guo-Qiang (China, b. 1957)
Eucalyptus
2013
Spotted gum (Corymbia maculata), wooden stools, paper and pencils
Length: 3150cm (approx.)
Commissioned for the exhibition Falling Back to Earth, 2013
Photos: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art
Cai Guo-Qiang (China b. 1957)
Head On
2006
99 life-sized replicas of wolves and glass wall. Wolves: gauze, resin, and hide
Dimensions variable
Deutsche Bank Collection, commissioned by Deutsche Bank AG
Photos: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art
Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA)
The Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) and Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) are located 150 metres from each other, on the south bank of the Brisbane River. Entrance to both buildings is possible from Stanley Place, and the river front entrance to the Queensland Art Gallery is on Melbourne Street. The Galleries are within easy walking distance to the city centre and South Bank Parklands.
Opening hours:
Daily 10.00am – 5.00pm
Closed Christmas Day, Good Friday, open from 12.00 noon ANZAC Day
Exhibition: ‘Philippe Halsman, Astonish Me!’ at The Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne
Exhibition dates: 29th January – 11th May, 2014
Curators: Anne Lacoste, Curator at the Musée de l’Elysée, and Sam Stourdzé, Director of the Musée de l’Elysée
Philippe Halsman (American, 1906-1979)
The Versatile Jean Cocteau
1949
Musée de l’Elysée
© 2013 Philippe Halsman Archive / Magnum Photos
He “photographed a little bit of everything: animals, Paris, the homeless, underwater, nudes, advertising, fashion and, above all, celebrities portraits, from Ali, Einstein, Churchill, Hepburn, Warhol, Hitchcock and, of course, Marilyn Monroe.”
You could say that he was a versatile photographer, doing everything to pay the bills and anything to make interesting images. He never stopped experimenting with the image, but it is the “straight” portraits that I find are his strongest work. Not the “jump” photos, Monroe, or the surreal experiments with DalÃ, much as they delight, but the portraits of Hepburn, Einstein and Churchill for example.
Look at the photograph of Winston Churchill (1951, below). What a way to portray the great man. The bulk of the overcoat, the slope of the shoulders (evincing a certain weariness), the famous Homburg hat pulled down on the head, the leader staring into the tranquil landscape. But what makes the image is the seam down the back of the overcoat which speaks to history itself – the backbone of the country, the never say die spirit, stiff upper lip, the rock of the British empire which Nazism could not defeat – epitomising the British bulldog spirit. Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Solid. Immovable. What a glorious photograph to capture that essence.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to the Elysée Lausanne for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
“Shortly before World War I, the greatest sensation in Paris was the Russian Imperial Ballet under Serge Diaghilev. The divine Nijinsky and Pavlova were dancing for him, Stravinsky composed, Picasso, Bakst, and Chagall were painting scenery for him. To work for Diaghilev was the highest accolade for an artist. Jean Cocteau approached Diaghilev and asked: ‘What can I do for you?’ Diaghilev looked at him and answered: ‘Etonne-moi!’ (‘Astonish me!’) These two words can be considered as a motto, as a slogan for the development of the modern art which followed.”
Philippe Halsman
“Photography is a separate form of expression since it falls between two art forms… It’s not only trying to give us a visual impression of reality, like painting and graphic arts, but also to communicate and inform us the way writing does. No writer should be blamed for writing about subjects that exist only in his imagination. And no photographer should be blamed when, instead of capturing reality, he tries to show things that he has only seen in his imagination.”
Philippe Halsman
Philippe Halsman (American, 1906-1979)
Folle Iseult
1944
Musée de l’Elysée
© 2013 Philippe Halsman Archive / Magnum Photos
“In my serious work I am striving for the essence of things and for goals which are possibly unobtainable. On the other hand, everything humorous has great attraction for me, and a childish streak leads me into all kinds of frivolous endeavour.”
Photographer Philippe Halsman had an exemplary career. Over a forty-year period, in Paris during the 1930s and in New York from 1940 on, he developed a broad range of activities (portraits, fashion, reportage, advertisements, personal projects, commissions from individuals and institutions). The Musée de l’Elysée presents the first study dedicated to his entire body of work, with a selection of over 300 pieces.
This project, produced in collaboration with the Philippe Halsman Archive, includes many exclusive unseen elements of the photographer’s work (contact sheets, annotated contact prints, preliminary proofs, original photomontages and mock-ups). The exhibition shows Philippe Halsman’s creative process and reveals a unique approach to photography: a means of expression to explore.
Born in 1906 in Riga, Latvia, Halsman studied engineering in Dresden before moving to Paris, where he opened a photographic studio in 1932. His years in Paris already heralded the approach he was to develop throughout his long career. A studio and reportage photographer, Halsman took inspiration from the contemporary art scene and participated in promoting it. Though he specialised in portraiture, he also branched out into advertising and publishing, which were thriving at the time. In 1940, the German invasion brought Halsman’s prosperous career to a halt, leading him to flee with his family to New York. Though initially unknown, he succeeded in establishing himself on the American market in under a year, and his studio soon became successful. Halsman stood out for his “psychological” approach to portraiture.
He distinguished himself in this area with his vast portrait gallery of celebrities (actors, industrialists, politicians, scientists, writers). Some of these images, such as Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Winston Churchill or Albert Einstein, became icons. He produced the largest number of covers (101) for Life magazine, the first weekly magazine to be illustrated only by photographs.
Halsman’s photography is characterised by a direct approach, masterful technique and a particular attention to detail. His work testifies to his constant research and his interest in all forms of technical and aesthetic experimentation, which he applied to a wide variety of subjects. For Halsman, photography was an excellent way of giving his imagination free reign. He was especially interested in mises en scène – in the form of single images or fictional series. He met Salvador Dalà in 1941 and the artist turned out to be the ideal accomplice. Their fruitful collaboration lasted 37 years. Philippe Halsman also introduced innovations through more personal creations such as the “photo-interview book” or ‘jumpology’.
Press release from the Musée de l’Elysée Lausanne website
Philippe Halsman (American, 1906-1979)
Winston Churchill
1951
Musée de l’Elysée
© 2013 Philippe Halsman Archive / Magnum Photos
Philippe Halsman (American, 1906-1979)
Albert Einstein
1947
Musée de l’Elysée
© 2013 Philippe Halsman Archive / Magnum Photos
Philippe Halsman (American, 1906-1979)
Audrey Hepburn
1955
Musée de l’Elysée
© 2013 Philippe Halsman Archive / Magnum Photos
Philippe Halsman (American, 1906-1979)
Sammy Davis Jr
1965
Musée de l’Elysée
© 2013 Philippe Halsman Archive / Magnum Photos
Presentation of the exhibition
In 1921, Philippe Halsman found his father’s old camera, and spoke of a “miracle” when he developed his first glass plates in the family’s bathroom sink. He was 15 years old, and this was the first encounter with photography of someone who was to become one of the leading photographers of the 20th century. This exhibition, produced by the Musée de l’Elysée in collaboration with the Philippe Halsman Archive, showcases the American photographer’s entire career for the first time, from his beginnings in Paris in the 1930s to the tremendous success of his New York studio between 1940 and 1970.
Halsman was able to go to Paris thanks to the support of French minister Paul Painlevé – whose son Jean, a scientific filmmaker, gave him one of the best cameras of the time upon his arrival. He remained in Paris for ten years, until 1940. Over that period, he collaborated with the magazines Vogue, Vu and Voilà and created portraits of numerous celebrities like Marc Chagall, Le Corbusier and André Malraux. He exhibited his work several times at the avant-garde Pléiade gallery, alongside photographers like Laure Albin Guillot, whose work was exhibited at Musée de l’Elysée in 2013.
Fleeing Nazism, he left Paris in 1940 and moved to New York. There, he worked for many American magazines including Life, which brought him into contact with the century’s top celebrities – Marilyn Monroe, Rita Hayworth, Duke Ellington, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Richard Nixon, Albert Einstein to name only a few. Halsman shot 101 covers for Life magazine. Far from restricting himself to photographing celebrities, throughout his whole life Halsman never stopped experimenting and pushing the limits of his medium. He collaborated with Salvador Dalà for over thirty years and invented ‘jumpology’, which consisted in photographing personalities in the middle of jumping, offering a more natural, spontaneous portrait of his subjects.
The exhibition Philippe Halsman, Astonish me! is divided into four sections illustrating memorable periods, collaborations and themes in the photographer’s work and life.
Philippe Halsman (American, 1906-1979)
Expérimentation pour un portrait de femme (Experimentation for a portrait of a woman)
1931-1940
Musée de l’Elysée
© 2013 Philippe Halsman Archive / Magnum Photos
Philippe Halsman (American, 1906-1979)
Affiche exposition Pleiade (Poster for exhibition at La Pléiade gallery)
1936
Musée de l’Elysée
© 2013 Philippe Halsman Archive / Magnum Photos
“When I arrived in America in 1940 I had to adapt to the American style, that is to say, produce photographs that were technically perfect, clear, precise and properly modelled by the light without being distorted. Once, to accentuate the coldness of a rainy landscape I added a blue gelatin to my transparent film. Wilson Hicks took this gelatin off saying: ‘You’re cheating, Philippe’. Any hint of artifice was considered dishonest.”
Philippe Halsman
Paris in the 1930s
Philippe Halsman was born in Riga, Latvia in 1906. When he was 22, his father died in a hiking accident in Austrian Tyrol, and Philippe Halsman was wrongly convicted of his murder in a highly anti-Semitic climate. He was freed thanks to his sister’s support; she organised the support of prominent European intellectuals, who endorsed his innocence.
He went to Paris, where he began his career as a photographer, quickly distinguishing himself through his portrait technique. He explored various genres, such as views of Paris, nudes and fashion. His work was exhibited three times at the La Pléiade gallery, a famous avant-garde gallery where artists like Man Ray, André Kertész and Brassaï presented their works.
Focus on La Pléiade gallery
Founded by publisher Jacques Schiffrin in the spring of 1931 and located in the heart of the Latin Quarter, this art gallery was one of the first to present photographic exhibitions, and it started specialising in this field in April 1933 under directorship of Rose Sévèk. Dedicated to contemporary photography, the program incorporated its new practices and applications. It was one of the places where New Photography was promoted in the form of solo, group or thematic exhibitions.
It was probably through his friend Jean Painlevé that Halsman entered in contact with La Pléiade gallery. He was given a first solo exhibition, Portraits and Nudes, which ran from March 28 to April 30, 1936. The following year, his name became associated with the New Vision movement in the context of two group exhibitions: Portraits of Writers (April 17 to May 14, 1937) which included Emmanuel Sougez, Rogi André, Roger Parry and others; La Parisienne de 1900… à 1937 (June 4-30, 1937), which included photographs by Florence Henri and Maurice Tabard. It was one of the last exhibitions at the gallery, which was sold a few months later in October, to Paul Magné.
Having initially been unable to flee wartime Paris, Halsman finally received an emergency visa in 1940 thanks to a letter from Albert Einstein to Eleanor Roosevelt, making it possible for him to join his family, who had left six months earlier.
Philippe Halsman (American, 1906-1979)
Marilyn Monroe jump
1959
Musée de l’Elysée
© 2013 Philippe Halsman Archive / Magnum Photos
Philippe Halsman (American, 1906-1979)
Marilyn Monroe jump
1959
Musée de l’Elysée
© 2013 Philippe Halsman Archive / Magnum Photos
“Of the group of starlets only Marilyn emerged. Still photographers discovered her natural talent for flirting with the camera lens, and her blond looks of instant availability made her America’s most popular pin-up girl. Marilyn felt that the lens was not just a glass eye, but the symbol of the eyes of millions of men. She knew how to woo this lens better than any actress I ever photographed.”
Philippe Halsman
Portraits
Champion of the direct approach, Philippe Halsman also experimented with a wide range of techniques in order to capture the essence of his subjects and express their individuality. Many portraits became iconic images such as his 101 Life magazine covers.
Focus on Marilyn Monroe
Philippe Halsman photographed Marilyn Monroe on several occasions between 1949 and 1959. This important corpus traces the actress’s career and reveals the photographer’s varied approach during this period. In the autumn of 1949, Halsman was sent to Hollywood by Life magazine to do a report on eight young models embarking on acting careers. Halsman photographed them in four scenes he imposed (the approach of a monster, embracing a lover, reacting to a funny story and drinking a favourite drink). He quickly noticed the talents of the young Marilyn Monroe.
This opinion was confirmed three years later when Life commissioned him to do a feature on the actress entitled “The Talk of Hollywood”. These shots, some in colour and some in black and white, illustrated the actresses’s everyday life and talents. She acted out a series of scenes, humorously presenting the different stages of the strategy she used when being interviewed for roles. Most importantly, Halsman created several emblematic images of the actress and helped promote her by giving her a chance to have her first Life magazine cover.
In 1954, Halsman welcomed Marilyn Monroe to his New York studio. Halsman’s photographs reflect the ‘sex symbol’ image she cultivated. However, he managed to shoot a more natural portrait of the actress by asking her to jump in the air. There was only a few images of this type because when Halsman explained his ‘jumpology’ concept, Marilyn Monroe, frightened by the idea of revealing her personality, refused to repeat the experiment.
It took five years before she agreed to go along with ‘jumpology’. Marilyn Monroe had become a star by the time Life magazine offered to feature her on its cover in 1959 to illustrate a major article on Philippe Halsman’s ‘jumpology’. She treated it as a request for a performance. Over the course of three hours, the actress jumped over 200 times in front of Halsman’s lens, in order to achieve the “perfect jump”.
Several times Halsman suggested to Marilyn Monroe that they continue this collaboration, but without success. The actress was then at a turning point in her life that was foreshadowing her decline. However, Halsman continued his photographic work on the actress by creating new images, or more precisely variations of portraits he had previously shot. These compositions – montages of prints cut out and rephotographed together expressing the idea of movement, or reworked images transposed in negative format are characteristic of Halsman’s approach in the 1960s. Ten years later, he created a portrait of Marilyn Monroe as Chairman Mao, as requested by Salvador Dalà during his guest editorship of the French edition of Vogue magazine (December 1971 – January 1972).
Philippe Halsman (American, 1906-1979)
Alfred Hitchcock for the promotion of the film ‘The Birds’
1962
Musée de l’Elysée
© 2013 Philippe Halsman Archive / Magnum Photos
Cover of Life magazine with a portrait of Marilyn Monroe jumping by Philippe Halsman, November 9, 1959
Musée de l’Elysée
© 2013 Philippe Halsman Archive / Magnum Photos
Mises en scène
Halsman was often commissioned to photograph the contemporary art scene for magazines including dance, cinema and theatre. Collaborations with artists were important in Halsman’s career and inspired performances resulting in picture stories or striking individual images.
Focus on ‘Jumpology’
In 1950, Halsman invented ‘jumpology’, a new way of creating spontaneous, authentic portraits: “When you ask a person to jump, his attention is mostly directed toward the act of jumping and the mask falls so that the real person appears”. Over a period of ten years, Halsman created an extraordinary gallery of portraits of American society.
Containing over 170 portraits, Philippe Halsman’s Jump Book illustrated a new “psychological portrait” approach developed by Philippe Halsman in the 1950s. His method was systematic. During commissioned work, at the end of shooting sessions Halsman would ask his subjects if they would agree to take part in his personal project, and then the jumps were done on the spot. In this way he managed to photograph hundreds of jumps. Producing these shots was in fact simple: his equipment was limited to a Rolleiflex camera and an electronic flash, and as he pointed out, the only constraint was the height of the ceiling.
Although these portraits are characterised by their lightheartedness, Halsman viewed ‘jumpology’ as a new scientific tool for psychology. While the subject was concentrating on his jump, “the mask” fell, and it was this moment that the photographer needed to capture. Over the time that he was conducting this experiment, Halsman noticed the great diversity of the various participants’ postures, and discerned in these gestures – leg positions, arm positions, facial expressions and other details revealing signs of their character, expressed unwillingly.
The arrangement of the portraits in Philippe Halsman’s Jump Book illustrated these views. Halsman made a distinction in the form of two corpuses. First he presented influential personalities from different fields (political, industrial, scientific, theological, literary, etc…) resulting in a gallery of unexpected portraits that contrasted with their official image. For this project, Halsman also enjoyed the collaboration of actors, singers, dancers, etc… Conscious of the special character of their performances, Halsman assembled their images in a second part, categorised by discipline. This organisation was punctuated by various themes like American flamboyance, British reserve, and the eloquence of actresses’ legwork. The layout played with different photograph formats and assemblages.
Although it only presented well-known personalities, the publication nevertheless encouraged the democratisation of this practice: it ended with a photograph of Philippe Halsman jumping on a beach, with a caption asking: “How do you jump?”
Philippe Halsman (American, 1906-1979)
Nu au pop-corn (Popcorn nude)
1949
Musée de l’Elysée
© 2013 Philippe Halsman Archive / Magnum Photos
Philippe Halsman (American, 1906-1979)
Dalà Atomicus
1948
Contact sheet
Musée de l’Elysée
© 2013 Philippe Halsman Archive / Magnum Photos
Exclusive rights for images of Salvador DalÃ: Fundació Gala-Salvador DalÃ, Figueres, 2014
Philippe Halsman (American, 1906-1979)
Dalà Atomicus
1948
Musée de l’Elysée
© 2013 Philippe Halsman Archive / Magnum Photos
Exclusive rights for images of Salvador DalÃ: Fundació Gala-Salvador DalÃ, Figueres, 2014
Philippe Halsman (American, 1906-1979)
Épreuve préparatoire pour “Certainement. Je m’adonne personnellement à des explosions atomiques,” DalÃ’s Mustache
(Test event for “Certainly. I personally engaged in atomic explosions,” DalÃ’s Mustache)
1953-1954
Musée de l’Elysée
© 2013 Philippe Halsman Archive / Magnum Photos
Philippe Halsman (American, 1906-1979)
Portrait de Salvador Dalà avec casque de footballeur américain (Portrait of Salvador Dalà with American football helmet)
1964
Musée de l’Elysée
© 2013 Philippe Halsman Archive / Magnum Photos
Philippe Halsman (American, 1906-1979)
Dalà Cyclops
1949
Musée de l’Elysée
© 2013 Philippe Halsman Archive / Magnum Photos
“In the thirty years of our friendship I have made countless photographs showing the surrealist painter in the most incredible situations. Whenever I needed a striking or famous protagonist for one of my wild ideas, Dalà would graciously oblige. Whenever Dalà thought of a photograph so strange that it seemed impossible to produce, I tried to find a solution. ‘Can you make me look like Mona Lisa?… Can you make a man one half of whom would look like Dalà and the other half like Picasso?’ I could and I did.”
Philippe Halsman
Halsman/DalÃ
One of Halsman’s favourite subjects was Salvador Dalà with whom he shared a unique collaboration that spanned 37 years. Their 47 sittings, combining DalÃ’s talent for performance and Halsman’s technical skill and inventiveness, resulting in an impressive repertoire of “photographic ideas”.
Focus on DalÃ’s Mustache
As Halsman explains, DalÃ’s Mustache is the fruit of this marriage of the minds. They conceived this book entirely dedicated to DalÃ’s moustache, and created over thirty portraits of the painter absurdly answering Halsman’s questions. In 1953 Halsman realised that Salvador DalÃ’s expanding moustache gave him the “chance to fulfil one his most ambitious dreams yet and create an extraordinarily eccentric work”. Dalà was enormously fond of his own person and of his mustache in particular, which he saw as a symbol of the power of his imagination, and was immediately thrilled at the idea. To create a “picture book” containing an interview with Salvador DalÃ, Halsman reused an editorial concept he had introduced five years earlier with French actor Fernandel: a question asked of the artist was printed on one page, and the answer appeared on the following page in the form of a captioned photograph.
For this project, it was no longer just a matter of photographic expression, but of genuine mise en scène, combining DalÃ’s theatrical character with Halsman’s impressive inventiveness and technical skill. Halsman presented the book as a genuine collaboration between two artists, representing their mutual understanding.
Halsman photographed Dalà with his 4×5 camera and his electronic flash through many sessions over a period of two years. Most of the plates in the book are portraits of the artist posing in a variety of positions, playing with his moustache in various ways, accentuated by light and framing effects. Dalà was ready to go along with any whim to create the scenes: he styles his precious moustache with the help of Hungarian wax, and agrees to take part in incongruous mises en scène, pressing his head behind a round of cheese to put the ends of his moustache through its holes, or plunging his head into a water-filled aquarium, his mouth full of milk.
As for Halsman, he put a lot of his effort into the post-production work in order to give concrete expression to their ideas. It sometimes took a laborious process to achieve images like the Mona Lisa portrait, inner conflicts, surrealism or the essence of DalÃ, which not only required work on the print or negative (cutting, enlargement, deformation, double exposure) but also a montage and a new shot to create a negative of the final image. For the portrait of the artist in the form of a “soft watch”, Halsman worked around one hundred hours. He photographed Dali close up, then tacked a wet print of the image onto the edge of a table and re-photographed it at an angle that matched the angle of the original painting. He then cut it out, made a collage, and re-photographed it again – creating an image of Dali’s melted face. For the photographer, it was a genuine technical challenge, which he seized with patience and success.
Philippe Halsman (American, 1906-1979)
Like Two Erect Sentries, My Mustache Defends the Entrance to My Real Self, DalÒs Mustache
1954
Philippe Halsman Archive
© 2013 Philippe Halsman Archive / Magnum Photos
Exclusive rights for images of Salvador DalÃ: Fundació Gala-Salvador DalÃ, Figueres, 2014
The Musée de l’Elysée
18, avenue de l’Elysée
CH - 1014 Lausanne
Phone: + 41 21 316 99 11
Opening hours:
Wednesday – Monday 10am – 6pm
Closed Tuesday
Exhibition: ‘What Is a Photograph?’ at the International Center of Photography, New York
Exhibition dates: 31st January – 4th May, 2014
Curator: Carol Squiers, ICP Curator
Artist in the exhibition include:
Matthew Brandt b. 1982, Los Angeles; lives and works in Los Angeles. Marco Breuer b. 1966, Landshut, Germany; lives and works in New York State. Liz Deschenes b. 1966, Boston; lives and works in New York City. Adam Fuss b. 1961, London; lives and works in New York City. Owen Kydd b. 1975, Calgary, Canada; lives and works in Los Angeles. Floris Neusüss 1937-2020, German. Marlo Pascual 1972-2020, American. Sigmar Polke 1941-2010; Germany. Eileen Quinlan b. 1972, Boston; lives and works in New York City. Jon Rafman b. 1981, Montreal; lives and works in Montreal. Gerhard Richter b. 1932, Dresden; lives and works in Cologne. Mariah Robertson b. 1975, Indianapolis, Indiana; lives and works in Brooklyn. Alison Rossiter b. 1953, Jackson, Mississippi; lives and works in the metro New York area. Lucas Samaras 1936-2024, Macedonia, Greece; lives and works in New York City. David Benjamin Sherry b. 1981, Woodstock, New York; lives and works in Los Angeles. Travess Smalley b. 1986, Huntington, West Virginia; lives and works in New York City. Kate Steciw b. 1978, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; lives and works in Brooklyn. Artie Vierkant b. 1986, Breinerd, Minnesota; lives and works in New York City. James Welling b. 1951, Hartford, Connecticut; lives and works in Los Angeles. Christopher Williams b. 1956, Los Angeles; lives and works in Cologne, Düsseldorf, and Amsterdam. Letha Wilson b. 1976, Honolulu; lives and works in Brooklyn.
James Welling (American, b. 1951)
6236
2008
© James Welling, courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London
A Vocabulary of Photography: representation and the original, the ‘I can’ of sight
What is a photograph? These days, it can be anything your imagination desires, any imag(in)ing that takes your fancy…
The images in this posting are a case in point. In a postmodern, post-photographic world where there is (allegedly) no centre and periphery, these art works are photography playing at the edges of photography. They examine “the range of creative experimentation that has occurred in photography since the 1970s,” reconsidering and reinventing, “the role of light, color, composition, materiality, and the subject in the art of photography.”
In an earlier posting I talked about A Vocabulary of Printing and the Syntax of the Image. Here we could equally posit a Vocabulary of Photography, a compendium of techniques and imaginings, noting that technology and imagination should never delimit the creativity of the photographer/artist. In other words visions, boundaries and technologies are there to be pushed!
All well and good. To solidify meaning in such a nebulous world, there is penchant for (ambiguous) numbers – titles such as 6236; Untitled (C-1189); 154 – or definitive titles that try to fix ambiguity in a specific time, place or typology (a classification according to general type) eg Image Object Friday 7 June 2013 4:33 PM, 2013 or Supplement ’13 (Mixed Typologies) #3.
However, what is produced by this experimentation, this voluminous vocabulary, seldom leads to satisfying results. When you actually look at this type of work, really look at it with a clear and aware mind (as Krishnamurti would say), a large proportion of it is blather, noise for the sake of making noise, tinkering for a terrestrial world saturated in meaningless images. No wonder I get disillusioned with the “contemporary” in photography. The art work seems to mean very little and takes me nowhere I particularly want to go.
While photographs are no longer necessarily “points of view” analogous to Littré’s rigorous definition: ‘The point of view is a collection of objects to which the eye is directed and on which it rests within a certain distance’,1 and “the image has nothing to do with signification, meaning, as implied by the existence of the world, the effort of truth, the law and the brightness of the day”2 – meaning that there is no single truth, there are only competing narratives and interpretations of a world that cannot be wholly, accurately described3 – for me there still needs to be a re(as)semblance towards some form of inherent truth in the image, ideally manifested in some form of human imagination, creativity and happiness.
The ‘I can’ of site (representation) / sight (vision) …
Dr Marcus Bunyan
1/ Virilio, Paul. The Vision Machine (trans. Julie Rose). Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994, p. 19
2/ Blanchot, Maurice. The Gaze of Orpheus. New York: Barrytown, 1981, p. 85
3/ Townsend, Chris. Vile Bodies: Photography and the Crisis of Looking. Munich: Prestel, 1998, p. 10
Many thankx to the International Center of Photography for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
“Vision is ordered according to a mode that may be generally called the function of images. This function is defined by a point-by-point correspondence of two unities in space. Whatever optical intermediaries may be used to establish their relation, whether their image is virtual, or real, the point-by-point correspondence is essential. That which is the mode of the image is therefore reducible to the simple schema that enables us to establish anamorphosis, that is to say, to the relation of an image, in so far as it linked to a surface, with a certain point that we shall call the ‘geometrical’ point. Anything that is determined by this method, in which the straight line plays its role of being the path of light, can be called an image.”
Lacan, Jacques. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis (trans. Alan Sheridan). London: The Hogarth Press, 1977, p. 86
“With the industrial proliferation of visual and audiovisual protheses and unrestrained use of instantaneous-transmission equipment from earliest childhood onwards, we now routinely see the encoding of increasingly elaborate mental images together with a steady decline in retention rates and recall. In other words we are looking at the rapid collapse of mnemonic [aiding memory] consolidation.
This collapse seems only natural, if one remembers a contrario that seeing, and its spatio-temporal organisation, precede gesture and speech and their co-ordination in knowing, recognising, making known (as images of our thoughts), our thoughts themselves and cognitive functions, which are never passive… (Romains, Jules. La Vision extra-rétinienne et le sens paroptique. Paris: Gallimard, 1964).
Everything I see is in principle within my reach, at least within reach of my sight, marked on the map of the ‘I can’. In this important formulation, Merleau-Ponty pinpoints precisely what will eventually find itself ruined by the banalisation of a certain teletopology. The bulk of what I see is, in fact and in principle, no longer with in my reach. And even if it lies within reach of my sight, it is no longer necessarily inscribed on the map of the ‘I can’. The logistics of perception in fact destroy what earlier modes of representation preserved of the original, ideally human happiness, the ‘I can’ of sight… “
Virilio, Paul. The Vision Machine (trans. Julie Rose). Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994, p. 7 (my bold)
Matthew Brandt (American, b. 1982)
Grays Lake, ID 7
2013
© Matthew Brandt, courtesy Yossi Milo Gallery, New York
Alison Rossiter (American, b. 1953)
Kilborn Acme Kruxo, exact expiration date unknown, ca. 1940s, processed in 2013 (#1)
2013
© Alison Rossiter, courtesy Yossi Milo Gallery, New York
Eileen Quinlan (American, b. 1972)
The Drink
2011
© Eileen Quinlan, courtesy Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York
Gerhard Richter (German, b. 1932)
18.2.08
2008
Overpainted photograph
© Gerhard Richter, courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery, New York
Kate Steciw (American, b. 1978)
Armchair, Background, Basic, Beauty, Bed, Bedside, Bread, Breakfast, Bright, Cereal, Closeup, Cloth, Color, Contemporary, Couch, Crust, Day, Decor, Fox, Frame, Grain, Ingredient, Interior, Invitation, Irregular, Juice, Life, Living, Loaf, Luxury, Macro, Sofa, Speed, Style, Sweet, Texture
2013
1 and 2 of infinite
© Kate Steciw
On view at the International Center of Photography from January 31 through May 4, 2014, What Is a Photograph? explores the range of creative experimentation that has occurred in photography since the 1970s.
This major exhibition brings together 21 emerging and established artists who have reconsidered and reinvented the role of light, colour, composition, materiality, and the subject in the art of photography. In the process, they have also confronted an unexpected revolution in the medium with the rise of digital technology, which has resulted in imaginative reexaminations of the art of analog photography, the new world of digital images, and the hybrid creations of both systems as they come together.
“Artists around the globe have been experimenting with and redrawing the boundaries of traditional photography for decades,” said ICP Curator Carol Squiers, who organised the exhibit. “Although digital photography seems to have made analog obsolete, artists continue to make works that are photographic objects, using both old technologies and new, crisscrossing boundaries and blending techniques.”
Among those included in the exhibition is Lucas Samaras, who adopted the newly developed Polaroid camera in the late 1960s and early 1970s and immediately began altering its instant prints, creating fantastical nude self-portraits. Another artist who turned to photography in the 1970s was Sigmar Polke. Although better known as a painter, Polke explored nontraditional ways of photographing and printing, manipulating both his film and prints in the darkroom and often drawing and painting on his images.
More recently, Liz Deschenes has used camera-less photography in a subtle investigation of nonrepresentational forms of expression and the outmoded technologies of photography. And, James Welling has created a heterogeneous body of work that explores optics, human perception, and a range of photographic genres both abstract and representational.
Press release from the International Center of Photography website
Letha Wilson (American, b. 1976)
Colorado Purple
2012
Concrete, chromogenic print transfer, and wood frame
Courtesy the artist and Higher Pictures, New York
© Letha Wilson, courtesy Higher Pictures, New York
Adam Fuss (American, b. 1961)
Untitled
1988
© Adam Fuss, courtesy Cheim & Read, New York
Marco Breuer (German, b. 1966)
Untitled (C-1189)
2012
© Marco Breuer, courtesy Yossi Milo Gallery, New York
David Benjamin Sherry (American, b. 1981)
Lower Yosemite Falls, Yosemite, California
2013
© David Benjamin Sherry, courtesy the artist and Salon 94, New York
Mariah Robertson (American, b. 1975)
154 (detail)
2010
© Mariah Robertson, courtesy American Contemporary, New York
Artie Vierkant (American, b. 1986)
Image Object Friday 7 June 2013 4:33 PM, 2013
2013
© Artie Vierkant, courtesy Higher Pictures, New York
Christopher Williams (American, b. 1956)
Supplement ’13 (Mixed Typologies) #3 (detail)
2013
© Christopher Williams, courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London and Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne
Jon Rafman (American, b. 1981)
New Age Demanded (The heart was a place made fast)
2013
© Jon Rafman, courtesy the artist and Zach Feuer Galery, New York
Floris Neusüss (German, 1937-2020)
Tango
1983
© Floris Neusüss, courtesy the artist and Von Lintel Gallery, New York
Marlo Pascual (American, 1972-2020)
Untitled
2010
© Marlo Pascual, courtesy the artist and Casey Kaplan, New York
Photo: Jean Vong
Owen Kydd (Canadian, b. 1975)
Pico Boulevard (Nocturne)
2012
Courtesy the artist and Nicelle Beauchene Gallery
© Owen Kydd
International Center of Photography
79 Essex Street New York, NY 10002
Phone: 212 857 0000
Opening hours:
Wednesday – Monday 11am – 7pm
Closed Tuesday
Exhibition: ‘Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris’ at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York / Marville research at the State Library of Victoria
Exhibition dates: 29th January – 4th May, 2014
Curator: Sarah Kennel, Associate Curator of Photographs at the National Gallery of Art
Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879)
Top of the rue Champlain, View to the Right (Twentieth Arrondissement)Â
1877-1878
Albumen silver print from glass negative
26 x 36.6 cm (10 1/4 x 14 7/16 in.)
Musée Carnavalet, Paris
© Musée Carnavalet / Roger-Viollet
Great news from the State Library of Victoria!
Following further discussions my research can now take place. As you may recall the research question is, did the Charles Marville photographs that were exhibited at the Melbourne International Exhibition in 1880 influence the work of Melbourne photographers – Charles Nettleton, JW Lindt and Nicholas Caire.
The plan is that I research the photographs of Marville, Nettleton, Lindt and Caire online and then visit the Library to view the original prints. The Library have very helpfully sent me records of the visitors book to the 1880 exhibition and noted that Caire, Lindt and Nettleton exhibited photographs and won awards at the 1880-1881 exhibition.
Further, here are some more glorious images from the touring Charles Marville exhibition, this time at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The tonality of the prints is incredible, as is the subtle placement of the camera to obtain a unique perspective of the city. The almost modernist take on the lamppost as sculptural object, with the dead centre placement allowing the surrounding environment to flow around the verticality of the post, is breathtaking.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to The Metropolitan Museum of Art for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879)
Banks of the Bièvre River at the Bottom of the rue des Gobelins (Fifth Arrondissement)Â
c. 1862
Albumen print from collodion negative
27.5 x 36.8cm (10 13/16 x 14 1/2 in.)
Musée Carnavalet, Paris
© Musée Carnavalet / Roger-Viollet
Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879)
Urinal, Jennings System, plateau de l’Ambigu
1876
Albumen silver print from glass negative
26.7 × 36.4cm (10 1/2 × 14 5/16 in.)
Musée Carnavalet, Paris
© Musée Carnavalet / Roger-Viollet
Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879)
Rue de Constantine (Fourth Arrondissement)
1866
Albumen silver print from glass negative
27.3 x 36.8cm (10 3/4 x 14 1/2 in.)
The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 1986
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879)
Passage Saint-Guillaume toward the rue Richilieu (First Arrondissement)
1863-1865
Albumen silver print from glass negative
31.91 x 27.62cm (12 9/16 x 10 7/8 in.)
Joy of Giving Something, Inc.
Widely acknowledged as one of the most talented photographers of the 19th century, Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879) was commissioned by the city of Paris to document both the picturesque, medieval streets of old Paris and the broad boulevards and grand public structures that Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann built in their place for Emperor Napoleon III. Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris at The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents a selection of around 100 of his photographs.
Marville achieved moderate success as an illustrator of books and magazines early in his career. It was not until 1850 that he shifted course and took up photography – a medium that had been introduced just 11 years earlier. His poetic urban views, detailed architectural studies, and picturesque landscapes quickly garnered praise. Although he made photographs throughout France, Germany, and Italy, it was his native city – especially its monuments, churches, bridges, and gardens – that provided the artist with his greatest and most enduring source of inspiration.
By the end of the 1850s, Marville had established a reputation as an accomplished and versatile photographer. From 1862, as official photographer for the city of Paris, he documented aspects of the radical modernisation program that had been launched by Emperor Napoleon III and his chief urban planner, Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann. In this capacity, Marville photographed the city’s oldest quarters, and especially the narrow, winding streets slated for demolition. Even as he recorded the disappearance of Old Paris, Marville turned his camera on the new city that had begun to emerge. Many of his photographs celebrate its glamour and comforts, while other views of the city’s desolate outskirts attest to the unsettling social and physical changes wrought by rapid modernisation.
Haussmann not only redrew the map of Paris, he transformed the urban experience by commissioning and installing tens of thousands of pieces of street furniture, kiosks, Morris columns for posting advertisements, pissoirs, garden gates, and, above all, some twenty thousand gas lamps. By the time he stepped down as prefect in 1870, Paris was no longer a place where residents dared to go out at night only if accompanied by armed men carrying lanterns. Taken as a whole, Marville’s photographs of Paris stand as one of the earliest and most powerful explorations of urban transformation on a grand scale.
By the time of his death, Marville had fallen into relative obscurity, with much of his work stored in municipal or state archives. This exhibition, which marks the bicentennial of Marville’s birth, explores the full trajectory of the artist’s photographic career and brings to light the extraordinary beauty and historical significance of his art.
Related Installation
Concurrent with Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris, a related installation in the adjacent Howard Gilman Gallery will be on view at the Metropolitan Museum. Paris as Muse: Photography, 1840s-1930s (January 27-May 4, 2014) celebrates the first 100 years of photography in Paris and features some 40 photographs, all drawn from the Museum’s collection. The installation focuses primarily on architectural views, street scenes, and interiors. It explores the physical shape and texture of Paris and how artists have found poetic ways to record through the camera its essential qualities.
Press release from The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879)
Arts et Métiers (Ancien Modèle)Â
1864
Albumen silver print from glass negative
36.6 x 24.1cm (14 7/16 x 9 1/2 in.)
Purchase, Alfred Stieglitz Society Gifts, 2007
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879)
Hôtel de la MarineÂ
1864-1870
Albumen silver print from glass negative
36.2 x 23.5cm (14 1/4 x 9 1/4 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Diana and Mallory Walker Fund
Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879)
Lamppost, Entrance to the École des Beaux-ArtsÂ
c. 1870
Albumen silver print from glass negative
35.6 x 25.4cm (14 x 10 in.)
Collection W. Bruce and Delaney H. Lundberg
Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879)
Spire of Notre Dame, Viollet-le-Duc, ArchitectÂ
1859-1860
Albumen silver print from glass negative
49.5 x 36.5cm (19 1/2 x 14 3/8 in.)
The AIA/AAF Collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington D.C.
Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879)
Rue Estienne from the rue Boucher (First Arrondissement)Â
1862-1865
Albumen silver print from glass negative
34.3 x 27.1cm (13 1/2 x 10 11/16 in.)
Gilman Collection, Purchase, Mr. and Mrs. Henry R. Kravis Gift, 2005
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879)
Rue de la Bûcherie from the cul de sac Saint-Ambroise (Fifth Arrondissement)Â
1866-1868
Albumen silver print from glass negative
32 x 27.1cm (12 5/8 x 10 11/16 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation through Robert and Joyce Menschel
Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879)
Cour Saint-Guillaume (Ninth Arrondissement)Â
1866-1867
Albumen silver print from glass negative
34.2 x 27.2cm (13 7/16 x 10 11/16 in.)
Gilman Collection, Purchase, Alfred Stieglitz Society Gifts, 2005
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879)
Passage Saint-Benoît (Sixth Arrondissement)Â
1864-1867
Albumen silver print from glass negative
36.5 x 27.6cm (14 3/8 x 10 7/8)
Musée Carnavalet, Paris
© Musée Carnavalet / Roger-Viollet
Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879)
Impasse de la Bouteille from the rue Montorgeuil (Second Arrondissement)Â
1865-1868
Albumen silver print from glass negative
35.9 x 27.7cm (14 1/8 x 10 7/8 in.)
Musée Carnavalet, Paris
© Musée Carnavalet / Roger-Viollet
Charles Marville (French, 1813-1879)
Man Reclining beneath a Chestnut TreeÂ
c. 1853
Salted paper print from paper negative
20.9 x 16.2cm (8 1/4 x 6 3/8 in.)
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1946
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street
New York, New York 10028-0198
Phone:Â 212-535-7710
Opening hours:
Sunday – Tuesday and Thursday: 10am – 5pm
Friday and Saturday: 10am – 9pm
Closed Wednesday
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