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| 80th Issue, February 2002 | |
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| Don Manuel at the Getty Couldn't get there myself and so can't review this presumably important show, but two clippings came, one from the NY Times, one from the LA Times. Bill Broecker, who knows whereof he speaks, wrote this on a Post-It™ note stuck onto the NY clipping: "M.A.B. and his work can hold their own, but here is more evidence that the last people who should be allowed to talk about pictures are museum curators and newspaper 'cultural' reporters and critics."In deference to the first amendment I'd strike out "be allowed to," but would change nothing else. "Don Manuel" is all you need to say to a Mexican photographer. He will know that you mean Manuel Álvarez Bravo and no one else. That name evokes much love and respect. The clippings report that the Getty's show begins with a room in which four Álvarez Bravo prints are placed with "a dozen by his contemporaries", Tina Modotti, Edward Weston and Paul Strand. The story is more complicated than that, and worth looking up. Modotti brought Weston to Mexico and introduced him to Diego Rivera and other Mexican artists. When Weston was back in California a few years later, she sent him some prints by a young photographer identified only as M. Álvarez Bravo. Weston liked what he saw and replied, not knowing the young photographer's gender, with words of encouragement for "him or her." Strand, who also photographed in Mexico, had long been a protegé of Stieglitz, who devoted much of the last issue of Camera Work to Strand's photos in 1917. Not exactly contemporaries, then, except perhaps Modotti, who never got far past being a brilliant beginner before giving up photography to struggle for world revolution. You know, the one that took so long to run down and conk out. A pity, since her photography was so much better than her revolution. Not exactly forerunners, either, Strand and Weston, because Álvarez Bravo made up his own photography out of his own life, not having seen much of their stuff. Still, all three were very strong photographers and it is something to show in the same room with them and survive. The clippings concentrate on a few of Álvarez Bravo's most familiar pictures and tend to explain them in ways that show incomprehension. The writers reach for clichés and triumphantly find them. One, for instance, is much taken with a photo of an optical shop that was printed both right-way-around and flopped. Much is made of the shop-owner's name, E. Spirito. But Optica Moderna is no less mysterious unflopped than flopped. I imagine that the reason for printing it in mirror image might be to get people to pay attention to the words. Whatever, you can count on easilyled reviewers to single out the flopped version, because in it they will think they see a gimmick. Fortunately, the N.Y. one also quotes the photographer, who makes more sense. "Shoot what you see, not what you think. A photographer's philosophy should be not to have one." And - declining to explain a photo - "You bring your accumulated life to the moment that something sparks you to make an image. Everything influences you. And it's all good." One thing that is unique in his work is the sensitivity with which he uses words in and along with his photos. That mix is consistently right, poetic and evocative. When I met Don Manuel in 1987 I mentioned this. He surprised and pleased me by pointing out that the words he uses with his pictures always keep their simple literal meanings, so no further interpretation is needed. No wonder the mix is strong. He grinned and said, "Now that Ansel Adams has died, I am the oldest photographer." Maybe so. As I write this he is only 99-plus years old, but by the time you read it he'll have the whole 100. Viva Don Manuel. NYPL news After long and valuable low-profile service as curator of the New York Public Library's photograph collection, Julie Van Haaften writes that she has a new job as Assistant Director of the NYPL's Digital Library Program. She says she hopes to have good news soon about her successor at the photo collection. I hope it will be someone who knows and understands that collection and uses it as well as she consistently has over the years. Going digital takes her out of room 313 at the main library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. She is now on the third floor at 188 Madison Avenue. I wish her good luck with it. A couple of things seem especially urgent. One is to digitize as much as possible of the library's picture collections, an enormous task. Another, required by the first, is to do everything possible toward standardizing the digital recording of pictures. The speed with which new techniques and media for digital photography are introduced and become almost instantly obsolete and obscure is frightening. Changes in sound recording are sedate by comparison, but that problem is enormous, too. To give you some idea: A good sound library should hold and be able to play recordings on each of these media at the highest possible fidelity with the shortest possible delay: late- I 9th-century Edison- cylinder records, 20th century 78 RPM records and 33 1/3rd RPM transcription discs, 33 and 45 LPs, on-film motionpicture sound tracks of various types, wire recording, and a variety of tape recordings and CDs. Ideally they should all be recorded in high fidelity on some stable and handy medium which will stay readily usable for the next few hundred years (as print-on-paper media have done. The book is an advanced concept that needs only better paper and assembly than we have been using lately). Computer technology changes greatly in a year and a half. What was new 18 months ago is being discontinued now. Good luck with your data on 8-inch floppy disks. The 5-plus and 3-plus inchers are following them quickly into oblivion. It might be good to standardize soon on some kind of CDRW instead of abandoning all disks in favor of 11.3 mZx fairydustbags in the spring of 2005, then dropping those in 2007, and on and on. We need not only more memory and speed and storage room. We need convenient continuity. group f501(c)(3) A letter from California begins, "It is time for a renaissance of Group f64! What Ansel, Imogen, Edward, Willard and the others began in 1932 is being reborn for the 21st century as a national membership organization for photographers and everyone interested in creative photography. The essential ideal is to build on their legacy as stated in their manifesto-Group f64 'is favorable towards establishing itself as a Forum of Modem Photography."' Cut to paragraph three: "Group f64 is a nonprofit corporation organized under the Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation Law. I am pleased to report great progress since completing the articles on incorporation and by-laws. Our application for 501(c)(3) federal tax exempt status is pending. We have an office, a website under construction and a great business plan." Cut again to the PS: "If you know someone who loves photography and might be able to make a major donation, please let me know. To be successful from the start we must be appropriately capitalized." I think this translates as, We need a lot of money. I can't quite imagine what Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Edward Weston, Willard Van Dyke and the rest would think of this as a sort of bureaucratic continuation of the group that they formed and soon let drop. Its aims seem far from theirs. To me it seems a joke in doubtful taste and judgment, coming so soon after the dissolution of The Friends of Photography, founded by Ansel Adams and his colleagues in 1967. However, this organization may conceivably do some good in spite of seeming a presumptuous parody of what was once, briefly, a serious group of rebellious, penniless, highly accomplished photographers. With that possibility in mind, I suggest that anyone who can imagine any member of the original group f/64 joining this new version ask about the costs and benefits of membership in Group f501(c)(3)-sorry, but I can't help thinking that's its real name. The person to ask is Jim Alinder, President and CEO, Group f64, A Nonprofit Educational Corporation Supporting Fine Art Photography, PO Box 449,39165 S. Hwy One, Gualala, CA 95445, tel (707) 884-4885. Photo League collection in Ohio I was told on February 12 that the Columbus Museum of Art has acquired a collection of pictures by members of New York's long-defunct Photo League. On February 13, a form came from that museum to sign about four photos of mine. I don't remember getting anything like this from any other institution that holds photos of mine, and I like what this form says: "[We] recently acquired [some] of your works of art. As you are aware, legal transfer of the works to our collection does not automatically transfer the right of display and/or reproduction of your works of art. "Enclosed, please find a letter of copyright agreement. This agreement allows the museum to place your works on display, to document the works photographically for our files, and to reproduce [them] for publicity or educational purposes. This agreement does NOT allow the museum to reproduce the works for sale purposes or to release the images to any third party publisher without your express permission. Please strike out any sections that do not meet your approval and return the signed and dated form to the Registrar. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us." Nothing had to be struck out. It's signed by the museum's registrar. In case you are curious, here's how they listed my four photos: "Car and Highway, Nebraska by VestalNone of these identifies its photo positively, so I have asked for photocopies of the prints so I can bring my records up to date. I appreciate their courtesy in asking permission to do the harmless things that others do without asking, and, more, in recognizing what they must not do. They add: "The undersigned retains any and all other rights in the works." Yes, I do. The Columbus Art Museum is at 480 E. Broad St., Columbus OH 43215-3886, tel (614) 221-6801; fax (614) 221-0226. Hoboken Almanac The Hoboken Almanac is an e-journal of photography started by Benedict J. Fernandez, I don't know exactly when. Lately Ben asked, "May we carry GRUMP online?" I am offline by considered choice, but said, "Why not?" A recent undated printout from the HA says, re GRUMP, "We've decided to put excerpts from past issues and the latest issue online. They'll be up in a couple of weeks..." Another printout carries a long, informative interview with veteran photographer Jack Welpott, who says what he thinks clearly and firmly. Admirable. Still another consists of ten of the interview questions that Welpott answered. I suppose other photographers will be asked the same questions: 1. Who are you, how old are you, and how long have you been in photography? 2. What other art forms attracted you? Do you work in other forms? 3. Why photography? 4. How would you characterize your style? 5. Where do you think photographs will go with the new image-capturing techniques? 6. What is your view on the ethics of these new techniques? 7. What have you learned about yourself through photography? 8. If you were a teacher of young photographers, what would be your philosophy in the classroom? 9. Where do you see yourself within today's community of photographers? 10. How do you imagine your future as a photographer? [I can answer some: 2. What didn't? Yes. 3. Why not? 4. I wouldn't. 5. Much as before. 6. Media have no ethics. 8. Not a philosophy, an approach: encourage students to go their own ways. 9. Huh? 10. Printing. I'll never catch up, but I'll have a good time trying.] The printouts typically end with: "e-mail us at editorial@hobokenalmanac.com" new old news from George Gilbert George Gilbert is an old Photo Leaguer and a photo history maven. He edits Photographica, the quarterly of the American Photographic Historical Society, and has written books on photo history. He sent me some new stories about the past. Here are quick looks at three. Two are from Photographica. I think the third comes straight from George. The titles are his. 1) Discovered! The First Person to be Photographed! In 1994 a letter written in 1838 was found in the Joseph Nicéphore Niépce Library in France; a letter of thanks to Daguerre from Pyrélophore Niépce (a nephew of Joseph Nicéphore Niépce), who visited Daguerre while looking for a job. Daguerre advised him to get his boots polished: "You have to make a good appearance." You have seen reproductions of an 1839 daguerreotype by Daguerre-a street with trees and buildings in morning light. At a nearby comer we see the figure of a man who holds still while his shoes are shined. Thus he shows up in the picture; perhaps others passed too quickly to register on the plate. The shoeshine customer was the young Pyrélophore Niépce. 2) The Greatest Invention of the Leitz Family: The Leica Freedom Train.I'd never heard of this. In 1938, when Nazi persecution of Jews was intense, the E. Leitz Company of Wetzlar, Germany, arranged a legal escape route that carried hundreds of Jewish people out of Germany and saved their lives. George Gilbert's article tells how Leitz got the approval of the Nazis for this scheme to save people from the Nazis. It was brilliant, and it worked. It was known as The Leica Freedom Train. The story is too long to tell here, but in 1961 Norman Lipton was ready to publish an article about it. Leitz asked him not to. Leitz people who took part in the rescue were still alive, and the company feared retribution from diehard Nazis. Now all the Leitz people who carried it out have died, so the story can be published. 3) The Photo League Finds a Home. The Columbus (Ohio) Museum of Art bought prints by Photo Leaguers from Chicago photo dealer Stephen Daiter. George Gilbert went to Columbus and knows more than I about this. CAM curator Catherine Evans is now in charge of these photos by 170 PLers. George knows of just 27 living PL members-we're a vanishing tribe. For the CAM address, see p.6. The American Photographic Historical Society and Pholographica [membership and subscription, $30 per year], 1150 6th Ave., New York, NY 10036; tel (212) 575-0483, fax (718) 549-0768. George Gilbert's editorial office is also at http://www.superexpo.com/APHS.htm | |
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