The Empire State Building from 6th Avenue and 42nd Street (near ICP)
Given the current preference for very large exhibition prints, the Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibit at ICP is exceptional in that most of the prints are no more than 9x12 centimeters--smaller than 4x5 inches. The prints were originally made for a scrapbook that Cartier-Bresson created to present an overview of his work in preparation for an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in 1946. His work was already well-known, but his whereabouts, just at the end of World War II was not. MoMA had begun organizing a posthumous exhibition when Cartier-Bresson emerged from hiding in France after his escape from a German prisoner-of-war camp.
The prints were originally pasted in a large scrapbook bought in New York and kept by Cartier-Bresson until the book's pages of cheap paper began to fall apart. The ICP exhibit is a reconstruction of the book--not the layout of the pages--but the sequence of images. In many cases, the sequence includes outtakes of famous images taken seconds or minutes apart. Choosing "the best" is not always immediately obvious, and seeing multiples versions of the same scene changes my way of thinking about these images. I am struck by the cinematic nature of his work--these are like frames of a movie--slices of life as it unfolded before him.
I've always thought of Cartier-Bresson first in formal terms, his way of framing and composing, which was groundbreaking, and although he has been described as a surrealist, I've never really seen much in that. These are purely photographic juxtapositions that lend a surreal aspect to some of the images, and such visual playfulness appears, perhaps, less startling now. On the other had, this exhibit reminds one that Cartier-Bresson was often working on assignment, and that stories were important to his way of working. Rather than random note taking, Cartier-Bresson was seeking a coherent, if idiosyncratic, narrative in his work.
Henri Cartier-Bresson's Scrapbook: Photographs, 1932-46, ICP
A few comments on the exhibition itself. Because the prints are so small, bring reading glasses, or even a magnifying glass. I saw a man with one while I was there. Make an effort to go when the museum is less crowded. Since people are almost pressing their noses to the prints, there's not much room to share with your immediate neighbors. On the Saturday I was there, the place was jammed, which I consider remarkable for such a serious minded exhibition. And finally, as I've complained before, you are not allowed to use a camera in the ICP galleries. I'm sure they have their reasons, but the ban on cameras seems particularly ungenerous in the context of Cartier-Bresson, a cat burglar with a Leica. The photo above was taken with my little black Ricoh spy camera.
I went up to ICP (the International Center of Photography) today to see the Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibit. It's actually paired with an exhibit of Martin Munkacsi, a photographer who influenced Bresson, and who became fabulously successful doing fashion and magazine work. No doubt, Munkacsi made numerous vivid images--dancers, athletes, and Nazis. The latter he treated with the same sense of style as he did the former. But it eventually became obvious that he, a Hungarian Jew, was better off working for Carmel Snow at Harper's Bazaar in New York. His best work expresses an optimistic sense of modernism and absolutely deserves to be seen.
Cartier-Bresson is the far more complex and important photographer, and I have a number of things to say about the exhibit and his work in general. A personal note, first. I began studying photography at age 18 with Virgil Rowe, who offered classes in his tiny clapboard house in Williamsburg, Virginia, the town I grew up in. Virgil was a photographer himself, though I never saw much of his work and can't say that it was exceptional. But he was an exceptional teacher. I learned basic black and white developing and printing from him--I can still remember fumbling with my first roll of film in the dark trying to thread it onto a steel spool. What Virgil did best, however, was to convey a sense of passion and possibility. He believed that photographs could reach the highest levels of art just like painting or music. And his favorite photographer was a Frenchman who I had never heard of named Cartier-Bresson.
Thanks to my first teacher, Cartier-Bresson became the photographer I most identified with, and his well-known concept of the decisive moment was something that I quickly and instinctively absorbed. Although I've moved through all kinds of influences over the years, Cartier-Bresson's way of taking in the visual world remains embedded in my approach to photography.
Just a quick post to note that we are now fully moved to New York and open for business. It's been a difficult couple of months locating an apartment, finding a school for our son Brendan, packing up in Amsterdam, and then moving into our place in the city. A few words of advice for furniture and household wares shoppers:
Forget Ikea. It's always tempting because of the low prices. But by the time you rent a car, pay the tolls, realize your car is not big enough so you have to ship stuff to NY, get a parking ticket in front of your building, and then--after everything--still have to put the stuff together yourself, well, just don't do it. There are alternatives.
Design Within Reach is a wonderful source for modern furniture. Shipping is inexpensive, unlike Ikea, and most everything is in stock. However, if you buy stuff on sale, make sure they actually have it. Twice, we had orders cancelled a week or more after the fact because they ran out of the items they sold to us. A customer service representative did not apologize and said that we were competing with hundreds of others for the same sale items. We had to order something else for more money. This is called bait and switch.
The Container Store is a brilliant concept, especially in an urban context, where space is limited, and people are looking for efficient ways to store, organize, and contain their otherwise unruly lives. Delivery is cheap and fast. Store personnel helpful and friendly. Go there.
End of public service announcements. Back to photography, etc.
Walking downtown through Chelsea–the Frank Gehry IAC building momentarily stands alone above the Highline rail viaduct and vacant lots. This is an area destined to change radically in the next few years. The Highline, which is being developed as an elevated slender ribbon of park (and other amenities) will be, if I may go out on a limb, the single most notable legacy of Mayor Bloomberg's adminstration.
I've been going through the negatives of my Lower East Side work, scanning promising images, and in general, trying to get a handle on where the project is at the moment. There are a lot of negatives. Some of the photographs show specific places or point to the changes occuring in the neighborhood. But others, like the picture above, are more about the feel and flow of the street.
Working with the view camera there is a tendency to overcontrol the frame--every line or patch of color is located precisely--and as a result the images can become static, emptied out of vitality. One way I attempt to keep things loose is to allow random movement within the frame, whether it's people walking, cars passing through, or simply the quiver of leaves in the wind.
Although the Lower East Side is a busy place with lots of people on the street, if you stop everything for a 1/15 of a second, the scene can appear rather empty. In real time, the flow of people is constant, and twenty people may go by in a few seconds, but in still photography time it may be two individuals, or none at all.
With a small camera it's possible to move with that flow of people and shoot rapidly. With the view camera I necessarily set up the frame and then let things happen within it. I wait rather than chase. What I strive for is the feel of spontaneity while still keeping a tight grip on composition and framing. I'd like the photographs to have some of the spirit of small camera photography while at the same time containing the consideration of detail that is only possible with the view camera.
Rainy day in New York. We're finally getting settled in after the move. Made a little excursion to the Noguchi Museum in Queens. Pizza for lunch. R train and a walk on Broadway--not the Great White Way--the one in Astoria.
On the way to the Noguchi Museum
Art on the way to Noguchi
More art on the way
We went to both Socrates Sculpture Park and the Noguchi Museum. The park is a somewhat ragged, but cool landscape dotted with outdoor art, originally created by Mark di Suvero, a master of steel sculpture. The Noguchi Museum is nearby occupying a brick factory building and a modern annex. It's a totally unassuming structure, almost invisible, among a motley collection of sheds and warehouses, many covered with grafitti. Within the museum, the city disappears, and one is immersed in the world of one of the great sculptors of the 20th century. It is well-worth the trip out of Manhattan. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures while in the museum.
A couple of months ago I posted a digital image of Essex and Delancey Streets on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Here is the 4x5 version, shrunk down and low-rez for the web, of course. This image and the following text is also on my homepage in the Outtakes section.
Essex and Delancey Streets (4x5 negative)
Rising out of the tumult of the Lower East Side amid the discount stores of Delancey Street is Blue, a condominum designed by architect Bernard Tschumi.
For the moment, sneaker shops and fast food hold sway–but for how long? The icy blue-on- blue, glass-against-sky, tower looms above the riff-raff and roaring traffic of the Williamsburg Bridge.
As I continue to photograph the Lower East Side, I return to such architectural icons, unthinkable just a few years ago, as touchstones of New York's present gilded age.
Running around town doing errands I snapped a picture of the ubiquitous hawkers of images and icons of New York. In this case, the Statue of Liberty against an American flag, Bow Bridge in Central Park with its backdrop of apartment buildings, the Brooklyn Bridge with the Twin Towers forever etched in the sky, and the Imagine mosaic in Central Park dedicated to the memory of John Lennon. The latter two depict relatively recent tragic events that have transformed the collective iconography of the city.
Sixth Avenue, Rockefeller Center
Architect Santiago Calatrava who has designed the PATH station soon to be built on a part of ground zero said this:
New York, in my eyes, was a young, very vital city. But suddenly with Sept. 11, after an enormous tragedy happens, things change. Suddenly New York is no longer a young city. It plays in another league now, like Athens, Rome, Jerusalem. A city that has been burned down and rebuilt. New York now has this depth. It is not the same thing to build here as it was before. It is like building in Jerusalem.
Fortune, 8 November 2006 Interview with Julie Schlosser
Airtrain, JFK Airport Life in transition. I'm back after several weeks of making the move from Amsterdam to New York. We are still eating on a cardboard box, but have generally made a successful landing in a beautiful apartment in the West Village near the Hudson River. For me, it's less of a momentous move than for my wife Renée and son Brendan. After all, I've been commuting back and forth between Amsterdam and NYC for a long time. For all of us it's an opportunity for a fresh start with new career and life opportunities. And I should now be able to pursue my art projects and architectural photography without the constant interruptions and dislocations of the past 10 years. I also hope to renew my ties with the New York songwriting scene that I used to be an active part of. So, stay tuned for lots more reports here and about town in 2007.
