Wednesday 27 November 2013

Writing on the Wall

Writing on the Wall is a good read: well-written, entertaining, and informative. The point that the author is making could be summed up in this quote by Robin Dunbar: "Without gossip, there would be no society."

Mass media are a relatively recent phenomenon and only about 150 years old. Before that we had, as Tom Standage argues, social-media ecosystems. The first of them were the Roman media. "... the fortunes of Rome's vast territories depended to an inordinate extent on the personal ties between members of the Roman elite. Social gossip and political news were intertwined." Information was exchanged in person or by letters. There were also books but "no publishers, no copyright, and very few booksellers. Instead, books circulated from one reader to the next through recommendation and copying." During the Reformation, there were pamphlets, news ballads, and woodcuts. Later on, at the Tudor court, it was poetry that was used to communicate. "The circulation of poems in manuscript form provided a gossipy back channel behind the outward formality and strict rules of court life, and a conveniently ambiguous way to make political points." And then there were manuscript copies of speeches and parliamentary reports that circulated widely. And, again quite some years later, there were the coffeehouses, and ... in short: humans are wired for sharing and they do so with the means at their disposal.

When printing was invented and began to dominate the exchange of information, the agenda-setting became concentrated in the hands of a few. Eventually, the owners of radio and television took over and thus acquired a factual monopoly on the spread of news. This monopoly is now being broken up again by the internet. So back to the roots then? Not really for the exchange of social information in modern societies is hardly comparable to the one of ancient times. Nowadays, "various forms of media make possible gossip at a distance", to be physically present is not required anymore.

In Tom Standage's view, television has become "the most pervasive medium ever. The couch potato, vegetating in front of the flickering screen, emerged as a cultural cliché. Watching television, an entirely one-way, passive experience, became the very definition of inaction. Only sleeping involves less effort. The broadcast model considers the role of the radio listener and television viewer to be merely that of a passive consumer. This is as far as it is possible from a media system in which people create, distribute, share, and rework information and exchange it with each other. It is the opposite of social media."

Writing on the Wall provides a helpful perspective in regards to the role that social media play in triggering protests and revolutions. "Historically, it is clear that social media, in the form of pamphlets, letters, and local newspapers, played a role in the Reformation, and in the American and French Revolution. But it is also clear, from a distance, that its main function was to reveal and synchronize public opinion and expose the extent of the opposition to the incumbent regime. In each case, simmering resentments meant that revolution would have happened sooner or later anyway; the use of social media merely helped the process along." Agreed, yet this description of the impact of social media could equally be used to describe the role of mass media that produce often not more than loud noise that accompanies events that would also have taken place without them.

Tom Standage
Writing on the Wall
Social Media - The First 2,000 Years
Bloomsbury Publishing, London, New Delhi, New York and Sydney

Wednesday 20 November 2013

Henrik Spohler: The Third Day

It felt like watching a science fiction movie when I began looking at these pics, and most of the time I had no clue what my eyes were showing me. Take, for instance, the above cover photo: the composition, the colours, the soundlessness (that I imagine) fascinate me. Christiane Stahl writes in her introduction: "... a brilliant green surface composed of grapefruit trees bores like a spear point in between a heat-singed steppe and a rocky mountain range immersed in blazing light. Above, a resplendently blue sky utterly devoid of clouds takes up more than half of the image. The desert lives, but the water does not come from above. The question immediately arises: Where does it come from, the moisture necessary for life? And how much of it is needed in these regions of the world to produce a single grapefruit?" I like her comment. It wouldn't have occurred to me that I was looking at grapefruit trees, and I'm not sure whether I would have asked the (admittedly obvious) water question. I had simply liked the pic for aesthetic reasons ... which, needless to say, is often not enough. And, in this case, it is definitely not enough, in this case, I need the accompanying information.
"Grim, Uncanny" is Friedemann Schmolls contribution entitled. I'm sure that "uncanny" is a good and suitable word for what I should feel ... yet I don't. I'm simply stunned, and I wonder, and surrender to the trance-like sensations caused by the endlessness, the uniformity of these "non-places", as the French ethnologist Marc Augé calls interchangeable places that aren't connected to any particular locale. Uniformity isn't an expression of which we think in positive terms, rather it has a somewhat negative connotation. Nevertheless, it also fosters transcendence, as I believe Christopher Isherwood once wrote. For uniformity replaces our desire to be unique, special, and very different from everybody else, it might even make our egotism disappear, for moments, that is. However, this is not what these pictures are all about ...
Since pictures do not speak for themselves, and since photographers often do not contribute much to how they want their pictures to be understood, it is sometimes helpful to turn to the accompanying texts, if there are any. The two texts in Henrik Spohler's The Third Day are informative and, especially the longer one by Friedemann Schmoll, useful. They make clear that the photos displayed should make us ask questions. I especially warmed to this one: "There is only the slightest hint that it involves the farming of nature. And who is actually doing the farming?" And, "The earth is round. Why should it be hacked up into nothing but square grids?"

Henrik Spohler
The Third Day
Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2013

Wednesday 13 November 2013

Lee Miller als Modefotografin

Die Amerikanerin Elizabeth «Lee» Miller (1907–1977) wurde ab 1927 als Model von Edward Steichen und als Muse des Surrealisten Man Ray bekannt. Doch bald, sie lernte viel über Lichttechnik von George Hoyningen-Huene, machte sie sich selbst einen Namen als Porträt-, Mode- und Kriegsfotografin: Ihre Bilddokumente von der Invasion der Alliierten oder der Befreiung der Konzentrationslager Buchenwald und Dachau gingen um die Welt, setzten ihr psychisch jedoch sehr zu; ab 1947 zog sie sich vom Bildjournalismus zurück. Der nun vorliegende, reich illustrierte Band berichtet von Millers Tätigkeit als Model und als Modefotografin 1920 bis 1950. 
Selbstporträt
Foto Lee Miller, New York, 1932 
© Lee Miller Archives, England. All rights reserved.

Jedes Leben ist von Zufällen bestimmt. Im Falle der 19-jährigen Lee Miller hiess der Zufall Condé Nast, in dessen Arme sie in der Nähe der 5th Avenue stolperte, um einem Auto, das direkt auf sie zufuhr, auszuweichen. Der bekannte Verleger lud sie ein, ihn im Verlag zu besuchen und so wurde sie Mannequin. Einer Freundin gegenüber sagte sie über Condé Nast, er sei  "ein harmloser alter Bock", den man jedoch auf Abstand halten sollte. 

Lee Miller wurde eines der Lieblingsmodelle von Edward Steichen, "Nasts Cheffotografen und dem mit Abstand reichsten Künstler Amerikas. Neben seinem Jahresgehalt von 35 000 Dollar von Vogue und Vanity Fair verdiente er zusätzlich 20 000 Dollar als Art Director der Werbeagentur J. Walter Thompson (was einem heutigen Jahreseinkommen von etwa 7 Millionen Dollar entspricht)."

Kein Leben ist einfach. Doch manchen Menschen widerfahren Dinge, von denen andere glücklicherweise verschont bleiben. Lee Miller wurde im Alter von sieben vergewaltigt und mit einer Geschlechtskrankheit infiziert. Auch machte ihr Vater obsessive, zudringliche Nacktaufnahmen von der Kleinen. Dies scheint "Miller in die Lage versetzt zu haben, schon geringste eigene Gedanken und Gefühle auszuschalten, wenn sie Modell stand" und so zeigen denn auch die Bilder, für die sie Modell stand, "eine bezaubernde Entrücktheit", jedenfalls sieht das ihre Biografin so.
US-Soldatinnen bei einer Modenschau
Foto Lee Miller, Paris, Oktober 1944 
© Lee Miller Archives, England. All rights reserved.

Becky Conekin hatte auch Zugang zu bislang unbekannten Kontaktabzügen und Negativen, die, so schreibt sie, in der Modefotografie häufig die aufschlussreichsten seien: "In diesen unveröffentlichten Werken schimmert selbst in den gestellten Studioaufnahmen vor allem Millers wunderbarer Sinn für Humor durch. Verrückte Requisiten, die sie im Keller der Vogue-Studios aufgestöbert oder etwa auf dem Weg zur Arbeit bei Woolworths billig eingekauft hatte, belustigten sie ganz offensichtlich und weckten Erinnerungen an sorglose Tage am Strand."

Man findet viele gute Aufnahmen in diesem Werk, sei es von Lee Miller als Modell (unter anderem von George Hoyningen-Huene), sei es von Lee Miller als Fotografin. Ob sie wirklich zu den wichtigsten Fotografinnen des 20. Jahrhunderts gehört, wie Becky Conekin im Vorwort behauptet, ist schwer zu sagen, nicht zuletzt, weil man nicht so recht weiss, wie denn das überhaupt gemessen werden könnte. Wie auch immer: die Beschäftigung mit dieser informativen Biografie lohnt allemal. Auch weil man sich dabei trefflich mit spezifisch fotografischen Fragestellungen auseinandersetzen kann: Etwa: Ist Bildbearbeitung wirklich, wie die Fotokritikerin Vicki Goldberg argumentiert, "zwangsläufig Bestandteil" des Handwerks? Oder: Hat Man Ray recht, wenn er behauptet, Fotografie sei keine Kunst, sondern eine Form des Malens mit Licht? Und: Weshalb sollte das Malen mit Licht keine Kunst sein können?

PS: Im Juli 1945 veranstaltete die britische Vogue ein Galadiner zu Ehren Millers. In seiner Laudatio sagte Harry Yoxall: "Lees Arbeit ... verkörpert die Quintessenz dessen, was wir während der letzten fünf Jahre mit Vogue erreichen wollten: eine Welt im Kriegszustand abbilden und unsere Leserinnen dazu ermutigen, ihre Rolle darin einzunehmen und sich nicht von Tod und Zerstörung unterkriegen zu lassen, sondern zu erkennen, dass dies nicht alles ist, dass Geschmack und Schönheit bleibende Werte darstellen." Und genau dies kann man in den in diesem Buch versammelten Modeaufnahmen erkennen.

Becky E. Conekin
Lee Miller
Fotografin, Muse, Model
Scheidegger & Spiess, Zürich 2013

Wednesday 6 November 2013

Peter Beard

©Peter Beard, Courtesy of Peter Beard Studio

This is an extraordinary book  it is heavy (5 kilos on my scale), a stunning mix of pictures, a celebration of colours. In case you are   like me   not familiar with the work of Peter Beard: this tome is an invitation into his very personal way to document his interests – from African wildlife to celebrities. "This extravagant and magnificent book is a work of art in itself", somebody at L'Express magazine penned and this is indeed very well put.

We not only get to see many fabulous photographs, we also are shown stream-of-consciousness collages and excerpts from diaries that are very probably not meant to be read but to be perceived as illustrations.
©Peter Beard, Courtesy of Peter Beard Studio

Peter Beard grew up in privileged circumstances, went to Yale where he majored in art and, when asked to admit "that some of your photographs helped to define the terms in which the paradise that was Africa continues to be seen", said: "Believe me, a lot of it was just blind chance – sheer accident. And I always hope for really good accidents." Right, but you need of course to make yourself ready for them.

The combination of images you get to see in this tome is truly unique: shots of models mixed with shots of wildlife, pics of elephants, of a half-naked model on a pile of books near a river, of a dog fascinated by a painting on the wall, of the young Rolling Stones on tour and on stage ... 

Owen Edwards detects in Beard's photography "a kind of madness"   and I certainly concur. The most obvious to me however is that Beard is an obsessive collector. Again Edwards: " ... models and Masai, politicians and pop icons, brassiere ads and bleached bones, lions and lunatics, crocs and self-mockery, soup cans and severed heads, private heroes and public enemies, rhinos and blood smears, strippers and starvation. In urgent fugues, themes appear, then recur again and again in seemingly  endless variations. Beard, composer and conductor, constructor of contradictions, binds everything with meticulous drawings, the needlepoint of compulsive handwriting, even the mysterious intrusion of his own hands."
©Peter Beard, Courtesy of Peter Beard Studio

 Leafing through this book is a mesmerising and mind-boggling experience although I had no idea what to make of it for most of the time I did not even know what I was looking at. Not that it bothered me, I did not feel that I needed to know what my eyes were showing me, I simply enjoyed the trance-like state that these images evoked.

As much as many of these pictures inspired my imagination, after quite a long while spending time with them I wanted to know more. The picture index helped  well, to some extent, that is, I mean what I'm supposed to do with "Detail of Diary Page (Since 1977)" or "Running Giraffe, June 1960"?  I did however also learn that I was looking at pics of Karen Blixen or of Bianca Jagger.

In sum: an impressive Gesamtkunstwerk by an obsessive collector who doesn't shy away from contradictions but celebrates them.

Peter Beard
Taschen, Cologne 2013