I approached Catherine Leutenegger's Kodak City by firstly looking at the photographs (and not by reading the intro). I very much liked what my eyes were showing me for these are the kind of pictures that I would have wanted to take myself had I been assigned to document Rochester, New York, the home of Kodak. I especially warmed to the pics (the one below, for instance) that depict completely ordinary scenes with a great sense of humour.
Copyright@2014 Catherine Leutenegger
Kehrer Verlag Heidelberg Berlin
When spending time with photo books, I often go rather quickly to the acompanying texts hoping that they will tell me what I'm looking at. In the case of Kodak City it was different, I felt mesmerised by the photos. I would like to imagine that this has essentially to do with the quality of the pics (and that of course is a contributing factor) yet I believe it is even more related to the fact that these pics are radiating a melancholy that I often felt when in the US and that Catherine Leutenegger captured supremely well.
Copyright@2014 Catherine Leutenegger
Kehrer Verlag Heidelberg Berlin
"On January 19, 2012, the Eastman Kodak Corporation filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. In September 2013, just months ago as I write this, Kodal emerged from bankruptcy, much diminished as a consequence of having sold off most of its patents, downsized, and reconfigured now as a new-tech company concentrating on developing commercial and consumer digital printers and inks for the publishing, packaging, and advertising sectors. An enterprise that for almost a hundred years ruled as the undisputed alpha dog of its industry has fallen abruptly back into the pack", A.D. Coleman writes in his essay "Rochester, New York: After the Kodak Century" (not exactly a spot on title for the text describes Kodaks's history) that introduces this tome.
Copyright@2014 Catherine Leutenegger
Kehrer Verlag Heidelberg Berlin
There are two more texts to be found in this book, one by Joerg Bader, the other by Urs Stahel. From Bader I learn, among other things, that Kodak did not consent to photographs on-site and so "Leutenegger shot outside the factory's boundaries and, via a carefully laid-out montage, brings the factory's surroundings and parts of Rochester into her book and her story." Stahel contributed quite some interesting observations ("We produce trillions of photographs, put them online, send then around the world at the speed of light - one of the great possibilities opened up by the digitilization of photography and communication - and nobody even looks at them anymore?") although they have not much to do with Catherine Leutenegger's superb photographs.
Catherine Leutenegger
Kodak City
Kehrer Verlag Heidelberg Berlin 2014
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