There are many reasons to go see Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop, curated by Mia Fineman, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Yves Klein leaps into the void and Lyndon Johnson’s nose grows long and pointed (would that this would happen to all politicians who lie to their constituents!). Fineman presents the work in thematic groups, such as “Politics and Persuasion” and “Novelties and Amusements. I went to see the photomontages of Grete Stern (1904–1999), which Fineman grouped under the rubric “Mind’s Eye.” I found one of her photomontages - there were two in the exhibition - on the same wall as Frederick Sommer’s iconic “Max Ernst” (1946), Clarence John Laughlin’s “The Masks Grow to Us” (1947) and William Mortensen’s “Human Relations” (1932). 1: Articulos eléctricos para el hogar (Dream No. 1: Electrical Appliances for the Home)” (1949) didn’t disappoint me. 44: The Accused)” (1948) is out in the hallway.
Bird of a death dream laughlin manuals#
I suspect Fineman separated Stern’s photomontages because together they would have overwhelmed and subverted what was around them.īefore discussing Stern’s work, I want to say something about William Mortensen (1897–1965), who was both a photographer and the author of numerous manuals and books, including Madonnas and Monsters (1936). BIRD OF THE DEATH DREAM PHOTOGRAPHY CLARENCE LAUGHLIN MANUALS Born nearly a decade before Sommer and Laughlin, and working at the same time as Edward Steichen (1879 –1973) and Alfred Steiglitz (1864–1946), Mortensen championed photographic manipulation over straight photography, and paid for it dearly.Īnsel Adams (1902–1984) dubbed Mortensen “the Anti-Christ,” which tells you how much he was reviled and feared by “straight” photographers.
In the ensuing argument between Mortensen and the purists, straight photography won out. In his seminal study, The History of Photography from 1839 to the Present (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1937), Beaumont Newhall left Mortensen out altogether. Now that Photoshop has become ubiquitous, perhaps Mortensen’s fortune will change.
Bird of a death dream laughlin full#
Like butterflies in the sun, they last a day, Gossamer particles of something in excess of us.īut those other tribes seem so full of emptiness The one’s that softly sing and dance, elven kin To those shades among the deep green woods, Maybe she’s right and I should listen more The darkness suits me better, in its absenceĪ momentary quietus where Silence speaks to me. Then fly away never to be seen are heard from again. Maybe we need the darkness to see the light?įire-spangled emerald wings glitter down… Posted in poetry | Leave a reply Over The Green HedgeĪ salient darkness casting its cruel gaze – Steven Craig Hickman ©2014 Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author is strictly prohibited. Note: do not take the persona here as mine, I’m objectifying from thousands of miles of traveling across these great United States the unknown tribes of dead whose only sign that they existed are small white crosses that exist on the side of roads in memory from one end to the other of our country. Reading obits and other things across the years one remembers so many stories of loss… obviously in this one I’m echoing that great poem by Dylan Thomas whose “Do not go gentle into that good night…” haunts its rhythms… so many of the dead wander in me I sometimes overhear things. I think behind most of my poetry is this secular vision of Dante, but instead of visiting hell I’ve learned to visit our strange histories like some dark progenitor of the madness we’ve become… for me even if transcendence is a illusion its one deep seated in our cultural inheritance and one that will not go away willingly even for such a secularist as I. Posted in poetry | 12 Replies Last Stop For A Traveling Salesman When one writes poetry these ancient ghosts of time play havoc on our secular presumptions, and they will not lie still in that darkness like silent victims no, they return on those unlucky days – what the Athenians used to celebrate as Apophrades, or the return of the dead I take the word from the Athenian dismal or unlucky days upon which the dead returned to reinhabit the houses in which they had lived (Bloom). Note: I remember when traveling salesmen with their sample bags were a mainstay of small town American and the smaller mom and pop shops across the country.
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