Unfinished Worlds:

MoMA: defining a city's way of seeing

I'd been having a long chat about Robert Crumb just before I went to MoMA, so this caught my eye...

A short post on an institution and gallery that, I feel, has a hugely significant place in the history of photography. The Museum of Modern Art has always been a champion of photography, in particular the institution supported the work and art of many New York photographers in the early to mid twentieth century, with the Cartier-Bresson's, Capa's, Weegee's, and so on, receiving cultural stamps of approval from MoMAs acquisition of their work.

This significance is noted by many, in MoMAs official histories (such as the Cartier-Bresson focussed, 'The Modern Century'), the foundation of photographic institutions such as Magnum, and the history of New York publications such as Life magazine. Through the acquisition of works by a wide range of photographers who can broadly be termed as 'photojournalists' MoMA underscored the significance and viability of this way of seeing the city and the world.

As a result, it backed a vision and imaginative geography which came to define the twentieth century in New York and the world at large. The effect on New York was particularly marked, with the way of seeing developed by these photographers still defining how the urban landscape is imagined to this day - as illustrated by the deployment of various photojournalist tropes in the New York Historical Society's 'New York Story' video.

Today the photography gallery at MoMA underscores this, without ever explicitly stating the significance of the museum and the gallery's history. To wander around the space is to see a succession of photographic works which defined ways of seeing in New York and in the world at large; ways of seeing which were supported by MoMAs patronship of these photographers and their perspectives in the vulnerable early days of their art.

Weegee: tabloids, murder and geography

Afternoon at Coney Island, July 21st 1940. Copyright, Weegee / International Centre of Photography.

Towards the end of a cold afternoon's wandering around they city I stumbled into the ICP and their current collections exhibition, 'Weegee: Murder is my Business'. The exhibition itself is very well done, mixing a large selection of Weegee's photography with a smattering of text and a small scene recreating Weegee's living space. The space is also very yellow, which screams twentieth century Gotham noir to the viewer.

All of this also draws a geographer's attention to the role of space and performances within space in the photography of Weegee himself. Weegee's photographs are deeply atmospheric, an effect largely created by his flash photography penetrating the darkness of New York's crime scenes but also evident in his lighter, happier and sensuous scenes of leisure and fun (such as the above of Coney Island). This atmosphere is partly created by Weegee's camera work, its incisive style and his ability to scale the city landscape in order to achieve the appropriate angle for the photograph to tell a story. It is also formed through Weegee's use of particular spaces to tell certain stories.

Weegee's photo credit stamp. From Wiki Commons.

As a result, certain areas of New York are associated with particular activities, Coney Island with fun and leisure, Times Square with high and sometimes seemy society, but everywhere particular senses of risk and danger lurk; lost children in Coney Island, shootings outside of theatres and so on. The overall effect is a complex sense of a sprawling city and its myriad inhabitants, one which is nuanced further when one considers the geography of publications in which Weegee's work was displayed; a wide spectrum from New York's papers and magazines to his own book, 'The Naked City'.

Weegee's photographs also illustrate to us how much New York has changed over the years, with many of the photographer's dens of depravity now sites of the high life in the contemporary city. This has been noted too in recent weeks by the New York Times Lens Blog and the post is well worth a look.

Geographies of Collections: things you find in libraries

The bowling alley at the Frick, photograph by Jake Dobkin (from an article in Gothamist)

For a place where space is at a premium, New York has an awful lot of things hidden away in nooks and crannies - and its libraries, archives and museums are no exception. I was given a tour of the Frick Art Reference Library; a fascinating piece of New York's heritage and research culture in its own right but made more so by the presence of the above in the building. While this photograph was taken for a recent article in the Gothamist the photograph I saw was of the lanes in their heyday, around the 1930s.

The question is, why are they there? I'm not privvy to the exact reasons, but it is interesting to speculate as to the role they play in creating a sense of place and significance within the collection. One thing that was clear from the 'Geographies of Collections' session I convened at the RGS-IBG last summer was that ideosyncracy is an important part of libraries, museums and archives. It is this element of collections which draws together complex groups of materials into research worthy collections through the passage of time. It also finds expressions in the housing of collections and these two things together can produce interesting thoughts and results in those using collections for their research.

Another important factor affecting the geography of a collection can be the role of collections and their houses as factors of social status. In New York, a city where culture and status are deeply intertwined, especially as opportunities to make and talk money, the ideosyncracy of a collection and its housing can be important social draws. As such, I suspect that the bowling lanes at the Frick have functioned as both an intriguing space for researchers, somewhere to stimulate new and interesting ideas, but perhaps more importantly they have been a space of intriguing diversion for patrons and business people affiliated to the Frick - a unique space to talk, and blog, about for years to come.

Curating Lives Pt II: Billy Bishop

Billy Bishop in front of his Nieuport 17 Scout. Filescamp, France (1917). From the Imperial War Museum on Wiki Commons.

Following on from a previous post on curating lives, Unfinished Worlds has its first guest post from Jerry Jenkins, Curator for International Organisations and North American Official Publications at the British Library:

The first time I heard the term Bishop-Barker I was thrown slightly; a voice in the back of my mind was telling me I know something about that. Then it became clear Phil was referring to the First World War aviators Billy Bishop and William Barker.

I could not resist following up on the recent post concerning Barker with a couple of lines exploring how Bishop fits in to this story of memorialisation. Memorialisation of these persons is important as figures such as Bishop and Barker were instrumental in developing the Canadian Expeditionary Force’s perceived prowess during the First World War.

As Bishop achieved success in the skies of northern France the memorisation started in earnest with the painting by Louis Weirter, An Incident on the Western Front (who at the time served as a balloon observer at the front).  This process of memorialisation continued in the following years, with a diverse collection of spaces and places that have came to bear Bishop’s name. In addition to the expected memorial plaques a wide range of institutions, from an airport to training schools, now bear the name Billy Bishop.

In this environment when critical questions are raised about a figure such as Bishop the resulting is an interesting and rigorous re-examination of the research to date. This was the case with the release of National Film Board documentary, 'The Kid Who Couldn’t Miss' and Brereton Greenhous’ 2002 book, 'The Making of Billy Bishop', which questioned the record of Canada’s most successful combat pilot. In doing so this exposed Greenhous to a “number of personal attacks”, according to Dan McCafferty whose tome, 'Billy Bishop: Canadian Hero' attempted to answer the claim that Bishop was a charlatan (in the second edition).

This illustrates the wide ranging manner in which memorialisation is used to not only remember the deeds of an individual; as well it is an important mechanism to develop discourses on how groups and nations engage with and reevaluate their collective memory of the past. Both Bishop and Barker made a considerable contribution in how Canada was perceived with their skill as aviators and aerial photographers offering new perceptive of the Canadian landscape in their short lived post war partnership (see chapter 5 here).

High Line: urban regeneration and photography

'High Line at sunset', my contribution to the huge image world of this post-industrial park.

I've blogged briefly about New York's High Line before but now I've had chance to go and walk it for myself I wanted to post something else about it. The space created by the construction of a park on an industrial derelict is spectacular, a great addition to the city and a new way of seeing it. It is also a haven for photographers and this made me think about the relationship between urban renewal and photography - perhaps even art more generally.

Contemporary New York is a photographic space, its streets, buildings and people are some of the most photographed in the world and unphotographed spaces are extremely hard to find. However, there are some spaces which, at any given point, are more in vogue than others and High Line Park is currently one of the most fashionable image spaces in the city. Indeed, during my short walk, on what was admittedly a stunning evening, this was evidenced by the large number of amateur and professional photographers working in the park's spaces.

Evening fashion shoot in High Line Park. Photograph, author's own.

This is a positive thing to see, especially when one considers how the space would have been related to by many in the city prior to becoming an innovative park space. However, it is worth considering the extent to which this bevvy of photographers is not just an outcome of the park's success but an active part in the physical regeneration of the space. In particular, the photographer has an integral role in creating a new imaginative geography of the post-industrial New York landscape.

Classically, the post-industrial imaginative geography is run-down, dirty, rusted and sometimes a dangerous space. What is interesting with High Line Park, both in terms of the physical design and the photographic tropes applied to it, is that it does not deny this previous aesthetic but works to remould it; rusted metal is replaced by red-orange plant husks, dirt is replaced by regenerative earth, and industrial clutter becomes a frame for impressive vistas. In this respect, Joel Sternfeld's work is an exemplar and set the template early on.

New York and the world's photographers have worked extensively with these tropes to re-situate the elevated railroad from rotten, derelict space, into a vibrant, hip, urban-renaissance hub, while not losing sight of the original aesthetic. As such, the photographer not only reifies the space but acts as a mediator in its creation and in the imagination of contemporary New York.