zaterdag 29 maart 2008

Review PIG 05049 and Checked Baggage by Christien Meindertsma Photography

PIG 05049 and Checked Baggage by Christein Meindertsma review by 5B4 ...

What do paintballs, plaster, industrial explosives, pet food, wine, train brakes, wallpaper, matches, photographic film, corks, bullets, body lotion, dog treats, fish food, cigarettes, insulin, heart valves, tambourines, bio diesel, sandpaper, cellular concrete, safety gloves, crayons, toothpaste, floor wax and a deep fried pig ear have in common? Christien Meindertsma lets us know in her wonderful yet somewhat disturbing book PIG 05049 published by Flocks in 2007.

PIG 05049 could possibly be one of the clearest expressions of the globalized approach to the complete use of an animal in the processing industry. The premise is quite simple, very early in to this book we are faced with a black-and-white graph which shows the individual weights of the skin, bones, meat, internal organs, blood, fat and miscellaneous parts of one pig weighing a total of 103.7kg as it enters the processing industry. Each of these individual weights is then distributed amongst the various products that an entire pig is used in the manufacturing. 2,301g of skin goes into the manufacturing of a typical Valentines Day "love heart" candy. 2,6134 g of skin goes into making gelatin that is used as a clarifying agent in wine. 17,572 g of bone ash from pig bones is used in the production of train brakes in Germany. Insulin, used to treat diabetics, can be produced from the pancreas of the pig which is the closest human insulin in terms of structure. Blasting gelatine, which derives from the processing of pig bones, goes into creating powerful industrial explosives. The book itself is not only about PIG 05049 but it is made partly from PIG 05049 -- Usage number 71, "Bone Glue" derived from pig bones is used in book binding.

Meindertsma is an industrial designer and artist whose interest in this project was to trace the invisible connections between the raw material and the eventual consumers. As she explains, "In a strongly globalized world, it is becoming increasingly difficult to trace these lines and due to the increasing scope and complexity of the meat processing industry, consumer has hardly any idea of the route and animal takes to its various finished products." Although she goes on to say that this book should not be mistaken as a statement promoting vegetarianism, there is a surprising element to much of this information of what is in our consumer goods that it caused a similar reaction in me to that of the film Soylent Green. Through the 185 different uses illustrated, this book reveals man and science walking the fine line between ingeniousness and madness.

PIG 05049 is a perfect conceptual art piece and an exquisitely crafted object. From the cardboard cover with its embossed title to the interior design with thumb-tab indexed sections there is no part of this book that does not appeal tactually or visually. Lucas Verweij, the Dean of Rotterdam Academy of architecture and urban design lends a foreword in which he discusses the generational differences of ideas of complete animal usage in the processing industry.

Christein Meindertsma's first book Checked Baggage published by Soeps Uitgeverij in 2004 is another conceptual art piece that addresses another fascinating aspect of contemporary life.
After 9/11, Meindertsma purchased a container of a weeks worth of objects confiscated at security checkpoints in Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. Due to the heightened security, nail files, scissors, pocketknives, corkscrews and any other sharp object were not allowed in hand luggage. Meindertsma then set about categorizing and photographing all of the 3264 prohibited objects on a white seamless background as if for a sales catalog.

The resulting book of 330 pages causes the viewer to reassess these objects in terms of their potential danger in our post-9/11 world. The ability of a few hijackers to take control of planes with a few box cutters has now created an atmosphere where even a child's pair of scissors or a cigarette lighter is subject to deeper suspicion. Meindertsma's book raises this issue as many of the objects featured seemed to mock seriousness of the baggage checker's notions of what can be considered dangerous. In this new "war on terror" do these security tactics actually make us safer or is there a deeper, more sinister reasoning behind the continual screening and curbing of individual rights for the sake of the greater "good?" Like PIG 05049, this book is also about a kind of madness.

Checked Baggage: 3264 Prohibited Items is another example of fine design and book craft. Appropriately made to feel more like a catalog, one could easily imagine a copy sitting next to the x-ray screener as a reference book of items to watch out for -- or perhaps someday when clear heads prevail -- it could serve as a barometer of our current state of paranoia.

This book has now become very scarce and valuable as it was featured in Parr/Badger volume 2 but should you find a copy while vacationing do not try to take this on board an airplane in your hand baggage. Each copy of Checked Baggage comes packaged with one of the 'prohibited items' that appears in the photographs. That would turn this conceptual art book into an on-site performance piece as the baggage screener -- seeing the ingeniousness of your intent to smuggle a dangerous art object on-board -- re-confiscates the 'prohibited item' and sends you onto the plane safe and sound, and cleared of suspicion.

See for more Christien Meindertsma & www.theseflocks.com

donderdag 27 maart 2008

Young & Hip in Lhasa Tibet Kadir van Lohuizen Photography


A New Tibet
As the modern world and information age crashes down the mountains, the once isolated land struggles to maintain its ancient Buddhist traditions. Photographs by Kadir van Lohuizen / Noor for TIME

See for more Kadir van Lohuizen ... & Photographer Kadir van Lohuizen talks about Darfur's killing fields ...

Young & Hip in Lhasa Tibet Kadir van Lohuizen Photography


A New Tibet
As the modern world and information age crashes down the mountains, the once isolated land struggles to maintain its ancient Buddhist traditions. Photographs by Kadir van Lohuizen / Noor for TIME

See for more Kadir van Lohuizen ... & Photographer Kadir van Lohuizen talks about Darfur's killing fields ...

woensdag 26 maart 2008

Jan Bons Bruynzeel de Jong van Dam PTT Matex Graphic Design & Company Photography


The Dutch graphic designer and artist Jan Bons turns 90 this April and to celebrate this milestone the designer Lex Reitsma has made an 50 min. long documentary film about his life and work, and for the Kunsthal Rotterdam (NL) Lex has organized an exhibition showing 90 of Jan Bons’ posters.

Although multi-talented it is the graphic design work of Jan Bons for which he is most recognized. He has designed postage stamps, books, brochures, program booklets and many posters all of which bear a strong, self-assured, and non-conformist style.

Sandberg was an inspiration for Bons and this is evident in his use of torn paper, self-styled typography and the use of primary colours; it was Sandberg who suggested to Bons that he always use red somewhere in a poster design. Jan Bons’ posters are the work of a painter turned typographer; they are free, bold and very direct using a minimum of resources. Large, often hand written letters take the place of images and he never uses distracting decorations.

Throughout his career he has remained faithful to a small number of clients including the theatre groups Studio and De Appel, the ship owner Van Ommeren, the International Documentary Festival (IDFA) and the music group Nieuw Ensemble. For all of these he has made an extensive body of work and in several cases it became an integral part of their identity. His work for De Appel spans the period 1972 to 1996 and with it’s almost solely typographic presentation it became synonymous with the groups name. Bons is quoted as saying: “I have always been of the opinion that a theatre group must be visually recognizable in one form of publicity, be it posters, program booklets or advertising. A poster must therefore reflect the continuity of the company.

”The film ‘Jan Bons – a designer’s freedom’ is available as a DVD with English sub-titles and packaged with a small book in Dutch and English written by Paul Hefting; it accompanies the exposition of 90 posters in the Kunsthal Rotterdam from March 8th to the 12th of May 2008.

"Jan Bons - Ontwerpen in vrijheid" is een film van Lex Reitsma over leven en werk van de grafisch ontwerper Jan Bons. Het is een intiem portret van een bijzondere man en een groot kunstenaar. Lex volgde de bijna negentigjarig tijdens het maken van affiches voor het 25-jarig jubileum van het Nieuw Ensemble en voor het IDFA. Bons vertelt over zijn manier van werken, zijn vriendschap en samenwerking met Rietveld en Sandberg en over zijn rol in de oorlog. Daarnaast komen opdrachtgever Erik Vos, ontwerper en afficheverzamelaar Gielijn Escher en Bons' zonen Joël en Jeroen aan het woord. Lees meer ...




50 jaar Bruynzeel 1897-1947. [Text M. Redeke [Maurits Dekker] (firm's history). Photography Carel Blazer, Eva Besnyö. Illustrations, Layout: Jan Bons, Jaap Penraat]. Zaandam / 1947 / 130 p. / hb. / 33x26cm / 154 b&w photographs, in opdracht en uit bedrijfsarchief / bedrijfsreportage, documentaire foto's / productieproces, ontspanning, opleiding). - Ill. 20 color / schematische ontwerptekeningen en komische pentekeningen. / NN / Firmenschrift / Wirtschaft, Firmengeschichte - Photographie - Anthologie - Auftragsphotographie, commissioned photography - Nederland, Niederlande - 20. Jahrh. / Printed by Firma L. van Leer en Co, Amsterdam (offset). - Opdrachtgever: C. Bruynzeel & Zonen (50-jarig bestaan). - Voorloper van bedrijfsfotoboek met kenmerken van beeldverhaal. De indeling van het boek is thematisch, naar type eindproduct. In het laatste hoofdstuk is aandacht voor de sociaal-maatschappelijke kant van het bedrijf. De fabriek wordt metaforisch voorgesteld als een levend organisme.

De jong & van dam nv. [Text Jan Bons (firm's history). Photography Ed van der Elsken. Layout Jan Bons]. Hilversum / 1962 / 28 p. / paperback / 35x26cm / 31 b&w photographs / bedrijfsreportage en geënsceneerde foto's / productieproces en modebeelden). / NN / Firmenschrift, Festschrift / Firmegeschichte - Photographie - Anthologie - Auftragsphotographie, commissioned photography - Nederland, Niederlande - 20. Jahrh. / Printed by Steendrukkerij de Jong & Co, Hilversum (offset). - Opdrachtgever: De Jong & Van Dam NV (50-jarig bestaan). - Filmisch scenario. De tekst is gezet uit de Gill. de jong & van dam is wat betreft opmaak, formaat en typografie verwant aan het eigentijdse tijdschrift Twen.

De verbinding. [Text Jan Elburg (essay). Photography Violette Cornelius, Eddy Posthuma de Boer, Paul Huf, Hein de Bouter. Layout: Jurriaan Schrofer. Illustrations: Jan Bons]. Den Haag / s. a. [1962] / 76 p. / pb. (sewn) / 24x20cm / 39 b&w photographs, 10 color, in opdracht en afkomstig uit het bedrijfsarchief en uit archieven van fotografen / documentaire -, geënsceneerde - en productfoto's / 'De verbinding' tussen mensen. - Ill. 9, b&w photographs / telefoondoodels, atoommopjes en striptekeningen). / NN / Firmenschrift / Photographie - Anthologie - Auftragsphotographie, commissioned photography - Nederland, Niederlande - 20. Jahrh. / Printed by Steendrukkerij de Jong & Co, Hilversum (offset). - Opdrachtgever: Staatsbedrijf der PTT (ingebruikneming). - Filmisch scenario. De tekst is gezet uit de Courier. Evenals de jong & van dam (1962) is De verbinding informeel van karakter. Beide zijn gedrukt in punt-op-punt-vernis. J. Schrofer werd voor de samenstelling ervan benaderd na contact met P. Brattinga. S. den Hartog had de leiding over de productie. Portretten van de samenstellers staan op het voorplat. Er bestaat een Engelstalige editie onder de titel The Connection. De uitgave bevat 10 uitslaande pagina's.


Nieuwe Matex / Amatex. [Text (voorlichting). Photography Carel Blazer, Frits Rotgans et al. Layout Jan Bons]. Rotterdam / s. a. [1965] / 38 p. / Obr. / 24x24cm / 35 b&w photographs / bedrijfsreportage / Rotterdamse Botlek, opslag en transport, pijpleidingen. - Ill. 3 color / landkaarten met waterwegen). / NN / Firmenschrift / Photographie - Anthologie - Auftragsphotographie, commissioned photography - Nederland, Niederlande - 20. Jahrh. / Printed by Joh. Enschedé en Zonen, Haarlem (boekdruk en offset). - Opdrachtgever: Matex / Van Ommeren-concern, Rotterdam (voorlichting). - Kenmerken van filmisch scenario. De opmaak van de Engels-, Duits- en Nederlandstalige uitgave is verwant aan die van De jong & van dam (1962) en bevat panoramische foto's en een bedrukte transparante pagina.





dinsdag 25 maart 2008

Dutch Eyes Mark Kolthoff & de Nieuwe Fotografie in Nederland Photography


Photography Mark Kolthoff, lees meer ...


Andriesse, Emmy (NL, 1914-1953) ; Besnyö, Eva (H/NL, 1910-2003) ; Blans, Nico Jan Marie (NL, 1917) named Nic ; Blazer, Carel (NL, 1911-1980) ; Blumenfeld, Erwin (D/USA, 1897-1969) ; Breijer, Charles (NL, 1914) ; Brusse, Wim (NL, 1910-1978) ; Cahn, Henny (NL, 1908) ; Citroen, Paul (D/NL, 1896-1983) ; Doesburg, Theo van (NL, 1883-1931) ; Domela, César (NL/F, 1900-1993) ps. of Domela Nieuwenhuis, César ; Elenbaas, Wally (NL, 1912) ps. of Valdemar Hansen ; Elffers, Dick (NL, 1910-1990) ; Fernhout, John (NL, 1913-1987) ; Graaff, Cok de (NL, 1904-1988) ; Guermonprez, Paul (B/NL, 1908-1944) ; Haas, Nico de (NL, 1907) ps. of Elkar Nickel van Santduyn ; Hartland, Paul (NL, 1910-1991) ; Hellebrekers, Fons (NL, 1901-1994) ; Horst, Henk van der (NL, 1912-1942) ; Huizinga, Menno (NL, 1907-1947) ; Kamman, Jan (NL, 1898-1983) ; Kiljan, Gerrit (NL, 1891-1968) ; Kleijn, Karel Johan (NL, 1911-1937) ; Kolthoff, Mark (NL, 1901-1992) ; Moerkerken, Emiel van (NL, 1916-1995) ; Ojen, Evert Marinus van (NL, 1886-1964) ; Oorthuys, Cas (NL, 1908-1975) ; Hajo (D, 1910-1989) ps. of Hans-Joachim Rose ; Salomon, Erich (D, 1886-1944) ; Schuitema, Paul (NL, 1897-1973) ; Suschitzky, Wolfgang (A/GB, 1912) named Wolf ; Tirion, Ing. Carel Jan (NL, 1905-1993) ; Wolf, Hans (NL, 1909-1992) ; Zwart, Piet (NL, 1885-1977)


donderdag 20 maart 2008

Magnum Vietnam Philip Jones Griffiths Photojournalism Photography

Philip Jones Griffiths British (Welsh), b. 1936, d. 2008
Born in Rhuddlan, Wales, Philip Jones Griffiths studied pharmacy in Liverpool and worked in London while photographing part-time for the Manchester Guardian. In 1961 he became a full-time freelancer for the London-based Observer. He covered the Algerian War in 1962, then moved to Central Africa. From there he moved to Asia, photographing in Vietnam from 1966 to 1971.

His book on the war, Vietnam Inc., crystallized public opinion and gave form to Western misgivings about American involvement in Vietnam. One of the most detailed surveys of any conflict, Vietnam Inc. is also an in-depth document of Vietnamese culture under attack.
An associate member of Magnum since 1966, Griffiths became a member in 1971. In 1973 he covered the Yom Kippur War and then worked in Cambodia between 1973 and 1975. In 1977 he covered Asia from his base in Thailand. In 1980 Griffiths moved to New York to assume the presidency of Magnum, a post he held for a record five years.

Griffiths' assignments, often self-engineered, took him to more than 120 countries. He continued to work for major publications such as Life and Geo on stories such as Buddhism in Cambodia, droughts in India, poverty in Texas, the re-greening of Vietnam, and the legacy of the Gulf War in Kuwait. His continued revisiting of Vietnam, examining the legacy of the war, lead to his two further books ‘Agent Orange’ and ‘Vietnam at Peace’.

Griffiths' work reflects on the unequal relationship between technology and humanity, summed up in his book Dark Odyssey. Human foolishness always attracted Griffiths' eye, but, faithful to the ethics of the Magnum founders, he believed in human dignity and in the capacity for improvement

Philip Jones Griffiths died at home in West London on 19th March 2008

Exhibitions
2008 Recollections - National Conservation Centre, Liverpool, UK
2007 Middle Years - Savignano Immagini Festival, Italy
2007 Middle Years - Trolley Gallery, London, UK
2006 Fifty Years on the Frontline - Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona, USA
2005 Fifty Years of Frontline - Denise Bibro Fine Art, New York, USA
2004 Agent Orange - Side Photographic Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK
1996 Dark Odyssey - National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, UK
1992 Retrospective – Madrid, Spain
1990 Retrospective - Photofest, Houston, Texas, USA
1985 Magnum Concert - Musee d’Art et Histoire, Fribourg, Switzerland
1985 Magnum Photographs: 1932-1967- Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York, USA

Books
2005 Vietnam at Peace, Trolley, UK
2003 Agent Orange-Collateral Damage in Vietnam, Trolley, UK
1996 Dark Odyssey, Aperture, USA
1992 Philip Jones Griffiths: una vision retrospectiva (1952-1988), Consorcio para la Organizacion de Madrid Capital Europea de la Cultura, Spain
1979 Bangkok, Amsterdam Time-Life, the Netherlands
1971/01 Vietnam Inc., Collier, USA; Phaidon, UK

Magnum Vietnam Philip Jones Griffiths Photojournalism Photography

Philip Jones Griffiths British (Welsh), b. 1936, d. 2008
Born in Rhuddlan, Wales, Philip Jones Griffiths studied pharmacy in Liverpool and worked in London while photographing part-time for the Manchester Guardian. In 1961 he became a full-time freelancer for the London-based Observer. He covered the Algerian War in 1962, then moved to Central Africa. From there he moved to Asia, photographing in Vietnam from 1966 to 1971.

His book on the war, Vietnam Inc., crystallized public opinion and gave form to Western misgivings about American involvement in Vietnam. One of the most detailed surveys of any conflict, Vietnam Inc. is also an in-depth document of Vietnamese culture under attack.
An associate member of Magnum since 1966, Griffiths became a member in 1971. In 1973 he covered the Yom Kippur War and then worked in Cambodia between 1973 and 1975. In 1977 he covered Asia from his base in Thailand. In 1980 Griffiths moved to New York to assume the presidency of Magnum, a post he held for a record five years.

Griffiths' assignments, often self-engineered, took him to more than 120 countries. He continued to work for major publications such as Life and Geo on stories such as Buddhism in Cambodia, droughts in India, poverty in Texas, the re-greening of Vietnam, and the legacy of the Gulf War in Kuwait. His continued revisiting of Vietnam, examining the legacy of the war, lead to his two further books ‘Agent Orange’ and ‘Vietnam at Peace’.

Griffiths' work reflects on the unequal relationship between technology and humanity, summed up in his book Dark Odyssey. Human foolishness always attracted Griffiths' eye, but, faithful to the ethics of the Magnum founders, he believed in human dignity and in the capacity for improvement

Philip Jones Griffiths died at home in West London on 19th March 2008

Exhibitions
2008 Recollections - National Conservation Centre, Liverpool, UK
2007 Middle Years - Savignano Immagini Festival, Italy
2007 Middle Years - Trolley Gallery, London, UK
2006 Fifty Years on the Frontline - Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona, USA
2005 Fifty Years of Frontline - Denise Bibro Fine Art, New York, USA
2004 Agent Orange - Side Photographic Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK
1996 Dark Odyssey - National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, UK
1992 Retrospective – Madrid, Spain
1990 Retrospective - Photofest, Houston, Texas, USA
1985 Magnum Concert - Musee d’Art et Histoire, Fribourg, Switzerland
1985 Magnum Photographs: 1932-1967- Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York, USA

Books
2005 Vietnam at Peace, Trolley, UK
2003 Agent Orange-Collateral Damage in Vietnam, Trolley, UK
1996 Dark Odyssey, Aperture, USA
1992 Philip Jones Griffiths: una vision retrospectiva (1952-1988), Consorcio para la Organizacion de Madrid Capital Europea de la Cultura, Spain
1979 Bangkok, Amsterdam Time-Life, the Netherlands
1971/01 Vietnam Inc., Collier, USA; Phaidon, UK

Christie's Fine Photobooks From An Important Private Collection Photography



Those of you with deep pockets will be interested to know that there is another Christie's auction coming up on Thursday, April 10, 2008. This is being touted as the greatest photo book auction to date. All of the 200 lots come from an "important private collection" in which some of the rarities of photography book history have been amassed and all of which are supposedly in very fine condition. What additionally makes many of these extra special is the fact they are signed or are association copies. For instance should you have an estimated $40,000 you might be the highest bidder for a copy of Brassai's Fine PhotobooksParis De Nuit signed to Andre Kertesz from Brassai. Oh -- and many come housed in a custom-made cloth folding box with foil stamped titles and information on the spine.

Christie's Fine Photobooks From An Important Private Collection Photography



Those of you with deep pockets will be interested to know that there is another Christie's auction coming up on Thursday, April 10, 2008. This is being touted as the greatest photo book auction to date. All of the 200 lots come from an "important private collection" in which some of the rarities of photography book history have been amassed and all of which are supposedly in very fine condition. What additionally makes many of these extra special is the fact they are signed or are association copies. For instance should you have an estimated $40,000 you might be the highest bidder for a copy of Brassai's Fine PhotobooksParis De Nuit signed to Andre Kertesz from Brassai. Oh -- and many come housed in a custom-made cloth folding box with foil stamped titles and information on the spine.

woensdag 19 maart 2008

Elsken Dijkstra Goldin Testino Weegee on BABY Picturing the Ideal Human 1840-now Photography

BABY. Picturing the Ideal Human 1840-now exhibition March 22 – June 1, 2008 and book

The exhibition BABY. Picturing the Ideal Human 1840-now is the first exhibition focussing entirely on baby photography. Probably babies are the most photographed subject ever. Strangely enough baby photography has never been extensively examined for or has never been main subject for an exhibition. The main theme of this exhibition is the idealisation of babies since the early days of photography until now. This will be illustrated through approximately 150 images by among others 19th Century studio photographers, 20st and 21st Century beauty pageants, babies in advertising and fashion series. The earliest works in the exhibition are daguerreotypes and salted prints; the most recent objects are digital works and 4D antenatal films. BABY includes work by world’s most famous photographers as well as amateur and studio photographers, and of course parents themselves. On show is work by Amy Arbus, Koos Breukel, Julia Margaret Cameron, Rineke Dijkstra, Ed van der Elsken, Henri Lartigue, Oscar Rejlander, August Sander, Mario Testino and Weegee. The exhibition will be accompanied by a book. BABY: picturing the ideal human 1840 - now

A silent witness to a world that has largely disappeared Kurt Lubinski photographer in exile Photography

AMSTERDAM (EJP)---The Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam is organizing for the first time an exhibition of photographs by Kurt Lubinski, a (1899-1969) German émigré photographer.

Although Lubinski (1899-1969) is relatively unknown, he gained a significant reputation as a successful photojournalist for his travel reportages in the 1920s and 1930s, initially in Germany and later in the Netherlands.

He began his career at the end of the 1920s as a photographer at the Ullstein Verlag in Berlin.

In 1933 he fled Nazi Germany and emigrated to the Netherlands. He received commissions from Dutch illustrated weeklies and was one of the first photojournalists to travel through the remote areas of the Soviet Union (Siberia and Central Asia), Africa and the American Deep South.

He also travelled extensively in Europe, from Gibraltar to the Shetland Islands. In the 1930s Lubinski’s photographs were among the first to acquaint the general public with images of strange cultures and exotic peoples.

Lubinski’s countless reportages, the texts for which he wrote himself, speak of his great empathy for the underprivileged such as poor Russian peasants, nomads in Kazakhstan, dispossessed Native Americans and black street sweepers in the USA.

People are always central to his photography. He observed how, throughout the world, the authenticity of age-old cultures was threatened by modernisation, industrialisation, urbanisation and political developments.

His photographs remain, in our age of globalization, a silent witness to a world that has largely disappeared.

Lubinski escaped to Britain before the outbreak of WWII and emigrated in 1943 to the United States where he abandoned photography. His archive was lost and his name fell into obscurity.

“The Amsterdam museum hopes that this exhibition will restore him to his rightful place in the history of Dutch photography,” it said.



The majority of the photographs in the exhibition are vintage prints from the collection of Spaarnestad Photo.

This exhibition from 7 March until 8 June 2008 coincides with the publication of a book on Lubinski by art and photography Dutch historian Louis Zweers.

zaterdag 15 maart 2008

Snapshots Of A Transforming Nation Dutch immigrants on Ellis Island Photography

Augustus F. Sherman: Ellis Island Portraits Snapshots Of A Transforming Nation ...

The 97 full-page, sepia-tone portraits in this handsome volume are heartbreakingly beautiful. They were taken by amateur photographer Sherman, a clerk on Ellis Island during the period of mass immigration to America in the early twentieth century. Most of his subjects were immigrants detained at Ellis Island for further interrogation; the flat, impersonal captions that describe them tell a story of their own: "English-Jews," "Moroccan men and boy," "Greek woman," and "Tattooed German stowaway deported May 11." First you look at the pictures; then Peter Mesenholler's brilliant historical essay makes you go back to look at them again with a fresh perspective: this was a period of fierce American nativism, when the huddled masses of Latins, Slavs, Jews, etc., were regarded as dregs that threatened Anglo-Saxons with "racial suicide." Does the focus on elaborate national dress in the photos reinforce stereotype and the same exoticism as in Curtis' famous images of Native Americans? In fact, some of the photos are of distinct types, but their body language and expression also make you see close-up the wrenching personal anguish, loss, courage, and hope. Patrons researching family roots will want to examine these images, but the book will be of equal interest as a primary-source piece of American history and as a way to make connections to contemporary immigration issues. An exhibition of images from this book will open in June at the Ellis Island Museum and will then travel around the world. Hazel RochmanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Throughout his tenure as a registry clerk with the Immigration Division of Ellis Island, Augustus F. Sherman systematically photographed more than 200 families, groups, and individuals while they were being held by customs for special investigations. This volume collects and provides an essential revaluation of Sherman’s striking portraits, which predate August Sander’s cataloging efforts by several years. A historical document of unprecedented worth, Augustus F. Sherman: Ellis Island Portraits includes almost one-hundred portraits taken from 1904 through 1920. The subjects are frequently dressed in elaborate national costumes or folk dress, emphasizing the variety and richness of the cultural heritage that came together to form the United States. Romanian shepherds, German stowaways, Russian vegetarians, Greek priests, and Ghanaian women in elaborately patterned dresses, are treated with equal gravitas. The resulting body of work presents a unique and powerful picture of the stream of immigrants who came through Ellis Island.

In its time, the material contributed to the larger project of ethnographic categorization and typology typical of the early twentieth century, much as Edward S. Curtis’s portraits romanticized the “last Indians” or John Thomson’s “Street Life in London” identified and codified social class in the late 1800s. Though originally taken for his own personal study, Sherman’s work appeared in the public eye as illustrations for publications with titles such as “Alien or American,” and hung on the walls of the custom offices as cautionary or exemplary models of the new American species.

In this book, Peter Mesenhöller, Research Associate with the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum of Anthropology in Cologne, Germany provides new critical context and analysis of this rich collection, but also addresses the individual images as powerful, engaging photographs created by a master portraitist.