Artist Complex: Images of Artists in Twentieth-Century Photography 9783110740165, 9783110686463

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Artist Complex Images of Artists in Twentieth-Century Photography

Studies in Theory and History of Photography Vol. 11 Publication Series of the Center for Studies in the Theory and History of Photography (TGF) at the Department of Art History, University of Zurich Edited by Bettina Gockel

International Advisory Board Michel Frizot Emeritus Director of Research at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS ), Paris Robin Kelsey Shirley Carter Burden Professor of Photography, Department of History of Art & Architecture, Harvard University Wolfgang Kemp Emeritus Professor of Art History, Institute of Art History, University of Hamburg Charlotte Klonk Professor of Art and New Media, Institute of Art History and Visual Studies, Humboldt University, Berlin Shelley Rice Arts Professor, Department of Photography and Imaging and Department of Art History, New York University Anna Tellgren Curator, Ph. D., of Photography at Moderna Museet, Stockholm Kelley Wilder Professor of Photographic History, Director of the Photographic History Research Centre, De Montfort University, Leicester Herta Wolf Professor of History and Theory of Photography, Institute of Art History, University of Cologne Andrés Mario Zervigón Professor of the History of Photography, Department of Art History, Rutgers University-New Brunswick

Artist Complex Images of Artists in Twentieth-Century Photography Edited by Jadwiga Kamola

Printed with generous financial support from the Dr. Carlo Fleischmann Foundation (www.dcff.org) in Zurich and from the Dr. h.c. Kaspar M. Fleischmann Project to Support Research on Photography at the Chair for the History of Fine Arts, Departement of Art History at the University of Zurich. The publication is based on the symposium Artist Complex. Images of Artists in Photography held at the Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz in October 2018.

isBn 978-3-11-068646-3 e-isBn (pdf) 978-3-11-074016-5 Library of Congress Control Number: 2021938031 Bibliographic information published by the deutsche nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2021 walter de gruyter gmbh, Berlin/Boston Cover: germaine Krull, self-portrait with icarette, gelatin silver print, ca. 1928, Ann and Jürgen wilde foundation, pinakothek der moderne, munich editing of the series: martin steinbrück layout and typesetting: p. florath, stralsund printing and binding: dZA druckerei zu Altenburg gmbh, Altenburg www.degruyter.com

Contents

VII

Moritz Wullen, Ludger Derenthal Preface

Introduction Artist Complex 3

Jadwiga Kamola Artist Complex. Thinking Photography with Carl Gustav Jung

Genius 29

Ulrike Blumenthal Milieu sphérique, espace clos. The Studio of Georges Braque as a Romantic Place of Creation in Brassaї’s Photographic Portraits

49

Victoria Fleury Claude  Monet’s Graphic Work and the Myth of a Plein Air Painter

Self 71

Nadja Köffler Destabilizing the Myth of the “Nanny Photographer”. Vivian Maier’s Self-Portraits as a Feminist Counter-Voice to Her Public Depiction

89

Gerd Zillner Demiurge, “Tough Prophet” and Scientist. Frederick Kiesler as the Greatest Self-Staging Architect of His Time

109

Weronika Kobylińska-Bunsch Impossible Self-Portrait. Photographic Games and Existential Inquiries in the Photographic Work of Witkacy-Głogowski

Bodies 129

Wilma Scheschonk “Jeff Koons Is Back!”. Forces at Work

143

Constance Krüger Natalia LL. Reading Categorical Statements from the Sphere of Post-Consumer Art, October 1975 as a Programmatic Self-Portrait

161

Emily Watlington Dialectics of Desire and Disgust. Adrian Piper’s Catalysis

Work 175

Till Cremer Berlin Artists. Photographic Field Research 2009–2014

195

List of contributors

Preface

The history of photography in its full breadth and diversity is a vast field, one that the Kunstbibliothek and its Collection of Photography at the Museum für Fotografie in Berlin helps cultivate through exhibitions, research projects, and symposia. Here, the history of art photography is not the only area of focus. Just looking at the manifold ways in which photography is used reveals what a singular medium it is, one that has changed human communication and ways of perceiving the world like no other. By going to our exhibitions at the Museum für Fotografie, visitors can embark on a journey of discovery: How are microscopes used to take photographs? How were people in India photographed in the nineteenth century? How did photographers create an image of modern-day Brazil? How do photographs shape our image of the German Revolution of 1918–1919 in Berlin? Equally important is the innovative work done in the core areas of the history of photography. Mounting the exhibition Artist Complex. Photographic Portraits from Baselitz to Warhol. Platen Collection in the summer of 2018, we were able to present an outstanding collection of artist portraits. Viewers of an artist portrait expect to learn something about the creative process, perhaps even about the motivations and essential character of the artist. In our approach to the exhibition at the Museum für Fotografie and to the accompanying book publication, we started from the basic thesis that a photographic portrait can only ever be an interpretation of what the photographer has seen, perhaps even felt, and that it can only develop its efficacy from the creative power of the people in front of and behind the camera. In producing such an image, the photographer and the artist enter a creative dialogue: This appears to be one of the main reasons why so many books and exhibitions have been dedicated to this subject and related collections have been amassed. The works shown at our museum were collected by Angelika Platen, herself a noted portraitist of artists, who, with the eye of both a passionate photographer and a devoted collector, developed a multifaceted kaleidoscope of the genre, reassuring herself of the foundations of her own work. The concept of the artist is often linked to genius, originality and imagina­ tiveness. Central literary and philosophical works invoke an analogy between the artist’s creative process and divine creation, proclaiming the artist a godlike creator.

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Here, it may be observed that these notions are often built around the idea of the male, virile artist. Our exhibition encompassed the idea of the artist in all its many facets, an idea that has become articulated throughout centuries of intellectual history, taking distinct shape in the twentieth century in the photographic image. It goes without saying that an exhibition and a catalogue do not come close to exhausting this topic area. A two-day conference opened up numerous new perspectives. We would like to thank Jadwiga Kamola, formerly assistant in training at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, for her clear-sighted concept for, and attentive organization of, the symposium Artist Complex. Images of Artists in Photography, held in October 2018, which led to the contributions that have been gathered in this book. The symposium, like the exhibition, was made possible by the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, with the generous support of the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe, the main sponsor of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Our sincere thanks also go to Bettina Gockel for accepting these contributions for publication in the distinguished series Studies in Theory and History of Photography.

Moritz Wullen

Ludger Derenthal

Director of the Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz

Head of the Collection of Photography at the Kunstbibliothek

Jadwiga Kamola Artist Complex. Thinking Photography with Carl Gustav Jung

“In these circumstances it is not at all surprising that the artist is an especially interesting specimen for the critical analysis of the psychologist.” Carl Gustav Jung, The Spirit in Man, Art, and Literature

What do photography and Carl Gustav Jung have in common? For one thing, there is the fact that the extant likenesses of Carl Gustav Jung are all photographic portraits. The Berlin State Library holds one such black-and-white portrait (fig. 1). Along with Jung’s signature, it carries the title “Zum 80. Geburtstag von Prof. C. G. Jung” (On Prof. C.G. Jung’s 80th birthday, July 26, 1955). There are no indications as to the identity of the photographer or the context in which it was created. Extant today as a single sheet affixed to a cardboard backing, the image might have originally been part of a commemorative publication. The State Library also holds a corresponding work created for the psychologist’s eightieth birthday, titled Studien zur analytischen Psychologie C. G. Jungs (Studies on the Analytic Psychology of C.G. Jung). Just as the foreword to the commemorative publication “honors [Jung’s] spiritual enrichment,”1 the photograph shows the psychologist as an established older scientist wearing glasses and a suit. Bent forward, with eyes pressed together and eyebrows drawn down, Jung seems to be peering into the viewer’s inner being. The focus of both photography and psychology is the world of human emotions. Where there is a person in a photographic image, the face is often at the center. It serves as the proverbial “window” to the soul, while the photograph is understood as the “true image”2 that is closest to reality. A photograph renders a “truth” visible. At the same time, the face stiffens to become a “mask.”3 This tension between the unadulterated ego and the mask that hides the ego was especially recognized by Jung. If asked what this photographic portrait has to say about him, Jung would have likely responded by quoting himself and asserting that the image could not make any statements about the character traits of the sitter. After all, it

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1: Carl Gustav Jung, 1955, gelatin silver print. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Handschriftenabteilung.

shows only his persona or “a mask that feigns individuality, and tries to make others and oneself believe that one is individual, whereas one is simply playing a part in which the collective psyche speaks.”4 The mask is a fragment of the collective psyche and “a compromise between individual and society [Sozietät] as to what a man should appear to be.”5 What is being referred to here is the part of the ego that assures socially acceptable behavior on the part of the individual vis-à-vis his environment and can thus be interpreted as an appearance or a “false self.” Nevertheless, Jung acknowledges that “with the persona the unconscious self, one’s real individuality, is always present and makes itself felt indirectly if not directly.”6 Jung’s statement touches on a central paradox in pictorial science, which is intrinsic to the photographic image and to any other depiction of the human face.

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A picture shows the “true” interior of the human being and at the same time does not show it. In portrait photography, what is revealed in the interstice between the random moment in which a shot is taken and the studied pose is a characteristic trait of the sitter that is coextensive with the ego. In Jung’s portrait it is his tie, which has slid to the side. It runs contrary to the representative portrait and suggests a private, almost chaotic character trait on the part of the psychologist, one that is not supposed to make an appearance.

Artist Archetypes and the Photographic Persona With his essays and lectures on art from the 1920s to 1940s, which were compiled as The Spirit in Man, Art, and Literature in the fifteenth volume of the Collected Works, Jung distinguished himself with considerations regarding a “psychology of the artwork” and a “psychology of the artist.” The Spirit in Man, Art and Literature takes up two of his central notions, the idea of the archetype in the collective unconscious and the complex, as propounded by Freud. Jung designates the creative process, the sum of all activities that bring a work to completion, as the “autonomous creative complex.” In it, an “unconscious activation of an archetypal image”7 takes place. Like every complex, the creative complex also exhibits an “analogy with pathological processes.”8 It develops in such a way that “a hitherto unconscious portion of the psyche is thrown into activity,” conscious interests and activities diminish, while “the infantile and archaic”9 begin to penetrate consciousness. The completed artwork thereupon refers to an “archetype” or, with a view to the art historian Jacob Burckhardt, to a “primordial image” from the collective unconscious. This is the psychological matrix that surpasses the personal and is inherited. The primordial image is a figure “be it a demon, a human being, or a process – that constantly recurs in the course of history and appears wherever creative fantasy is freely expressed. Essentially, therefore, it is a mythological figure.”10 Jung emphasizes that it is not the individual character of the sitter or the artist that surfaces in the artwork; rather, the nature of the artwork allows an inference to be made about the “character of the age” in which it was created. In this context, Jung is not interested in the achievement or the repute of the individual artist, but rather in the social significance of the art and its creator. Art is always working on the “education of the age,” and the artist is always “educating the spirit of the age” and acting as a “mouthpiece of his time.”11 In Jungian thought, the artist is not only an individual creature but “collective man,” “a vehicle and moulder of the unconscious psychic life of mankind.”12 He is a figure composed of different images, an archetype like Goethe’s Faust, “of the Wise Old Man, the helper and redeemer, but

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also of the magician, deceiver, corrupter, and temper,”13 or else like James Joyce’s Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus, the protagonist and antagonist in Ulysses, who represent the figures of “spiritual and carnal man.”14 For Jung, Ulysses is not a book but “the creator-god in Joyce,” “a microcosm of James Joyce,” “the demiurge in the artist.”15 In this conceptual framework, photography can be conceived as a mechanism that over the course of centuries moves layered archetypes of artists from the collective unconscious to the surface of the collective consciousness. The camera extracts as it were an artist archetype and captures it in the image. In the interaction between the photographer and the photographed, the image of an artist is communally created; this is tantamount to the creation of an actual person and is itself an artistic creation. At the same time the created image is always a likeness of an already existing artist image, which recurs in the medium of photography. In the twentieth century, the collotype technique, which made it possible to mass reproduce images in magazines, books, or as placards on exterior walls, contributed to the social dissemination, the consolidation, and the perpetuation of these images. One need only think of prominent artists such as Pablo Picasso and Frida Kahlo, whose painterly work is inseparable from their photographic likenesses. In the case of Frida Kahlo, what immediately comes to mind are the characteristic monobrow and the artist’s traditional Tehuana clothing.16 The experience of a lifethreatening accident was captured by Kahlo in her paintings, which on the one hand show her wounded body, and on the other the artist’s torso, straight as a pin, paralyzed and supported by a corset. We have Lola Álvarez Bravo, Imogen Cunningham, Gisèle Freund, Nickolas Muray, and Bernard Silberstein to thank for the conceptual construction of this woman artist who was strong in spite of this stroke of fate (fig. 2). Their photographic portraits are as well known as Kahlo’s artworks, which were popularized in lifestyle magazines like Life and Vogue by showing them alongside her photographic likenesses in color. Paraphrasing Jung, it can be said that not only did Kahlo’s work bring forth Kahlo the artist,17 but that photographs of Kahlo made her the famous artist she came to be, known the world over.18 The above considerations constitute the guiding thoughts for this compilation of articles, whose contributions derive from the symposium Artist Complex. Images of Artists in Photography, held at the Museum für Fotografie, a museum of the Staat­ liche Museen zu Berlin. The symposium followed the exhibition Artist Complex. Photographic Portraits from Baselitz to Warhol. Platen Collection, which explored a range of photographic portraits of artists. Examined using the headings Persona, Creativity and Pygmalion, self-portraits by artists showing them with brush, palette, and camera, costumed or as caricatures, along with likenesses of artists at work in their studio, surrounded by their works, were coupled with metaphors from the history of ideas that construct the artist persona. These metaphors come from philosophical, literary and art-theoretical works.

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2: Bernard Silberstein, Frida Kahlo, 1940, gelatin silver print, Platen Collection, Berlin.

In his Critique of Judgment (1791), Immanuel Kant writes that “fine art is possible only as the product of genius.” The “product of fine art” is characterized above all by the quality of “originality.”19 Here, the originality of the artistic product reflects the talent of the originator, who enters the stage—in a fully Jungian way—not as creator but instead stands figuratively close to creation. Kant emphasizes that the originator does not himself know “how he came by the ideas for it” and remarks in parentheses:

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“(Indeed that is presumably why the word genius is derived from [Latin] genius [which means] the guardian and guiding spirit that each person is given as his own at birth, and to whose inspiration [Eingebung] those original ideas are due.)”20 The artist is the medium of genius, which belongs to nature. Through genius, nature finds expression in the product of genius.21 Kant’s notion of genius here was contributing to a far-reaching debate that had flared up around this term in the eighteenth century. Kant’s nature-derived genius is opposed to Novalis’s romantic artist who distinguishes himself through his own productivity, who wants to develop the “thought of a world system a priori from out of the depths of our spirit […]”22 For Novalis it is the artist himself who produces art, not nature. Kant’s conception of the artist as a dirigible tool of nature and Novalis’s ideal of the active “total genius”23 that can sprout in any direction, create space for the subsequent construct of the modern artist framed in pathological terms. Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) was said to be “un terrible et affolé génie, […] toujours relevant presque de la pathologie,” a neurotic who suffered like a “femme hystérique.”24 In the artist manifestos of the early twentieth century avant-garde, the definition of this figure was extended to include qualities like autonomy and creativity. In André Breton’s Surrealist manifesto of 1924, the artist becomes an apologist of madness, imagination, and freedom.25 Wyndham Lewis, in his manifesto for English Vorticism, caustically attacked this romantically-inspired continental European artistry, proclaiming with a sting: “6. To believe that it is necessary or conducive to art to ‘improve’ life, for instance—make architecture, dress, ornament, in better ‘taste’, is absurd. 7. The art instinct is permanently primitive. […] 9. The artist of the modern movement is a savage. In no sense of an ‘advanced’, perfected, democratic, Futurist individual of Mr. Marinetti’s limited imagination […].”26 This image of the modern artist, whose identity oscillates between creation, creator, and a withdrawn, unsocial figure, manifested itself in photography. The discourse around the English painter Francis Bacon (1909–1992) shows that photography is far more than a source of inspiration and working material used for making paintings. Looking at Bacon’s career, the question may be asked how the self-taught artist from Northern Ireland was able, “with absolutely no artistic training and no special talent”27 to become “the finest British painter of the present age.”28 Photography played a significant role in shaping Bacon’s profile in intellectual public life and in positioning his artist persona in art history. It was especially after the large Tate retrospective in 1962 that public perception of Bacon changed in such a way that he was no longer a “morbid maverick” but a “modern master” and a “genius of violence,” whose work was shown in exhibitions alongside

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paintings by John Constable and Vincent van Gogh.29 Around the same time, Bacon showed an intensified interest in photography. For the first time in 1962, he commissioned John Deakin to take photographs of friends of his, including George Dyer, Lucian Freud, and Isabel Rawsthorne. Deakin’s portrait photographs, which Bacon deliberately furnished with dashes of paint, creases, folds, and tears, enjoy a status that transcends their function as pure memory aids.30 They stand in the place of the individuals while also serving as “triggers for ideas.”31 In the absence of these individuals and equipped only with Deakins’s photographs, the artist was able to practice the “injury,”32 which he carried out with the brush and various other painting tools, without worrying about personal sensitivities. Photographers such as John Deakin and Henri Cartier-Bresson present Bacon as a painter of violence and the flesh between two sides of meat, as a coffee-drinking intellectual with the French writer Michel Leiris, in a conversation with the art historian Michael Peppiatt, and finally, in harmony with the Interviews with Francis Bacon, as a painter of the accidental33 in the iconic chaos of his studio in London’s Reece Mews. The photographer Francis Giacobetti accompanied Bacon in his final months of life from 1991 to 1992. In his photographs, Giacobetti avails himself of Bacon’s array of motifs, staging the artist as a sunken-in figure in front of a round mirror, as the observer of a hanging cadaver, or as a smeared shadow of a figure. In Giacobetti’s photographs, the artist persona, created through discourse and by Bacon himself—an elusive “enigma”—and Bacon’s supposedly mysterious work become interwoven. In an interview with Giacobetti, the painter stylized himself on the one hand as an established artist whose work was exhibited in prominent museums and was oriented on modernist heavyweights: “Picasso is the reason why I paint. He is the father figure who gave me the wish to paint.”34 On the other hand, he assigns himself a marginal societal position and attributes a narcissistic quality to artists in general: “All artists are vain, they long to be recognized, and to leave something to posterity, they want to be loved and at the same time they want to be free.”35 This portrayal of the artist as both a master and an outsider longing for recognition corresponds with the fact that Bacon’s oeuvre, while suggestive in its motifs of painters like Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach, and Georg Baselitz, has yet to be clearly assigned to a specific artistic style. It oscillates between a “surrealist impulse,” a “realism,”36 “the classical avant-garde,” and abstract expressionism. 37 In conversation with Giacobetti, Bacon refutes the recurring accusation that in his paintings he imitates photographic movement in the style of the chronophotography of Eadweard Muybridge: “People have always thought that I took my movement from photographs, but it is completely untrue. I invent what I paint.”38 For Bacon, photographs have a fundamentally different ontological status than paintings: “[…] their reality is stronger than reality itself. […] Photography for me brings us back to the actual event, more clearly, more directly.”39 In this context, we hear a resounding of topoi of Kantian artistic originality, brought forth through the genius of the nature-led artist, and of topoi of the Novalian capacity for invention by

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the creatively active individual. These topoi meet with metaphors of the singularity of the painted image as the product of the spirit and a counterpart to photography as the product of something close to reality. Bacon ends the conversation with the conclusion, “This is the artist’s privilege—to be ageless.” He is not simply referring to his own 82-year-old artist ego here, but to an ideational image of himself as an artist, which does not age and was brought forth by photography. In this image we do not find the formula for the persona of a woman artist. The art historian Bettina Gockel has pointed out that the terms “genius, sage, shepherd, monk […] were and remain anything but easy for women to adapt to. There is either no equal and equivalent role or the artistic concept cannot be sustained because it was too lastingly shaped or codified by men over the course of centuries.”40 The question remains as to which independent models women artists are at all able to take orientation from and whether a unique and sustainable image can be established. In the male-dominated world of painting, a female re-creation of this formula is particularly difficult to achieve. The example of Frida Kahlo makes it clear that an independent persona of a woman artist exists and yet is quickly attended by comparisons to male painters. For her image of herself, Kahlo drew from her intensely colorful array of motifs and (like Bacon) configured a template for an independent outsider, always dressing as a Tehuana in photographic portraits. At the same time, her illness (like Bacon’s asthma), which bound her to her bed, was decisive in shaping her choice of motifs. All her life, Kahlo’s work was compared with that of her husband, Diego Rivera (1886–1957) and was overshadowed by him, by his aesthetics and prominent image as Mexico’s leading muralist and a political revolutionary. This had an ongoing negative impact on Kahlo in her role as a woman artist and a politically engaged personality.41 In photography, this situation appears to be easier. A woman can take up the camera without having gone to art school. Photography, moreover, was not considered to be art per se, but rather a documentary medium, something that allowed women photographers such as Florence Henri (1893–1982), Gertrude Käsebier (1852–1934), and Vivian Maier (1926–2009) to create their own self-images outside the art world, which are captivating above all due to their androgyny. Even Frida Kahlo, who entered the history of photography by adopting Tehuana identity,42 surprisingly features as a young man in a black-and-white family photograph taken by her father Guillermo in 1926; standing, dressed in a suit, her arm leaning against the shoulder of a male family member, her person supports the familial structure and the composition of the photograph.

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“As life-like as possible” What is it about photography that predestines it for the portrayal of the artistic persona? In the photographic image, metaphors of the artist as a creator, as creation, and as a medium (of genius) fuse with metaphors of photography as a creation coming from nature and as a medium (of a character). The photograph is the “truest” and “most life-like” image communicating the character of a person, including the character of an artist. These attributes have been pointed to repeatedly in the history of photography. Most prominently, Walter Benjamin in 1936 attested to photography’s status as a mechanical product, which, although lacking an aura, possessed mimetic qualities.43 At the time of its invention in the mid-nineteenth century, photography was metaphorically linked not so much to that which is “mechanically printed” but to “pictorial productions,”44 that is to manually produced prints, watercolors and paintings. In the first artistic and scientific books containing photographs, a metaphor involving drawing and the guided distribution of light begins to emerge in connection with the photographic image. In William Henry Fox Talbot’s The Pencil of Nature (1844), which makes one of the first attempts to use calotypes in a book (or in this case a portfolio), photography is described in the sense of the title phrase as a “pencil of nature” and also as a “photogenic drawing,”45 which literally means “drawing with light.” In this context, the literary scholar Laura Saltz has pointed out the obsolete meaning of “pencil:” In the mid-nineteenth century, a pencil was not primarily understood as a drawing tool but as a “ray or a narrow beam of light.” Here, the discoveries in physics during that period suggest an understanding of light as a wave rather than a particle.46 While photography was conceptualized as a pencil, it did not carry the connotation of originating from the hand of an individual artist. Rather, it is an “impression” whose originator is light or rather nature itself: “It may suffice, then, to say, that the plates of this work have been obtained by the mere action of Light upon sensitive paper. They have been formed or depicted by optical and chemical means alone, and without the aid of any one acquainted with the art of drawing. […] They are impressed by Nature’s hand.”47 In this sense, Talbot ultimately construed photography as “nature’s painting.”48 Accordingly, his photographic endeavors resulted in “natural images,”49 which were simultaneously chemical products. Talbot held that they were objects that pointed to nature as a generative agent, that were to be understood as “demonstration pieces” of a new technology, prompting him to refer to them as “specimens”50 when his images were first exhibited at the Royal Institution in 1839.51 Meanwhile, the natural sciences and medicine were developing similar metaphors for photography. Dermatological atlases, which featured hand-colored pho-

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3: Arthur de Montméja, Impétigo, hand-colored woodburytype, 1882, in Alfred Hardy and Arthur de Montméja, Clinique Photographique des Maladies de la Peau, Paris, Librairie Chamerot et Lauwereyns, 1882.

tographs of sick patients, extoled the “life-like” and “natural” appearance of their illustrations. In the nineteenth century, the central ambition of photography was to enliven its monochrome images, which were generally seen as lifeless and which were in competition with their painted counterparts, using the visual rhetoric of color.52 The authors feared that the monochrome prints would be “lying,”53 which explains the large number of color reproductions that were based on photographs. Painters and draughtsmen who specialized in medical images were simultaneously photographers and learned physicians, such as Thomas Godart (?–1888) and Leonard Portal Mark (1855–1930), both of whom worked at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. The dermatologist Alfred Hardy and the ophthalmologist and amateur photographer Arthur de Montméja, who were the first to use photography to portray skin and venereal diseases in France, declared in their joint publication Clinique photographique de l’Hôpital Saint-Louis (1868): “We can say that the plates present nature caught in the act.”54 Montméja’s plates are additionally signed with “De Montmeja ad naturam phot. et pinx,” which places the photographic prints in the tradition of the Old Masters, who boasted that they were able to paint things “from life.”55 Here the photographic image claims—under the aegis of science—a proximity to nature that had until that time been reserved for painting, and it recited an old topos of art history, namely that of the vitality of painting.56

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In the photographic patient portraits, it is precisely the pigment applied by hand that was to bring the photographic image to life. In every way following the topoi of Renaissance painting, which is built around color and life,57 photography is a “drawing that is brought to life by color.”58 The founder of the American Dermatological Association, George Henry Fox, stated in the foreword to his Photographic Illustrations of Skin Diseases (1880) that the aim was “to present their features with photographic accuracy; and to employ color with the utmost care to render the illustrations as life-like as possible.”59 The publication featuring forty-eight photographic patient portraits was one of the first dermatological atlases and was followed until 1905 by further multi-volume editions. The life of the breathing body animated by means of pigment primarily manifests itself in the flesh tones of the person depicted in the photograph. In the portraits of patients, whose features emerge in yellow, deep red, and black, these tones are of a pathological nature (fig. 3) and are described ekphrastically as part of an “iconographie dérmatologique”60 to allow a clinical interpretation that is as precise as possible. In medical practice, in clinical or in educational contexts, the plates replaced the patients, like Bacon’s photographs of friends: “Because nobody is able to continuously have vivid examples of cutaneous affections in front of their eyes, we have tried to replace the ill with colored plates.”61 At an aesthetic level, the photographs corresponded with the art-theoretical metaphors relaying a proximity to nature, and they even surpassed them insofar as they figured as human representatives.

Photographic Character If photographs are “substitutive media”62 par excellence, the question that remains, following Talbot, is this: What is it actually that becomes “impressed” into the light-sensitive paper through nature? What is the essence of this imprinting? What is it that is to be extracted from the photograph? The photograph embodies and transmits a character. When the shutter release is triggered, the character of a person or an object becomes “imprinted” in the photograph in a physiognomic sense. According to Johann Caspar Lavater, the “master physiognomist” of the eighteenth century, physiognomy as the only “true” science extracts from the “outer appearance” “the physiological, the temperamental character, the medical, the physical, the intellectual, the moral […] [character] and so forth.”63 Character, according to Lavater, could be extracted in particular from the outline of a silhouette. Silhouettes were originally traced as a shadowgraph, using a shadowgraph machine. The shadowgraph was considered “the truest and most faithful image because it is printed directly from nature.”64 Seen metaphorically as a monochrome drawing and “nature’s imprint,” photography is intrinsically linked to the practice of physiognomy, which is committed to a black-and-white epistemology of character

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interpretation and considers shadowgraphs as the “truest” images. In his Physiognomic Fragments (1775–1778), Lavater even names a practical use for the camera obscura, a precursor of photography. It was especially useful when one wanted to draw the head smaller.65 The same period saw a (renewed) popularization and an ideational as well as practical cross-fertilization of photography and physiognomy. Before the emergence of the sciences that based their premises on empirical evidence and experiment, nineteenth-century physiognomy was an explanatory paradigm that spanned both the sciences and the arts. Hence we see an accordingly large number66 of works and new editions increasingly illustrated with photographs of older treatises bearing “physiognomy” in the title. Here, a distinction needs to be made between the older physiognomic tradition from antiquity to the Baroque period, which was based on the principle of analogy, and the more recent, racially motivated physiognomy, which began with the publication of Lavater’s Physiognomic Fragments culminated in the German National Socialism.67 In books such as Physiognomy of the Sick (1839 and reprinted in 1928), in Psycho-Physiognomy according to Carl Huter (1919), in Physiognomy in Art History (1926), in the sociological observations about the Renaissance in Physiognomy and Rhythm of Civil Society Culture (1932), or in the völkisch-minded German Physiognomy: A Fundamental Natural History of the Nation’s Faces (1942), the authors usually consider physiognomy a science, believing that it makes the invisible instantaneously visible. After all, based solely on the facial features and of the body as shown in photographic images, the observer was ostensibly able to “read” the person’s character that had been “inscribed” from birth. It must not be forgotten, however, that physiognomy not only contributed to the idea of inherent character and genius68—an idea which led Kant to his famous statement that a person’s genius was something that was present at birth69—but also gave rise to the idea of the innate, inferior and criminal mind that could be recognized in the person’s skull and the face.70 Shortly after the publication of Lavater’s Physiognomic Fragments, Franz Joseph Gall and Johann Spurzheim published their The Anatomy and Physiology of the Nervous System in General (1809), a doctrine of the skull based on physiognomy, also known as “Phrenology.” In the twentieth century, phrenology spread into the field of eugenics with its photographically illustrated books on criminology, such as Cesare Lombroso’s Criminal Man (1876). Fully in line with these physiognomic disciplines, a physiognomy for everyday application became established; it was communicated in books, illustrated with photographs, such as Fritz Lange’s Language of the Human Face. Scientific Physiognomy and Its Practical Utilization in Life and Art (1939) and Harry Bondegger’s Recognizing with Certainty the Character, Abilities and Predispositions, Moods and Attitude of any Person from their Photograph or Outer Appearance, their Gait or the Sound of their Voice (1904). In these different contexts, photography served as an epistemically exact and comparatively fast medium, technologically speaking, for the visualization of, for example, mental illnesses. Jean-Martin Charcot’s research on hysteria—brought to

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4: Contracture faciale bilatérale hystérique, photographic illustration, 1888–1918, in Nouvelle iconographie de la Salpetrière, Paris: Lecrosnier and Babé, Masson et Cie, 1888–1918.

fame by the philosopher and art historian Georges Didi-Huberman—which originated at the Paris Hôpital de la Salpêtrière, primarily recorded the symptoms of patients using photography. Charcot’s analyses culminated in a photographic series of character studies titled Iconographie photographique de la Salpêtrière, and were later published in magazine form in Nouvelle iconographie de la Salpêtrière (fig. 4). According to Didi-Huberman, it was through this work that the very invention of the clinical picture of hysteria, the “grand neurose” became possible.71 Didi-Huberman here speaks of an “ideal bond,” created by the “photographic situation” between “the phantasma of hysteria and the phantasma of knowledge.”72 While the author identifies an “invention of hysteria” through photography, it is important to point out that treatises without images were written about hysteria as early as in the eighteenth century,73 but only through photographic “snapshots” was a coherent clinical picture defined more closely; the invisible was made visible.74 Of no small importance for the artistic discourse on the popular phenomenon of a “simulated” illness is the fact that it was not just any character of this illness that was generated here, but instead a génie libre was invented, an “untethered spirit,” which found artistic expression in such works as the surrealist novel Nadja (1928) by André Breton.75 In this novel, the connections between photography, science, art, and literature virtually come full circle. The effort to identify the character that is communicated through photography and physiognomic theory also permeates works of art such as August Sander’s Face of our Time (1929). The well-known photobook follows a sociological approach

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that is based in physiognomy. Introducing the plates that have generalizing titles such as “The Industrialist,” “The Woman Sculptor,” or “The Farmer,” the man of letters Alfred Döblin writes: “We see the farmer types […] We see with them their unified families, and even without plough and field, we recognize in these people that they do rough, hard and monotonous work, work that makes their faces hard and weatherworn.”76 This physiognomic sociology is done with the help of “comparative photography,” which is what Döblin proclaims Sander’s images to be. Face of our Time is anything but leading this development; it is instead a symptom of an examination of the human countenance and its interpretation that is based in physiognomy and photography. Illustrated with photographs, books which holistically discuss the “faces” or the German “Antlitz” of their subjects appeared in large numbers and increasingly adopted a racist ideology; their titles include The Face of Old Age (1930), The Face of the Child (1931), The Face of the Mother (1941), The Face of the Germanic Physician (1942). The concept of character was also applied to objects. In the photobook Beauty of Technology (1927), the engineer Franz Kollmann paints a photographic portrait of the machines and industrial buildings of the 1920s: “In all these buildings, [Peter] Behrens had recognized the importance of his task and had aimed to create their character from the very essence of the objects he was going to design, in order to comprehend their type.”77 The photographic illustrations in the book provide the evidence for this finding: “‘[…] Beauty is something one has to be able to prove,’ as Wölfflin once said. the proof follows.”78 The reference to Heinrich Wölfflin is telling, as Wölfflin in his art history of the 1880s to 1920s favored a black and white approach to epistemology, one that corresponded very closely with physiognomic ideas.79

Color Photography The notion that a character or archetype emerges particularly in black-and-white photography has shaped the development of artistic portrait photography since the 1930s. In the context of a “new way of seeing, where all objects […] had simple integrity and truth,”80 Walker Evans’s legendary black-and-white street portraits Labor Anonymous (1934–1946) appeared in the magazine Fortune, where they are described in physiognomic terms:

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“The American worker, as he passes here, generally unaware of Walker Evans’ camera, is a decided various fellow. His blood flows from many sources. His features now tend toward the peasant and now the patrician.”81 Evans’s works rely on the idea that those photographed do not notice the camera. After all, the camera whose pictures are black and white—pictures that are as authentic as possible, quasi silhouettes, and as if taken at random—serves here to tear down the Jungian mask and produce “true portraiture”: “The guard is down and the mask is off: even more than in the lone bedrooms (where there are mirrors), people’s faces are in naked repose down in the subway.”82 Color photography is not suited to this endeavor. While Evans also took color photographs, he remarked on several occasions that color photography was “vulgar”83 and associated it with the photography used in advertising, which was by then ubiquitous. Indeed, publications in advertising psychology and in planning history, including Herbert W. Hess’s Advertising: Its Economics, Philosophy and Technique (1931) and Howard Ketcham’s Color Planning for Business and Industry (1958), confirm Evans’s dislike of color: “Color is a sales tool.”84 These publications describe how certain colors stimulate human emotions differently, influencing buying behavior. “Certainly the use of color stimulates returns. Color will catch the eye where black-and-white may fail.”85 Instead of communicating the truth about a person in black and white, advertisements want to win the person over, using color and adopting a “crowd psychology”: “He [The individual] has a crowd soul, a crowd creed.”86 In this climate shaped by the chromaphilia of the advertising industry and the chromaphobia of portrait photography, the painter and photographer László Moholy-Nagy (1895–1946) made skeptical remarks about the use of color in art photography. Moholy-Nagy was the pioneer of color photography and one of the leading thinkers of the Bauhaus, which conceived of its iconic black-and-white aesthetics not least of all through photography. In Vision in Motion (1947), he points out that color photography is able to no more than approximate a representation of reality as it “distorts” the “original meaning,” laying a chemical emulsion over the photographic sheet and thus “tingeing” it as it were.87 In a word, color photography produces images that are boring and not “truthful,” according to Moholy-Nagy. To avoid this, the photographer had to understand painting and at the same time free himself of the idea of using paint as a pigment; he had to “return to direct light effects as his primary source”88 and turn to thinking in light. Moholy-Nagy takes recourse here to photography’s above-mentioned metaphors of origin, that is painting and light, which contributed significantly to the reality paradigm of photography.

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Texts and Photographs The present volume shows in all clarity that photography and the photographic image of the artist are products of their metaphors. The lifelike nature of the photographic print, its original metaphor of “drawing with light,” its inherent, physiognomically shaped character, as well as the topos of black-and-white portrait photography all created a metaphoric framework for the formation of artist archetypes in the photography of the twentieth century. Within this historical weave, photography is a meta-science with a broad scope of action and at the same time a materialized meta-metaphor of the “true imprint” that emerged after the invention of photography in the nineteenth century. Photography visually captures things and always has something to say about these things. At the same time, photographs are there to be discussed. Roland Barthes pointed to this aspect in his essay “The Photographic Message” (1961). He writes that texts “verbalize” photographs and that photographs are “perceived verbalized;” “the text loads the image, burdening it with a culture, a moral, an imagination.”89 The photograph is not an “isolated structure,” “it is in communication with the text […]; here (in the text) the substance of the message is made up of words; there (in the photograph) of lines, surfaces, shades.”90 As an “analogon” of the text and the real, the photograph is a “message without a code” that may be used anywhere, may be maximally inflectable, and therefore a “continuous message.” Barthes’s essay—written originally in the context of press photography—points to something that the articles collected here share in common: Many of the artist portraits presented in them appeared in lifestyle magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar, Vanity Fair and Vogue, which have always shown portraits of celebrities, including artists, and discussed their life and work. The present articles examine the photographs according to visual parameters and investigate their origins in the history of ideas, in culture and media, along with the continuities and new constellations that can be identified for these origins. At the same time, they trace a metaphorical portrait of photography in art. Perceived for a long time as a medium of the documentary, photography to many artists was not art: Visual artists enlisted it in the service of preparatory work, used it as a source of inspiration, or as an alternate medium in which they could explore different subjects without endangering their image as a painter, and they used the public effectiveness of photography to their advantage. In contrast to the notion of genius that is “imprinted” in the body once and for all from birth, the articles in the chapter “Genius” discuss artistic genius in terms of a repeated staging that finds expression in single or serial photographs and, as both photography and literature, keeps arriving at new and collaged subjects. Here, the dynamics between the self-statements of artists and photographers, the representations of artworks, the photographic (self-)portraits, the critics, as well as the interrelations of painting and photography are illuminated.

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Discussing Brassaї’s black-and-white photographs of Georges Braque (1882– 1963) in his studio, Ulrike Blumenthal shows that Brassaï, rather than emulating contemporary architectural photography, invokes a topos of the studio that goes back to the Romantic period. This topos is found embodied, for example, in the painting Caspar David Friedrich im Atelier (Caspar David Friedrich in His Studio, 1811) by Georg Friedrich Kersting (1785–1847). The studio here is not only a place of refuge but symbolizes the painter’s creative spirit. As Ulrike Blumenthal emphasizes, the idea of the artist who creates from himself, as reflected in Brassaï’s photograph, was generative of the notion of the autonomous artist genius in occupied Paris during the 1940s and, even after the war, constituted the ideal of the artistically active individual striving for originality. Brassaї’s photographs of Braque in his studio play a significant part in this development. They, along with reviews that described Braque as a withdrawn and contemplative painter, helped revive the idea of the romantic genius after the Second World War. Braque’s studio became a “milieu sphérique,” a spherical place and an “espace clos,” a closed-off space, while Braque was shown as an “intimiste,” his work an “œuvre d’intérieur.” Victoria Fleury pursues a similar phenomenon in her article about Claude Monet (1840–1927), who is commonly seen as a “genius of color and light” and throughout his life took care to have himself presented in photography and film as a plein-air painter. This image of him excludes his use of preparatory works, of drawings, and even of a studio, whose existence Monet denied in interviews, cultivating instead the idea that he painted from himself and out in the open. So far there has been little research with respect to the question of whether his drawings, whose existence was only known to few people until recently, and photographs have helped create this image. As Victoria Fleury emphasizes, Monet himself had an active influence in shaping this image. And photography was essential here. It served Monet as an aide-mémoire and inspired him to new works. As ­Monet’s personal correspondence shows, he requested photographs from London, whose motifs he wanted to put to use in his famous paintings. Details such as these were to be kept under wraps so as not to tarnish his reputation as a plein-air painter. Not only did Monet have himself photographed in his garden, he also did drawings of his paintings, which he made available to the press for the purpose of photographic reproductions of his images, thus also controlling the image created of his artworks. In the chapter “Self,” this publication focuses on artists who made use of photography to inquire into and shape their own artistic identity. An example here is Vivian Maier, whose photographic work was salvaged by a thrift auction house from a Chicago attic in 2007 and subsequently woven into the narrative of an “eccentric nanny with an affinity for photography” by her self-appointed discoverers. The discovery was featured in the popular film Finding Vivian Maier (2014). For Nadja Köffler, a shortcoming that weighs heavily is the fact that the documentary fails to feature people who were aware of Maier as an innovative photographer in

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her lifetime. Her passion for collecting old objects, just like her passion for photography, as well as her sexuality—“lesbianism” according to the discourse—are interpreted as symptoms of an abnormality and pathologized instead of being treated as personal preferences. However, Maier’s images, showing herself in low-angle views as a woman wearing flat shoes and wide coats, taking the form of reflections and playfully cast shadows, follow a feminist-transgressive logic more akin to the philosophy of Jacques Lacan, according to which fragmented body parts form a complete image of the individual only in the mirror. This new image eludes the constructions of binary gender as well as popular historical attributions, for example Maier as a “cool street photographer.” Appearing almost simultaneously in Vogue and in Harper’s Bazaar in 1959, two important photographs of the conceptual work Endless House (1950) show the Austrian architect and theoretician Frederick Kiesler (1890–1965), who entered architectural history as an architect who did not actually build much, as an archetypical artist-prophet and demiurge. The two pictures, along with 5,000 further photographic items, are found today at the Frederick Kiesler Foundation in Vienna. Considering their large number, which is greater even than the number of the architect’s drawings, correspondence items, and plans, we may surmise that photography held a special significance for Kiesler. Gerd Zillner shows how Kiesler, with the photographers Hans Namuth (1915–1990) and Irving Penn (1917–2009), worked on these images, ultimately choosing two of them from innumerable pictures that illustrate his process. Having contributed fundamentally to Kiesler’s public image, the two photographs are analyzed against the backdrop of his theory of correalism, a holistic design concept that makes connections between the human being, nature, and technology. In the photographs, Kiesler is staged, on the one hand, as a visionary of future human habitation and, on the other, as the de facto constructor of this future habitation. While Kiesler’s posing as an artist-prophet and demiurge must have required a certain hubris and irony on the part of the sitter, with Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (1885–1939), better known by his pseudonym Witkacy, it is the grotesque that permeates his photographic self-portraits. His distorted features and the surprising use of props were one reason why his photographs transgressed the avant-garde aesthetics with its focus on the representation of a smooth mask in the Poland of the First World War and the Second Republic. Another reason was that Witkacy sometimes did not take the photographs himself but was helped by his friend, the amateur photographer Józef Głogowski (1893–1969). Witkacy considered him an acting photographer and not artistically responsible, writing the abbreviation “wyk.” for “wykonawca” (Polish for “maker”) on the back of these photographs, next to Głogowski’s name. In her article, Weronika Kobylińska-Bunsch argues in favor of acknowledging Głogowski’s artistic authorship in the artist duo Witkacy-Głogowski, and she also advocates for speaking of a “grotesque-ism,” which Witkacy expe­ rimented with in the photographs. From a Central European perspective, this

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grotesque-ism shows the many Western European avant-gardes and their different concepts about the artist and artistic authorship in an ironic light while at the same time initiating an existentialism. This existentialism is integrated with Witkiewicz’s idea of the “metaphysical fear” that marked the individual’s social alienation during the interwar period. The “false” identities that emerge from the portraits may be read as symptomatic of the far-reaching crisis of the clearly delineated subject, while traditional concepts of masking and unmasking, and with them the notion of a stable identity that is assumed in the portrait, are derailed. Athletic male artist bodies and abject female artist bodies enter a symbiosis with photography in the chapter “Bodies.” Photography as the “most alive” universal medium has the potential to give new life to old ideas about vitalist artist bodies, to project new artist myths and new art concepts, and at the same time to have a transgressive effect. In Annie Leibovitz’s photograph of Jeff Koons (1955–), which appeared in a photo series with the title “Jeff Koons Is Back!” in Vanity Fair in 2014, the conceptual artist is depicted in his studio space cum fitness room, posing as a classical hero with nothing more to show for himself than his nude athletic body. The image illustrates Koons’s comeback as a celebrated artist and re-integrates him, as Wilma Scheschonk shows, in an art system that is driven by consumption, and which he helped create. In the photograph, Koons is both a sculpture and the creator of himself, thus reviving a topos constructed around the early modern category of artistic “force.” This heightened liveliness of the early modern vitalist body, complete with virile connotations, is constructed by Koons, who draws on and uses the photograph as well as the mechanism of body art and 1960s performance art. Finally, reflected multiple times in mirrors in Leibovitz’s photograph, the studio and Koons’s literal body work make reference to the production of his artworks, which uses machines and involves meticulous precision work by an enormously large team in a factory-like set-up. In her article about the work Categorical Statements from the Sphere of Postconsumer Art, October 1975 by the Polish performance artist Natalia LL, Constance Krüger maps out an artistic program and analyses the artist image developed through it. The work’s nine photographs are accompanied by a nine-point manifesto and show the artist sitting in an armchair, by turns with a banana or a finger in her mouth, her legs sometimes spread and sometimes closed. Referring to Marianne Wex’s photobook Let’s Take Back Our Space: Female and Male Body Language as a Result of Patriarchal Structures (1984), Constance Krüger shows that Natalia LL adopts male body language and operates in the context of well-known feminist works such as VALIE EXPORT’s Genital Panic (1969). Central to Zdania kategoryczne is the combination of text and image, with language constituting the performative feminist element. Invoking earlier works such as NATALIA (1972) and Słowo (Word, 1971), in which individual letters are pronounced and the artist struggles for her ability to express herself through language and thus to create her artistic persona, the photographs as individually uttered “categorical sentences,” come together to form a

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“categorical statement.” In this context one must not forget the group PERMAFO (short for “permanentna fotografia / permanentna formalizacja” or “permanent photography / permanent formalization”)—founded by Natalia LL and her husband Andrzej Lachowski in 1970—which in its art looked at photography in all its permutations, exploring its property as a medium that creates permanence. Photography makes permanent, multiplies, and crystallizes the feminist statement. With Zdania kategoryczne, which may also be understood as sentences written down, Natalia LL inscribes her identity and her significance as a woman artist for the future into photography, using photography, which was originally a “drawing with light.” By means of photography, the speaking female subject of performance art became a writing subject, a lasting subject without which art history is today unthinkable. In this context, Emily Watlington asks whether works of feminist performance art aspiring to subvert the male gaze are in fact pleasing to it. Are they disturbing or desirable? After all, many of these works, documented in photographs, show attractive women in lascivious poses, while the photographs were taken and circulated by men. Celebrated feminist works, such Carolee Schneemann’s Interior Scroll (1975) and Shigeko Kubota’s Vagina Painting (1965), were photographed by male artists—Schneemann’s by Anthony McCall, an installation artist and Schneemann’s lover, Kubota’s by the Fluxus artist George Maciunas. This is a problem that becomes especially pernicious when considering the photographic work Catalysis (1970–1973) by Adrian Piper (1948–). For the series, the black woman artist—already considered socially abject due to the color of her skin—infused her clothes with the foul smell of cod liver oil and wore them on the New York subway. She was surprised to find that a number of passengers nevertheless found her attractive. While many abject performances precisely did not thematize the desiring of the abject body as conceptualized in Julia Kristeva’s Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (1980), and while desire was considered the “downfall” of feminist art, Piper used the dialectic of disgust and desire for her feminist critique. The disgusting object is desired, it obtrudes itself on the desiring subject as something one can mingle with, something that can even be enjoyed. In the abject body—an everted, disturbing inside that erases the confines of an existing order—lies the promise of an ambivalence that reconstitutes the self. The publication is complemented by a selection from the photographic series Berlin Artists 2009–2014 and the accompanying written contribution by the Berlinbased photographer Till Cremer. Tapping into the “artist city” that has been discredited as precarious and yet has nourished an international art scene, especially during the past decade—becoming home to such artists as Alicja Kwade, Candice Breitz, and Olafur Eliasson—Till Cremer’s photographic long-term study showcases the diversity of Berlin’s artists and presents a wide spread of different artistic selfimages. More than 500 portraits were made for Berlin Artists, a selection of which appeared in a photobook of the same title in 2015. In his article, Till Cremer

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recounts his personal motivation for this work and sheds light on the technology and the social dynamics involved in his photographic practice and research: how and in which locations the images were created, how sitters contributed to their portraits, and how the photographer arrived at further pictures. In a sense, Cremer’s images are contemporary versions of the photographs that show Georges Braque and Claude Monet in their studios, and it may be said that the studio continues to represent a significant topos of the artist genius. Till Cremer sketches a tight network that shows the relationships between the artists, allowing conclusions to be drawn about their professional ambitions. The photographic works from the Berlin Artists series sum up this collection of articles. They serve as examples that show how photography engages with public discourse concerning the image of the artist and how it shapes this image for the purpose of a persona that is culturally relevant. Translated by Logan Kennedy and Leonhard Unglaub

Notes

I would like to thank Sarah Schönewald for her edits to this introduction and her valuable suggestions. 1 C. G. Jung-Institut, ed., Studien zur analytischen Psychologie C.G. Jungs, vol. i (Zurich: Rascher Verlag, 1955), VI. 2 Hans Belting, Das echte Bild. Bildfragen als Glaubensfragen (Munich: Beck, 2005), 7. 3 Hans Belting, Faces. Eine Geschichte des Gesichts (Munich: Beck, 2013), 14. 4 Carl Gustav Jung, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, ed., Herbert Read, Michael Fordham, Gerhard Adler, vol. vii (Olten and Freiburg im Breisgau: Walter Verlag, 1984), § 245. 5 Ibid., § 246. 6 Ibid., § 247. 7 Carl Gustav Jung, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Herbert Read et al., eds., vol. xv (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), § 130. 8 Ibid., § 122. 9 Ibid., § 123. 10 Ibid., § 127. 11 Ibid., § 130, § 184. 12 Ibid., § 157. 13 Ibid., § 159. 14 Ibid., § 185. 15 Ibid., § 192. 16 Circe Henestrosa underlines that to the average Mexican, a Tehuana is “as

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romantic and attractive a subject as a South Sea maiden to an adolescent American.” in Claire Wilcox, Circe Henestrosa, eds., Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up, ex. cat. Victoria and Albert Museum (London: V&A Publishing, 2018), 67. “Madame Rivera seems herself a product of her art, and, like all her work, one that is instinctively and calculatedly well composed. It is also expressive—expressive of a gay, passionate, witty and tender personality.” in Vogue, Nov. 1938, 131. The 2018 exhibition Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up at the London Victoria & Albert Museum drew on objects locked in the artist’s bathroom following Frida Kahlo’s death in 1954. The treasure included 6,500 photographs and 300 items of clothing, jewelry, and accessories. The photographs reveal that Kahlo was working on her iconic image even as a very young woman. See Circe Henestrosa: “Appearances Can Be Deceiving—Frida Kahlo’s Construction of Identity: Disability, Ethnicity and Dress” in Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up (see note 16), 66–83.

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Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, trans. Werner S. Pluhar (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company 1987 [1791]), 175. Kant, Critique of Judgment (see note 19), 175. Ibid. Novalis, Philosophical Writings, ed. and trans. Margaret Mahony Stoljar (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), 73. Novalis, Philosophical Writings (see note 22), 76. Aurier in Bettina Gockel, Pathologisierung des Künstlers: Künstlerlegenden der Moderne (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2010), 11. André Breton, Manifestoes of Surrealism, trans. Richard Seaver, Helen R. Lane (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2010 [1924]) 5. Wyndham Lewis, ed., Blast (London: Thames and Huddson, 2008 [1914]), 33. Armin Zweite, ed., Francis Bacon. Die Gewalt des Faktischen, exh. cat. K20 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen (Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 2006), 21 (trans. Kennedy-Unglaub). As quoted in Michael Peppiatt, Francis Bacon. Anatomy of an Enigma (London: Orion ­Publishing Group, 1996), 199–200. Peppiatt, Francis Bacon. Anatomy of an Enigma (see note 28), 199. Francis Bacon. Die Gewalt des Faktischen (see note 27), 48. David Sylvester, Interviews with Francis Bacon (London: Thames and Hudson, 1975), 40. “I don’t want to practice the injury that I do to them in my work.” in Sylvester, Interviews with Francis Bacon (see note 31), 41. Sylvester, Interviews with Francis Bacon (see note 31), 16. “Francis Bacon: I painted to be loved,” In The Art Newspaper, no. 137 (2003), 28. Ibid. Francis Bacon. Die Gewalt des Faktischen (see note 27), 9, 34, 37–55. Francis Bacon. Die Gewalt des Faktischen (see note 27), 27. “Francis Bacon: I painted to be loved” (see note 34), 28.

39 Ibid. 40 Ludger Derenthal, Jadwiga Kamola, eds., Künstler Komplex. Fotografische Porträts von Baselitz bis Warhol. Sammlung Platen, exh. cat. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Heidelberg, Berlin: Kehrer Verlag, 2018), 44. 41 Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up (see note 16), 13–14. 42 With the floor-length dresses, richly embroidered blouses and woven shawls, Kahlo invigorated the tradition from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, a region in the state of Oaxaca in the southeast of Mexico. It is a matriarchal society, in which women dominate and dress in Tehuana attire. In Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up (see note 16), 67. 43 In The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1936) Benjamin distinguishes photography from earlier, manual forms of image-making: “For the first time in the process of pictorial reproduction, photography freed the hand of the most important artistic functions which henceforth devolved only upon the eye looking into a lens.” in Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zohn, (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), 210. 44 “When we have learnt more, by experience, respecting the formation of such pictures, they will doubtless be brought much nearer to perfection; and though we may not be able to conjecture with any certainty what rank they may hereafter attain to as pictorial productions, they will surely find their own sphere of utility, both for completeness of detail and correctness of perspective” in Henry Fox Talbot, The Pencil of Nature (London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1844), 2. 45 Talbot, The Pencil of Nature (see note 44), 1. 46 Laura Saltz: “Natural/mechanical: keywords in the conception of early photography” in Tanya Sheehan, Andrés Mario Zervigón, eds., Photography and Its Origins (New York and London: Routledge, 2018), 199, 202. 47 Talbot, The Pencil of Nature (see note 44), 2. 48 Talbot, The Pencil of Nature (see note 44), 7.

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“How charming it would be if it were possible to cause these natural images to imprint themselves durably” in Talbot, The Pencil of Nature (see note 44), 8. Saltz, “Natural/mechanical: keywords in the conception of early photography” (see note 46), 202. Laura Saltz underlines that photography could be simultaneously conceived as natural and mechanical because it was developed at a time when the meanings of these terms were in flux. See Saltz (see note 46), 196–197. See Saltz, (see note 46), 199 and Bernd Stiegler, Bilder der Photographie. Ein Album photographischer Metaphern (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2006), 246. Stiegler, Bilder der Photographie (see note 52), 135–137. Nous pouvons dire que ses planches représentent la nature prise sur le fait.” In Alfred Hardy, Arthur de Montméja, Clinique photographique de l’Hôpital SaintLouis (Paris: Librairie Chamerot et Lauwereyns, 1868), I. Martin Kemp, “A Perfect and Faithful Record: Mind and Body in Medical Photography before 1900” in Beauty of Another Order: Photography in Science, Ann Thomas, ed., ex. cat. National Gallery of Canada (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 148. See for example Ulrich Pfisterer, Anja Zimmermann, eds., Animationen / Transgressionen: Das Kunstwerk als Lebewesen (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2005). See Frank Fehrenbach,“Kohäsion und Transgression – Zur Dialektik lebendiger Bilder” in Animationen / Transgressionen: Das Kunstwerk als Lebewesen (see note 56), 6–16. “From Lomazzo to Franciscus Junius and all the way to Diderot, Winckelmann, Kant and Hegel, there arose the topos of color as the life-giving element of drawing.” See Fehrenbach (see note 57), 7 (trans. Kennedy-Unglaub). George Henry Fox, Photographic Illustra­ tions of Skin Diseases (New York: E. B. Treat, 1880), Preface. Hardy, Photographic Illustrations of Skin Diseases (see note 54), II.

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“Mais comme tout le monde n’est pas à même d’avoir continuellement sous les yeux des exemples vivants d’affections cutanées, on a cherché à remplacer les malades par des planches coloriées.” in Hardy, Photographic Illustrations of Skin Diseases (see note 54), II. See Horst Bredekamp, Der Bildakt (Berlin: Verlag Klaus Wagenbach, 2015), 187. Johann Caspar Lavater, Von der Physiognomik (Leipzig: Weidmann & Reich, 1772) 7–8 (trans. Kennedy-Unglaub). Johann Casper Lavater, Physiognomische Fragmente, zur Beförderung der Menschenkenntniß und der Menschenliebe, vol. ii (Leipzig: Weidmanns Erben und Reich, 1775–1778), 465, 90 (trans. KennedyUnglaub). “In the situation described above, the use of a camera obscura would, as it reduces the illuminated head by around three quarters, serve well not to trace directly from it, which would likely be impossible due to movement, but to easily compare drawing and truth.” See Johann Caspar Lavater, Physiognomische Fragmente,(see note 64), 465 (trans. Kennedy-Unglaub). “During the past fifty years, the number of books dealing with questions of physiognomy has grown into a worrisome mountain. […] A large portion of the authors—namely those who are not doctors—work with feeling, following the model of Lavater. A second group of physiognomy books is still married to Gall’s doctrine of skulls. The third group of physiognomists follows the path taken by Duchenne and Piderit and attempts to arrive at a clear understanding of permanent physiognomic shapes by studying mimetic changes.” in Fritz Lange, Die Sprache des menschlichen Antlitzes: Eine wissenschaftliche Physiognomik und ihre praktische Verwertung im Leben und in der Kunst (Munich: J. F. Lehmanns Verlag, 1952), 15 (trans. KennedyUnglaub). See Richard Gray, About Face. German Physiognomic Thought from Lavater to Auschwitz (Detroit, Michigan: Wayne State University Press, 2004).

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68 Lavater, Physiognomische Fragmente (see note 64), vol. i, 459. 69 Gray, About Face (see note 67), 89–90, 140. 70 “Explore, researcher of humans, the superiority of one human face over another. […] Search, and you will find the geometrically defined ratio of the commanding and of the obeying forehead! That of the royal and that of the Slavic race!” in Lavater, Physiognomische Fragmente (see note 64), vol. i, 463 (trans. Kennedy-Unglaub). 71 See for example Georges Didi-Huberman, Erfindung der Hysterie: die photographische Klinik von Jean-Martin Charcot (Munich: Fink, 1997); Susanne Regener, Visuelle Gewalt. Menschenbilder aus der Psychiatrie des 20. Jahrhunderts, trans. Silvia Henke (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2010). 72 See Georges Didi-Huberman, Erfindung der Hysterie (see note 71), 8. 73 See for example John Caldwell, Dissertatio medica inauguralis, de hysteria (Edinburgh: Apud Balfour et Smellie, 1780) and William Boush, Dissertation medica inauguralis de hysteria (Edinburgh: Balfour et Smellie, 1778). 74 Prior to the use of photography as a means of scientific visualization around 1860, portraits of patients were created in painting and using a number of different printing techniques. Compared to the monochrome photographic images, their advantage was that they were able to show patients more fully in color. On links between scientific and artistic photography see Jadwiga Kamola, Tumor im Blick. Patientenporträts im 19. Jahrhundert, zwischen Kunst, Medizin und Physiognomik (Vienna, Cologne, Weimar: Böhlau, 2018). 75 Silvia Henke, Martin Stingelin, Hubert Thüring, “Hysterie – Das Theater der Epoche” in Didi-Huberman, Erfindung der Hysterie (see note 71), 360.

CREDITS

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See August Sander, Antlitz der Zeit, Sechzig Aufnahmen deutscher Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts (Munich: Transmare Verlag, 1929), 14 (trans. KennedyUnglaub). Franz Kollmann, Schönheit der Technik (Munich: Langen, 1928), 27–30 (trans. Kennedy-Unglaub). Kollmann, Schönheit der Technik (see note 77), 22 (trans. Kennedy-Unglaub). See for example Daniela Bohde, Kunstgeschichte als physiognomische Wissenschaft: Kritik einer Denkfigur der 1920er bis 1940er Jahre (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2012). Leslie K. Baier, ed., Walker Evans at Fortune, 1945–1965, exh. cat. Wellesley College Museum (Wellesley, Massachusetts, 1977), 10. See Thomas Zander, ed., Labor Anonymous, Walker Evans (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2016), 20–21. “Walker Evans: The Unposed Portrait,” Harper’s Bazaar (March 1962), 122. Baier, Walker Evans at Fortune (see note 80), 20. Howard Ketcham, Color Planning for Business and Industry (New York: Harper, 1958), 1. Ketcham, Color Planning for Business and Industry (see note 84), 165. Herbert William Hess, Productive Advertising (Michigan: The University of Michigan, J.B. Lippincott, 1915), 64. See László Moholy-Nagy, Vision in Motion (Milwaukee: Wisconsin Cuneo Press, 1947), 170. Moholy-Nagy, Vision in Motion (see note 87), 170. Roland Barthes, “The Photographic Message” in Image – Music - Text, trans. Stephen Heath (New York: Hill and Wang, 1988), 26. Barthes, “The Photographic Message” (see note 89), 16.

1: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Handschriftenabteilung, Port. Slg./ Slg Bielefeld / Bd. 11/ Mp. 2 / Jung, Carl Gustav. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin; 2: Bernard G. Silberstein, FAPS, FRPS; 3: Yale University, New Haven, USA. Yale University, Harvey Cushing/ John Hay Whitney Medical Library; 4: Wellcome Collection, London.

Ulrike Blumenthal Milieu sphérique, espace clos. The Studio of Georges Braque as a Romantic Place of Creation in Brassaї’s Photographic Portraits

Over the course of more than thirty years, Brassaї (Gyula Halász; 1899–1984) created numerous photographs of Parisian painters and sculptors in their studios.1 In the early 1930s, the French photographer of Hungarian origin had gained access to the circles of native and immigrated artists who worked in the most varied styles, artists whom art critics in the 1920s began to refer to collectively as the École de Paris.2 In this environment, Brassaї met Georges Braque (1882–1963), and after World War  II he would take his picture in the artist’s studio for the American lifestyle magazine Harper’s Bazaar.3 When Brassaї, early in 1946, came to the studio of the French painter, Braque supposedly was so engrossed in his work that he did not even notice the photographer: “In the evening, I found Braque sitting on a stool at his worktable, writing down his thoughts in a notebook, […]. In the huge darkened studio, his face was lit only by the desk lamp. The picture I took that evening is my favorite of Braque, it best expresses the artist’s solitary labor”, Brassaї recalls in his publication The Artists of My Life (1982).4 His words, which are meant to underline the authenticity of the picture he took, describe a scene of intimacy and retreat that is also central to the photographic shot: Poring over the sketchbook on his desk in the studio at night, the artist is shown from a distance, his back turned to the viewer. In Brassaї’s words and image, seclusion and inwardness are linked to the studio as a place of retreat. This intimate atmosphere is also communicated in two other photographs included in the magazine’s March issue, showing the artist at the canvas and a shot of the interior. Both images are cropped and reproduced in a small format, accompanied by a short text on the left side of the double-page spread (fig. 1a). The photograph described above is, by contrast, reproduced with only minimal modifications, filling the entire right page (fig. 1b).5 It is characterized by the interlacing of discourses surrounding the history of the studio, of photography, and of the avantgarde, which, when analyzed with respect to their interaction, illuminate our understanding of the modern artist in Paris. A comparison of Brassaї’s print (30.5 × 24 cm, fig. 2) with the painting Caspar David Friedrich im Atelier (Caspar David Friedrich in

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1a and b: “Georges Braque. Photographed by Brassai,” Harper’s Bazaar, no. 2811 (March 1946): 156–157.

his Studio, 1811) by Georg Friedrich Kersting (1785–1847; fig. 3) reveals how Brassaї’s staging updates Romantic ideas about being a (male) artist in the photographic medium, while applying them to an artist of the École de Paris. Brassaї’s photographic practice, which quotes from the forms and processes of painting, is equally responsible for the persistence of this nineteenth-century pictorial formula.6 While pictorialist photography approaches the aesthetics of drawings, pastels, and prints, Brassaï’s photograph links to Kersting’s painting functionally and structurally, at the level of process as well as practice.7 Although it was long ago that the ideal of the artist who is able to create independently of current norms and demands found widespread validity—around 18008— it was not by chance that Brassaï chose the formula of the studio cum Romantic retreat. The image evinces the photographer’s profound knowledge of Braque’s work, as the photograph lends expression to the self-conception of the artist, who repeatedly underscored the autonomy of painterly creation in his own works and in statements. We can likewise glean this from the argumentative patterns of art critics who, since his earliest works, described Braque as an artist who rested in

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2: Brassaï (Gyula Halász), Georges Braque at his Working Table in the Studio Rue du Douanier, Paris 14e, 1946, gelatin silver print, 30.5 × 24 cm, private collection.

himself and created from himself. And not least of all, Brassaï’s photographs mark the beginning of a new kind of attention paid to the painter’s actual studio, which became the unmistakable focus in contemporary writing, exhibition reviews, and critiques about the artist from the late 1940s and beyond. Thus, Brassaï’s photographs were part of a development that gave new life to the idea of the Romantic artist-genius after the Second World War. The notion of the completely self-sufficient, individualistic artist is constitutive of the modern Parisian artist’s conception of genius, and is, I will argue, an essential connecting point for the (self-) understanding of artists who strove for originality and sought to define their aesthetic and political parameters after 1945.9

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The Studio as a Place of Refuge Brassaї’s photograph shows Braque in his studio at night, standing at a large drawing table filled with a variety of implements such as ink pots, pans, pens, and brushes (fig. 2). Illuminated by a desk lamp, he skillfully puts his pen to the paper and draws a sketch in a notebook.10 Both the distance between camera and artist and the picture’s portrait format emphasize the expanse and height of the large studio space. The large glazed wall that defines the space is likewise shown very clearly in the image. What remains obscured in the truest sense of the word is that the studio building in which we see Braque is a modern 1920s building, designed for him by the architect Auguste Perret (1874–1954, fig. 4).11 While other photographers, for example Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004), Alexander Liberman (1912– 1999), and Willy Maywald (1907–1985), attempted to capture the delicate play of light and the shimmering atmosphere—Braque had the windows pointing south and worked with an elaborate system of cloths, panels, and drapes that filtered and guided the light—Brassaï used his own system of lighting. He created a dramatic contrast of light and dark, using a light source from the top right that illuminates the artist from the side and at the same time creates deep black shadows in the folds of the fabric and below the desk. The brightly lit curtain at the bottom of the large glazed wall makes the contrast to the black of the night still more powerful. A small desk light illuminates Braque’s workspace; all objects outside its radius are immersed in darkness. The lighting resembling that of a spotlight, as well as the distant viewpoint from which the event is captured, give the sense of a stage on which the artist acts, while the viewer becomes a quiet observer. Braque’s averted stance inhibits contact between artist and observer. At the same time, however, we are able to partake in what he is doing indirectly: His inclined face, the open notebook and the drawing hand are unconcealed and, as the brightest part of the picture, form the center of the representation. This suggests a connection, as it were, between head and hand, between artistic inspiration and its immediate realization on the piece of paper, evoking several topoi of the artist-genius at once. Innumerable portraits and self-portraits from the Renaissance onward depict inspiration—back then still explained to some degree as deriving from the power of the divine—by showing the sitter with an illuminated forehead. Beginning in the eighteenth century, inner vision and illumination became signs of subjective creative power, paying tribute to imagination and thus to individual artistic creation.12 In this context, it was the drawing that traditionally stood for the artistic idea and inspiration. A fundamental concept of Renaissance art theory, the disegno distinguished the fine arts from the crafts, elevating the former to the level of the liberal arts.13 The representation of the artist at work in the seclusion of his studio became a central pictorial subject beginning in 1800.14 Here, the actual working spaces of painters and sculptors came sharply into focus, and Georg Friedrich Kersting’s

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3: Georg Friedrich Kersting, Caspar David Friedrich in his Studio, 1811, oil on canvas, 54 × 42 cm, Kunsthalle Hamburg.

portrait of Caspar David Friedrich in his studio (fig. 3) is not only one of the earliest but also one of the most striking examples of a new understanding of the studio. The painting, which is dated 1811, presents Friedrich in a plainly plastered and sparsely furnished room, working on a landscape. The room holds only the painter’s working utensils, an easel, a table, and a chair while other paintings, personal objects and the typical bric-à-brac—a jumble of things of various origins—are absent. The outside world is shut out as the window on the right is closed up with a board and the bottom part of the other is covered with wooden shutters. The strict pictorial composition and finely graded, subdued tones of ochre, gray, and green create a calm and coherent atmosphere that underscores the artist’s concentrated work on the canvas.

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4: The facade of Georges Braque’s studio-residence, constructed by Auguste Perret, Paris, 1927, gelatin silver print.

Kersting shows Friedrich from a distance, leaving the painting’s foreground open and thus holding the observer at a distance. In addition, the long, vertical lines of the floorboards visually move the painter further into the room. Holding several brushes and a palette in his left hand, his right lower arm supported on a mahlstick, he is putting fine accents on the canvas, entirely absorbed in what he is doing. Minimal movements that require hardly any physical effort are all that define his activity along the realization of this painting.15 Roughly fifty years before, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, in his essay Laokoon oder über die Grenzen der Mahlerey und Poesie (Laocoön. An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry, 1766), reflected on the medium-related differences between works of art and literature. While literature exists in time, he writes, painting can only ever work with a single moment when depicting, in as meaningful a way as possible, the past and future phases of an event, which is to say the course of a story. In his portrayal of an unchanging activity, Kersting deliberately forgoes this fruitful moment.16 And thus, the even daylight that enters the room can be seen as creating a state of constancy. Shaped by a lasting presence in which time appears to stand still and which remains unperturbed by any exterior factors, the studio becomes a place that creates its own spatiotemporal laws.

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The notion of the artist engrossed in his work was anything but new around 1800.17 In Romanticism, however, the artist’s immersion in his work was seen as a sign of his independence. When Friedrich is shown here cutting himself off from all outside influences and working without preparatory sketches or models, this must be considered a programmatic statement. It makes reference to the disengagement of artistic creation from previous formal and subject-related requirements, giving the artist’s subjectivity a hitherto unknown status.18 As a consequence, Friedrich’s notion that “art has to be generated from within,”19 became central to this new concept of art: Seclusion and autonomy were now seen as vital for personal pictorial invention that would act as a guarantor of the artist’s uniqueness and talent. The studio, in this way, was given a new function and became a space that was indispensable for retreat and inner contemplation. The solitary work in the studio further reflects the artist’s distant relationship to society, an indication of the changed social conditions in which artists lived and worked since the beginning of the nineteenth century.20

A Dialogue of Media: Brassaї as a Creator of Images In Brassaї’s photograph, the conceptions of Romantic creativity even appear to intensify. Braque is shown focused on his work in a studio that holds no sketches, no model, and no reference images, and the artist is supposedly unobserved by the viewer as he works. The circumstance that Braque is working at night amplifies the impression that he is completely self-sufficient and has chosen this secluded place of his own free will. While, with Friedrich, the exploration of nature as his model still plays a role as he works on a landscape painting, with Braque, the tension between landscape and studio, between nature and artistic creation has been removed: The creative work is done exclusively inside the studio, in the artist’s innermost refuge. As much as Brassaï invokes the pictorial formula of the artist working in the seclusion of his studio, the photograph of Braque is hardly a renewal of Kersting’s work created in reverence of painting. Brassaї’s photograph offers us an ostensibly direct view of Braque’s studio, a view that is praised in a short commentary not least of all for its topicality in Harper’s Bazaar. With a few introductory words, the magazine invites its readers to look at the photographs: “On these pages are new photographs by Brassaї of the white-haired Braque in his Paris studio.” Due to the technical nature of the photographic process, the image has the effect of making its subject appear present.21 As the photography theoretician Philippe Dubois explains, its status of an indexical sign enters the photographic image in an exclusive relationship with its referent, thus lending it a proof-giving function, which the painted representation cannot have in the same way. Calling it a trace d’un réel, Dubois makes the claim that the photographic image attests to the existence of

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that which it shows.22 The precise rendition, the rich execution of tonal values, and Brassaï’s forgoing the use of special filters or touch-ups on the negatives support the “effet de réel.”23 However, some contemporaries also emphasized with respect to Kersting’s painting—shown at the Dresden academy exhibition in 1811—that its representation was indeed strikingly similar to Friedrich’s actual workspace.24 These comments remind us that Kersting’s studio painting, created only a few years before the first successful photographic results by Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, Nicéphore Nièpce, and William Henry Fox Talbot, was perceived as particularly faithful due to its supposedly realistic painting style. “The painter has neither forgotten nor added anything. Truth itself draws us to his paintings, and we leave them just as if we had visited with their skillful inhabitants themselves,” was one of the responses to Kersting’s work.25 Then again, Brassaï’s aesthetic interventions with regard to the pictorial composition show his photograph to be not simply a transparent view of the scene but an image that was conceived and composed much in the manner of a painting. Brassaї took the time to stage his photograph, precisely coordinating the light, the composition, and the position of the artist in the space.26 The “moment” captured here is neither a snapshot nor a “decisive moment” à la Henri Cartier-Bresson, who in an instant—“in unison with movement”—pulled a well-composed image out from the course of time.27 Braque’s position would have remained largely the same until the camera clicked; the photographer could predict the slight movements Braque made at the drawing table. As such, the posture assumed by the painter anticipated the freezing effect of the photographic image, and, as described by the art historian Craig Owens, the photograph registered “a previous arrest” rather than pulling an individual moment out of the passage of time.28 Brassaї’s picture thus connects to Kersting’s studio painting in terms of medium and function. Like Kersting’s image, Brassaï’s photograph does not make reference to a narrative sequence of events. It instead unfolds a permanence that undermines photography’s act of cutting through space and time which, according to Philippe Dubois, normally constitutes the temporal structure and composition of a photograph.29 Brassaї occupies a position similar to Kersting’s in that he intervenes in the representation, acting as a third authority between artist and observer. He left nothing to chance, diminishing undesired image effects as well as minimizing the impact of the automatic involvement the camera has in the moment the shutter is released..30 His actions aimed at excluding incalculable elements, disturbances in the photographic process, and moments of lost control. The fact that Brassaï, up into the 1960s, used his bellows-type Voigtländer Bergheil camera when taking pictures in artists’ studios, corresponds to his understanding of the photographic act as one that centers around showing events and situations in a concentrated form. The technical specifications of the medium-format camera that had to be mounted on a tripod required exacting preparations and so it was not suited for shooting a fast sequence of images. By connecting the generation of the image as

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closely as possible to his actions, Brassaï strengthened his role as author in the photographic process.31 In this sense, he joined the painter in his studio as a coequal creator of images—and not least of all, Braque’s dark studio space brings up associations of a darkroom.

Studios and Still Lifes The studio as a place of inspiration and creative exploration played a central role for Georges Braque, as can be seen from the series of large-format paintings titled Atelier, which he created between 1949 and 1956, including Studio V (1949–1950, fig. 5). They are the result of the artist’s life-long probing of the relation between representation, image, and reality.32 Still lifes and interiors in one, these works are all based on tools and objects from the immediate context of the painter. The paintings are primarily executed in tones of black, ochre, and brown and show palettes, pots of paint, vases, bowls, sculptures, and canvases. The representation of these objects is not true to life; rather, the depicted objects fold into and penetrate one other. Contour lines multiply and create spectra, reflections, and doublings in which the eye gets lost; firm borders dissolve, forming new pictorial entities. The complex perspectival interleaving gives rise to a space that is as multilayered as it is evasive, and in which the pictorial world appears to be in constant flux.33 In the series of eight images, motifs and subjects that were central for Braque in his early Cubist works take form. For Braque and Picasso, the still life was the preferred genre for developing a groundbreaking new pictorial language that unfolds multiple views of a three-dimensional object in a two-dimensional plane. In the 1920s and 1930s, Braque increasingly integrated painting tools such as palette, brush, and easel in his interior scenes, for instance in the 1939 work The Studio (Vase before a Window) (fig. 6), making explicit reference to the act of painting. In this way, Braque worked with an ostensibly self-reflective subject that makes no reference to the current time and lends itself well to testing new pictorial means. The painter Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin (1699–1779) was the first to explore this subject before it was picked up again more than one hundred years later, becoming the preferred vehicle of such exploration in the second half of the nineteenth century. The still life, as it shows lifeless things and is free of narration, had been on the lowest rung in the hierarchy of genres. This allowed artists like Édouard Manet, Gustave Courbet, and Paul Cézanne to focus on what they were depicting and thus on the difference between the representation and what was being represented. Their work signals this difference through painterly means, by emphasizing how the painted subject is materially produced, something that followed from, according to the art historian Gottfried Boehm, the new-found autonomy in art and its means of expression.34 Indeed, Braque throughout the 1930s reaffirmed the autonomy of creative activity from political and societal events of the day—in a time that is, when the

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Georges Braque, Studio V, 1949–1950, oil on canvas, 147 × 176.5 cm.

active involvement of artists was being forcefully demanded. In France, the question of the status of the artist and the relationship between aesthetics and politics was debated with increased fervor during the course of the world economic crisis, the Nazi regime in Germany, the civil war in Spain, and the rule of the Popular Front in France. In the 1930s, the country, according to the art historian Jutta Held, experienced “a politicization of the public at large, whose polarizing effect also reached artist circles.”35 The debate culminated in three evenings of discussion organized by Louis Aragon in May and June of 1936, and the contributions of the first two gatherings were published that same year in the edition Querelle du Réa­ lisme.36 Referring to the painter Gustave Courbet, Aragon, writer and co-founder of Surrealism, not only demanded that modern artists be socially committed but accused Braque and the Fauve painter André Derain in particular of refusing to accept state commissions.37 In this heated climate, Braque wrote numerous commentaries and gave interviews to defend the autonomy of artistic creation. When the magazine Cahiers d’art, as part of a survey, wanted to know whether a work of art could exist detached from its own time, Braque explained in detail the relationship between contemporary history and artistic creation, writing:

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6: Georges Braque, The Studio (Vase before a Window), 1939, oil mixed with sand on canvas, 113 × 146.1 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

“Les changements de régime interviennent forcément dans la vie du peintre puisqu’il subit son époque, comme chacun. Mais son travail dépend trop du passé pour qu’il puisse l’aborder avec une conscience claire des modifications de l’heure présente. […] Un tableau n’est pas un instantané.”38 “Changes of regime necessarily affect the life of the painter since he, like everyone else, endures his age. But his work depends too much on the past for him to accommodate to the changes of the hour with a clear conscience. […] A painting is not a snapshot.”39 Braque makes a clear distinction between the artist as a citizen on the one hand, who like everyone else is influenced and affected by historical events, and artistic creation on the other, which is involved only indirectly. Making an image first of all requires a number of formal decisions, Braque states. Painting current events would fail simply because the development of the work would go on for much longer than the original cause that gave rise to it—a painting would never be “up-to-date.” Painting was about an aesthetic exploration, about a “fait pictural,”40 not about narration.

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When, in 1939, the art dealer Paul Rosenberg arranged an exhibition of the painter’s latest works, it included many of his vanitas, still lifes, and studio paintings. To visitors of the show, these self-reflective subjects, shown only a few months before the outbreak of World War  II, must have appeared especially unworldly.41 The art historian and conservator Germain Bazin in his exhibition review describes a feeling of calmness and seclusion that overtook him when he looked at the paintings: The still lifes and interiors enabled moments of internalization as well as allowed the viewer to step back from the noise, the frantic pace, and the threatening events of present-day life.42 The works, Bazin suggests, offered the viewer a safe haven that was isolated from the outside world, much in the manner of a painter’s studio. While Bazin in his review indirectly created an analogy between the exhibition situation and the place of artistic creation, Georges Braque not only metaphorically but literally withdrew to his studio during the subsequent years, when France was occupied by Germany. Although Braque, a non-Jewish Frenchman, did not have to fear for his life—in fact, his work was even appreciated by some intellectuals and functionaries of the Nazi regime—he hardly took part in public life during this time.43 Between 1940 and 1943, his works were very rarely shown publicly.44 His studio on Rue de Douanier during these years became a place for painting that resisted simple and conclusive classification, and it stood in contrast to the aesthetic ideologies of the German occupiers and the Vichy regime.45 In paintings that are concerned still more closely with objects and views in the artist’s immediate environment—paintings generating a world unto themselves—Braque during these years consistently furthered his exploration of problems intrinsic to art.46

Braque, l’intimiste Presenting himself as an artist who works in the seclusion of his studio corresponded with Braque’s aesthetic and personal attitude shortly after the Second World War. It corresponded with his desire to highlight the autonomy of artistic means of expression, which is to say his desire to advance a pictorial language that did not depend on current events and was not beholden to any rules. In addition, the topos of the romantic artist also served as a model of reference by which the artist and his work were interpreted. Even early commentators describe him as a solitary painter who rests in himself and develops his paintings in a series of deliberate, carefully considered steps. The poet Guillaume Apollinaire, who wrote the first reviews about Braque, thus laying down basic interpretive patterns for subsequent generations, characterized his art in 1913 as “paisible”. He also described the technical execution as the most powerful means of expression found in Braque’s painting.47 Roger Bissière, a painter himself, pointed directly to the training Braque received from his father, who was a decorative painter. In 1920, he wrote, “De même, Braque a aperçu dans les méthodes patientes et presque mathématiques du peintre

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en bâtiment, les éléments d’un langage nouveau susceptible d’atteindre à la plus grande pureté […].”48 The art critic and publisher Christian Zervos, in 1933, dedicated almost an entire issue of the Cahiers d’art to the artist, reprinting the reviews by Apollinaire and Bissière. He too speaks of an “œuvre de longue réflexion” when introducing the reader to Braque’s work on the first pages.49 In the post-war period as well, the perceived diligence and thoroughness with which Braque worked on his paintings was attributed to his learning the trade of house painting when he was young. “Ce Normand aux fortes épaules et aux yeux claires a passé son enfance auprès d’un père qui avait une entreprise de peinture en bâtiments. […] Son œuvre s’est élevée avec lenteur et sureté,” writes the philosopher Jean Grenier in 1948 in an introduction for a large-format book about the artist.50 Reflecting on Braque as an artisan, the author Georges Limbour, in his detailed article in the periodical L’Œil, writes: “Braque a du métier et l’amour du travail bien exécuté : il n’est pas un peintre d’improvisation, ce qui tient peut-être aussi bien à sa nature qu’à son éducation : c’est un vrai peintre !”51 Braque’s paintings, he continues, are detached from any drama, their sensuality never provocative. Rather, the things that are shown appear to be carrying forward a serene immersion, and thus one may designate Braque as an intimiste—a painter, that is, whose representations express a familiar, intimate, or internalized view.52 The critic Maurice Raynal, as early as the beginning of the 1920s, found a metaphor for Braque’s practice. Significantly, he describes the painter as a monk who works in his cell, shut off from the commotion of the world. “Braque est d’abord le moine imagier qui dans sa cellule crée avec le plus grand amour les œuvres que l’on connait […]. Les bruits du monde qui ne l’atteignent pas le laissent dans l’ignorance de ce que celui-ci nomme les fins.”53 While this description is still a thought experiment that does not refer to the artist’s de facto work space, the artist’s actual studio in the former Rue de Douanier54 was given prime importance in exhibition catalogs, reviews, and critical writing about Braque after World War  II. Consistently, it was perceived here as a space dedicated to contemplation that stood in contrast to the noisy outside world: “Un jour de l’été passé, j’allai voir Braque. […] Je fus saisi, en pénétrant dans son atelier, d’un sentiment soudain de calme et de bonheur”, begins the introduction in a small book about Braque, written by the editor and author André Lejard and published in Paris in 1949.55 Here, the studio is given an especially prominent position, including full-page portrait pictures and other photographs that show the artist at work in his studio. The artist and poet André Verdet, writing in the series Les Grands Peintres, likewise begins with a description of the studio: “Un silence propre, ordonné, luisant doucement sur le carrelage et les boiseries, avec ce halo que donne aux choses, touchées alternativement par la main ou le regard humain, l’ombre et la lumière des heures, un climat profond de méditation.”56 This interpretation reached its apex in an exhibition with the title L’Atelier de Braque, which was dedicated to the artist by the Louvre in 1961 and went so far as

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to replicate parts of the studio in the exhibition hall. In his almost hymnal opening speech, the writer and conservator Jean Cassou invoked the studio as a universe all its own, a spherical place (“milieu sphérique”) and enclosed space (“espace clos”) in which things and thoughts, elements and forces circle around the master and creator in the center.57 He holds that, as an “œuvre d’intérieur,” Braque’s work is nourished entirely by this cosmos: “Une pensée de cette sorte ne peut dépenser sa puissance que dans un univers fini, dans un monde spécifiquement intérieur. Il n’y a pas de dehors. Rien d’extérieur ne pénètre, sinon suggéré – à peine – par la fenêtre. […] En somme, le genius loci, le secret et puissant esprit de l’Atelier ne cesse de faire sentir son action dans toute l’œuvre de ce solitaire, intérieur, patient, lumineux Georges Braque, dont, dans quelques mois, vont glorieusement sonner les quatre-vingts ans.”58 “Such thinking can unfold its power only in a limited universe, in a specifically inner world. There is no outside. Nothing from outside penetrates, except as a—hardly discernable—hint coming from the window. […] In a word, the genius loci, the secret and powerful spirit of the studio, does not cease to make its action felt in the entire work of this withdrawn, inward-looking, patient, extraordinary Georges Braque, whose eighty years will resound with glory in a few months.”59 In light of this, it may be said that Brassaї’s photographic representation with its implications of seclusion and autonomy partook in a discourse about Braque in which the painter was characterized as inward-looking and his work was increasingly associated with the studio as a genuine place of artistic creation.60 While, in the interwar period, portrait shots of Braque by Rogi André (born Rózsa Klein; 1905–1970) or Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; 1890–1976) predominated by far, Brassaï’s photograph offered a powerful image showing the artist and his studio as an inseparable entity. The indexical character of the photograph here serves to provide a documentary, authentic view of the studio, which, as opposed to Kersting’s painting, had faded from the spotlight in Braque’s own paintings of his studio. The effective staging of Braque in his studio must nonetheless be seen in relation to a nineteenth-century canonical motif that, in its manifestation in the medium of photography, perpetuates Romantic conceptions of the artist. If, in the case of Braque, this meant that his independence as an artist and his exploration of subjects inherent to art were reinforced, the discussion about the individualistic artist personality must be seen as central to the debate about the École de Paris and its significance for the future of French art after 1945.61 This found expression, for example, in the words of the journalist and art historian Jacques Lassaigne, who states in his publication for the 1946 exhibition Cent chefs-d’œuvre des peintres de

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l’École de Paris at Galerie Charpentier, “the Paris School witnessed the culmination and the triumph of the concept of the artist’s independence.”62 The supremacy of Paris—and thereby France—was justified during these years with the ideal of an artist community that was united not despite but because of its individual artists’ diversity. The capital here was understood as a place that could truly bring out the specific artistic qualities of the individual in such a way that they would feed back into the artistic cosmos of the city, integrating into it and thereby fortifying it.63 Thus, Brassaї’s photograph entered into the reception of the artist image at a significant moment. Not only did it constitute a kind of prelude to the innumerable photographs of Braque, almost all of which, after World War  II, show the painter in his studio. It was also part of a larger phenomenon that linked the artists of the École de Paris inseparably to the place of artistic creation and, importantly, to the French capital: After 1945, the photographic representation of the artist in his studio experienced considerable popularity. Alberto Giacometti, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, and Germaine Richier along with many other Parisian painters and sculptors were captured by the cameras of such photographers as Henri CartierBresson, Alexander Liberman, and Willy Maywald.64 As Germany could not, France was able to cast the interwar period as a glorious past, to appeal to existing traditions, and—losing no time in the first decade following the occupation and the Vichy regime—to give these artists a new stage.65 Moving beyond their original context, these photographic images were produced and circulated in great numbers, contributing to a consolidation and a pervasiveness of the image of the modern artist, an image that to this day has lost little of its potency. Translated by Logan Kennedy and Leonhard Unglaub

Notes

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After spending several months in Berlin, Brassaї went to Paris in 1924, intending to establish himself as a painter. However, in the 1930s he earned himself a name above all as a photographer, when his pictures of Paris at night appeared in the photobook Paris de Nuit in 1932. The present article draws on thoughts developed for my dissertation project, which focusses on Brassaï’s studio photographs of Parisian artists taken during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. The term initially referred principally to foreign painters and sculptors and increasingly became the antithesis of an “École française.” In the late 1930s, the term was then said to have included both foreign and French artists, who

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would go on to contribute in equal measure to the development of modern painting, based on Cubism and Fauvism. Accordingly, by around 1945, the term referred to a modern tradition, and in the subsequent two decades underwent another change in meaning. Cf. Natalie Adamson, Painting, Politics and the Struggle for the École de Paris, 1944–1964 (Farnham/ Burlington: Ashgate, 2009), 22–30; 73. On the concept of the École de Paris, see also Laurence Bertrand ­Dorléac, “L’École de Paris, suites,” in L’École de Paris 1904– 1929, la part de l’Autre, exh. cat., Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris (Paris: Paris-Musées, 2000), 148–157. Brassaї, starting in 1937, worked for the magazine and rekindled this business

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relationship after World War  II. In the 1930s, most of Brassaї’s studio photographs were published in the art magazines Minotaure and Verve. Brassaї, The Artists of My Life (New York: The Viking Press, 1982), 18. Cf. “Georges Braque. Photographed by Brassaї,” Harper’s Bazaar, no. 2811 (March 1946): 156–157. I am referring here to the concept of remediation put forth by Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin: “We offer this simple definition: a medium is that which remediates. It is that which appropriates the techniques, forms, and social significance of other media and attempts to rival or refashion them in the name of the real. A medium in our culture can never operate in isolation, because it must enter into relationships of respect and rivalry with other media.” Jay David Bolter, Richard Grusin, Remediation. Understanding New Media (Cambridge, Mass/London: MIT Press, 1999), 65. Andrea Seier, based on Bolter and Grusin, studied the performative constitution of gender and media. Andrea Seier, Remediatisierung: Die performative Konstitution von Gender und Medien (Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2007). Contrary to any presumed specifics of the photographic, I will work with an open, dynamic notion of media that makes visible the continuities between different pictorial practices and through which the boundaries between photography and painting are blurred and reformulated. On pictorialism, see La photographie pictorialiste en Europe, exh. cat., Musée des beaux-arts de Rennes (Cherbourg: Le Point du Jour Éditeur, 2005). On the interrelationship and processes of exchange between painting and photography in the nineteenth century, see Dominique de FontRéaulx, Peinture et photographie: Les enjeux d’une rencontre, 1839–1914 (Paris: Flammarion, 2013). On the long-term interaction between portrait painting and photography in a clinical context, see Jadwiga Kamola, Tumor im Blick: Patientenporträts im 19. Jahrhundert zwischen Kunst, Medizin

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und Physiognomik (Vienna, Cologne, Weimar: Böhlau, 2018). Verena Krieger, Was ist ein Künstler? Genie – Heilsbringer – Antikünstler: Eine Ideen- und Kunstgeschichte des Schöpferischen (Cologne: Deubner Verlag, 2007), 35. On the historical perception and reception of ‘Romantic’ art, which has long neglected the inner tensions of this movement in favor of a homogenous understanding of modernism, see Christian Scholl, Revisionen der Romantik: Zur Rezeption der „neudeutschen Malerei“ 1817–1906 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag GmbH, 2012). Adamson describes the École de Paris in this context as “a critical concept,” “riddled with the inconsistent mannerisms of originality-obsessed and individualistic painters.” Adamson, Painting, Politics and the Struggle for the École de Paris (see note 2), 2–3. According to Brassaї, this is Braque’s Cahier. Cf. Brassaї, The Artists of My Life (see note 4), 18. The Cahier de Georges Braque was first published in 1947 and comprises a collection of the artist’s remarks and sketches from thirty years. His original drawings in ink are sometimes so closely interwoven with his writing that it is difficult to disentangle them; image becomes text, text becomes image. Erected in 1927, the modern red brick building is still standing today. It has two levels, plus a generously glazed attic story, which used to contain the studio. Cf. Jean-Claude Delorme, Anne-Marie Dubois, Ateliers d’artistes à Paris (Paris: Parigramme, 2015), 105. Cf. Hans-Joachim Raupp, Untersuchungen zu Künstlerbildnis und Künstlerdarstellung in den Niederlanden im 17. Jahrhundert (Hildesheim/Zurich/New York: Olms, 1984), 200–205. Wolfgang Kemp, “Disegno. Beiträge zur Geschichte des Begriffs zwischen 1547 und 1607,” Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 19, (1974): 219–240; 234–236. One early exception is the painting Artist in his Studio by Rembrandt (24.8 cm × 31.7 cm, ca. 1629, oil on wood,

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Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), in which he, if we think of it as a self-portrait, shows himself standing in a sparse room, wearing a painter’s frock and a broad-brimmed hat. 15 Cf. Werner Schnell, Georg Friedrich Kersting (1785–1847): Das zeichnerische und malerische Werk mit Œuvrekatalog (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, 1994), 141. As shown by Werner Schnell, this representation goes back to examples from seventeenth century Netherlandish and eighteenth century French painting. Ibid., 143. 16 “Painting in its coexisting compositions can only ever use one single moment of the action and must therefore choose the one that is most incisive, and from which what goes before and what comes after can be most readily understood.” Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Laokoon oder über die Grenzen der Malerei und Poesie, ed. Karl-Maria Guth (Contumax–Hofenberg: Berlin, 2016), 93 (trans. Kennedy-Unglaub). 17 Cf. Ernst Kris, Otto Kurz, Die Legende vom Künstler: Ein geschichtlicher Versuch (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1995), 158. 18 Cf. Krieger, Was ist ein Künstler? (see note 8), 47. 19 Caspar David Friedrich in Sigrid Hinz, ed., Caspar David Friedrich in Briefen und Bekenntnissen (Berlin: Henschelverlag Kunst und Gesellschaft, 1984), 91 (trans. Kennedy-Unglaub). 20 Old structures of education, academic integration, and contract-awarding practices loosened in the nineteenth century, and some artists entered career paths that were independent of institutions. Cf. Pierre Wat, “Salonnards et refusés, XIXe siècle,” in Nadeije Laneyrie-Dagen, Pierre Wat, Philippe Dagen, Le métier d’artiste. Peintres et sculpteurs depuis le Moyen Age (Paris: Larousse, 1999), 141–183. 21 “Every photograph is a certificate of presence. […] neither image nor reality, a new being, really: a reality one can no longer touch.” Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1981), 87.

22 “Le statut d’index de l’image photographique implique […] que la relation que les signes indiciels entretiennent avec leur objet référentiel soit toujours marquée d’un quadruple principe, de connexion physique, de singularité, de désignation et d’attestation. Philippe Dubois, L’Acte photographique et autres essais (Paris: Éditions Nathan, 1990), 40; 47–50. 23 The term was coined by Roland Barthes and denotes descriptive elements in the works of Flaubert that characterize the literary text as particularly true to reality. Cf. Roland Barthes, “L’effet de réel,” Communications, no. 11 (1968): 84–89. 24 Cf. Schnell, Georg Friedrich Kersting (see note 15), 42. 25 As quoted in ibid., 52 (trans. Kennedy-Unglaub). 26 Following David Campany, it is therefore helpful to distinguish between the documentary form of a photograph “that is taken” and a staged photograph “that is made”: “To stage an image is to rupture that continuum, producing a photograph as imaginary as it is lucid.” David Campany, Photography and Cinema (London: Reaktion Books, 2008), 137. 27 The decisive moment. Photography by Henri Cartier-Bresson (Göttingen: Steidl, 2014 [1952]), n.p. And further to the point: “But he [the photographer] composes a picture in very nearly the same amount of time it takes to click the shutter, at the speed of a reflex action.” Ibid. David Campany describes how “a photograph tends to look ‘decisive’ if there is something to arrest. This is photography of the lens and shutter actively combined, colliding and colluding with the world in motion.” Campany, Photography and Cinema (see note 26), 26. 28 Conceptualizing the process of photographic image-making that takes place during the act of posing, Craig Owens, referring to Roland Barthes in an article written in 1985, describes “the photograph as a record of a previous arrest.” Craig Owens, “Posing,” in idem, Beyond Recognition. Representation, Power, and

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Culture (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press 1994), 201–217; 210. 29 Philippe Dubois characterizes the photographic act fundamentally as a “tranche unique et singulière d’espacetemps.” Dubois, L’Acte photographique et autres essais (see note 22), 153. He posits that the composition of a photograph is determined in essence by the principle of subtraction – the photographer removes something from a given space, simultaneously and in one stroke: “Là où le photographe coupe, le peintre compose; là où la pellicule photographique reçoit l’image […] d’un seul coup sur toute sa surface et sans que l’opérateur puisse rien changer en cours de jeu […], la toile à peindre, elle, ne peut que recevoir progressivement l’image qui vient lentement s’y construire, touche par touche et ligne par ligne, […].” Ibid., 159. 30 Along these lines, Peter Geimer states about the photographic process: “The automatism of the photograph correlates with the partial unintentionality of that which is later seen in the image.” Peter Geimer, Theorien der Fotografie zur Einführung (Hamburg: Junius Verlag 2009), 67 (trans. Kennedy-Unglaub). Similarly, Katharina Sykora describes how, “in the moment the shutter is released, the aspect of coincidence […] implicitly becomes a part of the photographic act.” Katharina Sykora, Unheimliche Paarungen. Androidenfaszination und Geschlecht in der Fotografie (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 1999), 71 (trans. Kennedy-Unglaub). 31 Techné has openly rivalled the male artist since the Renaissance, and in photography the problem has surfaced yet again. Cf. Sykora, Unheimliche Paarungen (see note 30), 70. 32 Cf. Uwe Fleckner, “Im Treibhaus der Bilder. Georges Braques Werkreihe ‘Atelier I–IX’ als vitalistische Metapher der Malerei,” in Guido Reuter, Martin Schieder (ed.), Inside/Outside. Das Atelier in der zeitgenössischen Kunst (Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2012), 48–59; 50.

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Cf. John Richardson, “The Ateliers of Braque,” The Burlington Magazine 97, no. 627 (June 1955): 164–170. Cf. Gottfried Boehm, “Die Sprache der Dinge. Cézannes Stilleben,” in Katharina Schmidt, Cézanne, Picasso, Braque: Der Beginn des kubistischen Stillebens (Ostfildern-Ruit: Verlag Gerd Hatje, 1998), 45–53, here: 38. Jutta Held, Avantgarde und Politik in Frankreich. Revolution, Krieg und Faschismus im Blickfeld der Künste (Berlin: Reimer Verlag, 2005), 19 (trans. Kennedy-Unglaub). Cf. La querelle du réalisme. Deux débats organisés par l’association des peintres et sculpteurs de la maison de la culture (Paris: Éditions sociales internationales, 1936). Reprint of the contributions in La querelle du réalisme, Présentation de Serge Fauchereau (Paris: Editions Cercle d’Art, 1987). Ibid., 121. Jean Cassou in his contribution in turn defends Cubism, saying that its new forms and the visual experience it enables may refer to new societal structures. Cf. Jean Cassou, “Deuxième débat” in ibid., 124–135. Georges Duthuit, “Enquête,” Cahiers d’art, no. 1–4 (1939): 65–73, here: 66. Translation in Alex Danchev, “The Strategy of Still Life, or The Politics of Georges Braque,” Alternatives. Global, Local, Political 31, no. 1 (Jan–Mars 2006): 1–16, here 3. “Faut-il répéter ici qu’il ne s’agit pas de constituer un fait anecdotique, mais un fait pictural ?” Duthuit, “Enquête” (see note 38) 65. Braque insists repeatedly on the “fait pictural;” the phrase will later be included in his quotations and aphorisms. Cf. Cahier de Georges Braque, 1917– 1947 (Paris: Maeght, 1949), 22. Cf. Karen K. Butler, “Georges Braque and the Cubist Still Life, 1928–1945. The Known and Unknown Worlds,” in Georges Braque and the Cubist Still Life, 1928–1945, exh. cat., Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum Saint Louis, The Phillips Collection Washington (Munich, London, New York: Prestel, 2013), 12–29, here: 15. “Au milieu de ces tableaux, à quelques mètres de la rue grondante et fracas-

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sante, quelle délicieuse impression de distance, d’arrêt du temps, d’abstraction. D’un coup l’on se sent allégé du réel, débarrassé du fardeau de cette présence obsédante du monde extérieur, que la vie moderne nous impose.” Germain Bazin, “Braque 1939,” Prométhée. L’amour de l’art XXe année, no. 5, (June 1939) 179–181, here: 180. Offering a decidedly political connotation in his interpretation shortly after the liberation of France, Jean Paulhan, too, according to Karen K. Butler, saw the artist’s still lifes as a haven. Butler recognizes in Paulhan’s writings about Braque a commentary on the purging policies that followed liberation. Cf. Butler, “Georges Braque and the Cubist Still Life” (see note 41), 27–28. 43 Ibid., 16. Ernst Jünger, stationed in Paris as an officer beginning in 1941, and Gerhard Heller, censor in the literary section of the Propagandastaffel since 1940, visited the artist in his studio several times. Cf. Jennifer Pap, “Looking at Painting in Occupied Paris. Georges Braque’s Spectators,” French Cultural Studies 27, no. 1 (2016): 32–46, here: 37; 40. 44 Only few paintings were sold at auction, and only few works were shown in the Fauves exhibition at the Galerie de France in 1942 and in the inaugural exhibition of the Musée national d’art moderne. Braque did not exhibit again until 1943, when he was given his own exhibition hall at the Salon d’Automne. Cf. Danchev, “The Strategy of Still Life” (see note 39), 13, 16. On art in France during the occupation, see Laurence Bertrand Dorléac, L’Art de la défaite. 1940– 1944 (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2010 [1993]) and Michèle C. Cone, Artists Under Vichy. A Case of Prejudice and Persecution (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1992). 45 Cf. Jennifer Pap, “Looking at Painting in Occupied Paris” (see note 43), 33. 46 In retrospect as well, Braque vehemently disclaimed any political interpretation of his works. The accumulation of skulls in his work between 1938 and 1943 he declared to be a purely formal artistic

means. Cf. Butler, “Georges Braque and the Cubist Still Life” (see note 41), 16. That a political connotation nevertheless inheres in the still lifes seems obvious: “[…] it is precisely in their insistent lack of political engagement that one can locate the historical specificity of Braque’s still-life paintings.” Ibid., 29. The same can be said of Braque’s personal stance during the German occupation, which Alex Danchev, drawing on Jean Grenier, characterizes as an “active passivity.” Cf. Danchev, “The Strategy of Still Life” (see note 39), 19. 47 Guillaume Apollinaire, Les peintres cubistes [Méditations esthétiques] (Paris: Eugène Figuière et Cie, 1913), 42. 48 Roger Bissière, Georges Braque (Paris: Éditions de “L’Effort moderne”, 1920), n.p. 49 Christian Zervos, “Georges Braque,” Cahiers d’Art (Exposition Georges Braque au Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bale) 8ème année, no. 1–2 (1933): 1–7, here: 2. The compilation of more than eighty pages further includes pieces of writing by André Salmon, Blaise Cendras, Ardenzo Soffici, André Lhotte, Jean Cassou, André Breton, H.S. Ede, and Carl (Karl) ­Einstein, some of which are likewise reprints and are published alongside a wealth of reproductions. 50 Jean Grenier, Braque. Peintures 1909–1947 (Paris: Les Éditions du Chêne, 1948), 3. 51 Georges Limbour, “Georges Braques: découvertes et tradition,” L’Œil, no. 33, (September 1957): 26–35, here: 30. 52 Ibid., 26. 53 Maurice Raynal, Georges Braque (Rome: Éditions de “Valore Plastici”, 1921), 9. Caspar David Friedrich’s studio has often been compared to a hermitage. 54 The street, which is across from Parc Montsouris, was renamed Rue Georges Braque in 1976. Cf. Gaussen, Guide des peintres à Paris (Paris: Éditions du Patrimoine, 2010), 182. 55 André Lejard, Braque (Paris: Fernand Hazan, 1949), 2. The volume includes only two reproductions of prints by the artist.

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56 André Verdet, Georges Braque (Les grands peintres) (Genève: Éditions René Kister, 1956), 3. 57 “On a souvent décrit […] l’atelier de la rue du Douanier, sa claire atmosphère recueillie, la disposition concentrique des ouvrages en cours, sur leurs chevalets ou rangés par terre. Au centre de ces orbites, le maître, assis, ramassé sur lui-même, […]. Car des attractions sont en jeu dans ce milieu sphérique, dans ce firmament, des forces germent, des éléments s’articulent, des raisons se déclarent, des rapports se calculent. […] l’atelier, cet espace clos, cette retraite habitée des humbles objets, le poêle, la cruche, la plante verte, […].” Jean Cassou, “Préface,” in L’Atelier de Braque, exh. cat., Musée du Louvre (Paris: Éditions des Musées nationaux, 1961), n.p. 58 Ibid. Braque was the first artist for whom the Louvre arranged an exhibition in his lifetime. 59 Trans. Kennedy-Unglaub. 60 In line with an art historiography that, even after 1945, articulated its subject with respect to national schools, geographic continuities, and categories of race and origin, the characterization of Braque is linked to the endeavor of identifying him as a French artist par excellence. Cf. Philippe Dagen, “Paris 1945–1953, un collage,” in Laurence Bertrand Dorléac et al. (eds.), Les Arts à Paris après la Libération. Temps et Temporalités (Heidelberg: arthistoricum.net, 2018), 29–47, here: 35. https://doi. org/10.11588/arthistoricum.324.445. Accessed July 31, 2019.

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Cf. Adamson, Painting, Politics and the Struggle for the École de Paris (see note 2), 74. 62 Jacques Lassaigne, Cent chefs d’oeuvre des peintres de l’École de Paris. One hundred masterpieces by the painters of the Paris school (Paris: Éditions de la Galerie Charpentier, 1947), 18. 63 The same can be said for regional and national specifics, which were to be brought into a balance with a universal culture. Cf. Adamson, Painting, Politics and the Struggle for the École de Paris (see note 2), 9. As Adamson explains further, there was, however, “no foreseeable reconciliation between an essentialised notion of France and the French tradition and the ideal of a universal cosmopolitanism. The École de Paris gives expression to and takes shape out of this conflict-ridden, unresolved dialogue.” Ibid. 64 In the late 1950s, which Adamson describes as “a moment of acute crisis in the production and reception of École de Paris painting,” three photo books about Parisian artists in their studios appeared almost at the same time; they were by Alexander Liberman, Willy Maywald, and Michel Sima. Cf. Ibid., 12. 65 In Germany, too, the so-called Zero Hour does not apply to art after 1945, but the preconditions were different for the two countries. Cf. Martin Schieder, Im Blick des anderen. Die deutsch-französischen Kunstbeziehungen 1945–1959 (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 2005), 377.

2: A.396. bpk / RMN – Grand Palais / Estate Brassaï; 3: Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Georg_Friedrich_Kersting_001.jpg, 26.05.2019; 4: Fonds Perret, Le Centre d’archives d’architecture du XX e siècle, Paris. Roberto Gargiani, Auguste Perret. La théorie et l’oeuvre (Paris: Gallimard, 1994), 67; 5: 2019 ProLitteris, Zurich, The Museum of Modern Art; https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/486270; 6: 2019, ProLitteris, Zurich / The Metropolitan Museum of Art, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/ search/486270, 26.05.2019.

Victoria Fleury Claude Monet’s Graphic Work and the Myth of a Plein Air Painter

In 1878, the art critic Théodore Duret (1838–1927) famously wrote that Claude Monet (1840–1926) was “the Impressionist par excellence”.1 Particularly in the late years of his career, the French artist cultivated the image of an inspired genius, who catches the moment with colors. Monet promoted this image through interviews until the end of his artistic career.2 However, this representation omits important aspects of Monet’s actual method, which was never accurately described by the artist during his lifetime. The artist used not only sketches but also pho­ tographs as part of his working process and as a memory aid for subjects.3 Despite the important role of these graphic works, this side of Monet as a sketching artist has been widely forgotten and sometimes even concealed. Arguably, the lack of attention given to these works is due to Monet’s self-fashioning as a plein air painter, as expressed in the many photographs taken of the artist, in the re-enactments of his working process. Certain works—mainly greyscale photographs of his paintings and some of his drawings—were made and used, in addition to their role in Monet’s creative process, for reproduction purposes to disseminate his work worldwide. Based primarily on Monet’s use of graphic works and his interviews, this article will show how the artist played an active role in portraying himself as a plein air painter. Photography played a pivotal role in this portrayal because the artist’s image and the physical attributes of a plein air painter consistently find expression in a number of photographic portraits of the artist.

The Role of Graphic Works in Monet’s Working Process Claude Monet—commonly referred to as the French genius of light and color—is today known worldwide and has been well studied in art historical publications.4 Until recently, it was hardly known that Monet created drawings, pastels, and sketches in addition to his paintings. Accordingly, very little research has so far been devoted to those sketches. Some of Monet’s drawings were published in 1986 in a three-page appendix in Monet: Nature into Art by the art historian John House.

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The complete catalog was subsequently printed in 1991 in the fifth volume of Monet’s Catalogue raisonné by the French art critic and historian Daniel Wildenstein. James A. Ganz and Richard Kendall’s exhibition catalog The Unknown Monet (2007) is the first publication which entirely concentrates on the artist’s drawings.5 Ganz and Kendall propose that Monet’s self-presentation as an Impressionist and plein air artist has led to an unexpectedly long-lasting lack of interest in his sketches. Additionally, his sketchbooks and most of his drawings, which are dispersed in private collections and museums, are rarely exhibited.6 Wildenstein counted 586 sketchbook drawings, loose sheets and pastels in the fifth volume of his Catalogue raisonné.7 The sketchbook drawings amount to 16% of Monet’s entire oeuvre, provided such sketches are accepted as artworks (pastels and drawings on loose sheets accounting for 4% and 3% and paintings for the remaining 77%). There are three main types of drawings produced by the artist. On request, Monet created drawn copies of his paintings for publications, which he signed.8 Then there are drawings and caricatures made during his youth, which he also signed and sold. And lastly, there are many sketches either on loose sheets or in the eleven sketchbooks known to date. The first three sketchbooks are dated to Monet’s youth: The artist drew his first landscapes in Le Havre, where he lived with his family, and also while he was on holiday in various places in France.9 The current location of the two first sketchbooks is unknown.10 The third sketchbook contains very similar drawings in addition to drawing exercises, which were probably part of his school education, as well as caricatures.11 This third sketchbook was disassembled and the individual pages were sold after his death. The additional eight sketchbooks, called the Cahiers Marmottan, are located at the Musée Marmottan in Paris. They include about 400 non-dated sketches that Monet drew from the early 1860s until the end of his artistic career in the 1920s. The Cahiers Marmottan are relatively unorganized, exhibiting a number of torn pages and chronological gaps. Monet did not always draw with the same page orientation and several sketches are overdrawn by other sketches. The dating of the sketchbooks often overlaps, indicating that Monet probably used them at the same time and for several years, effectively making chronological and thematic analyses very challenging.12 The sketches are mainly functional minimal studies that are not regarded as finished artworks.13 Most of them were not signed by Monet, show little detail and are often reduced to only a few lines of varying degrees of intensity and seem to have been drawn in a very spontaneous manner.14 The artist made the sketches with hard and soft pencil on beige paper, and in a few exceptions, black chalk or violet and black crayon were used. There are only few annotations in the sketchbooks. In the seventh Cahier Marmottan, notes on coloration can be found on folios 24 verso and 25 recto: the artist marked the red color of two houses, which he saw on a trip to Norway, with the French word “rouge” and reproduced it later on a canvas, Sandvika, Norway (1895), with a similar composition.15 Some sketches

Claude Monet’s Graphic Work and the Myth of a Plein Air Painter

were also framed by the artist with a few horizontal or vertical strokes, which further suggests that sketches played a role in the composition of paintings.16 Looking at the recurring abstract motif of water lilies in the paintings, which Monet exclusively painted in the last years of his life, it would seem that Monet spontaneously captured a moment in nature with color with no help from sketches.17 Drawings of water lilies, however, can be found in two of his sketchbooks: in the first and sixth Cahiers Marmottan.18 Monet’s sketches of water lilies are mainly structural, unlike their translation into color in oil paintings. In total, there are twenty sketches of water lilies in the sketchbooks and three on loose sheets. Though mostly on a single page, some sketches are stretched across two pages. These were all created from 1899 onwards, when Monet turned his attention to water landscapes and in the context of his Grandes Décorations project, which occupied his time from 1914 until the last years of his life.19 There is something paradoxical about Monet’s seemingly spontaneous canvases on the one hand and the existence of sketches depicting similar motifs on the other. Systematic comparison of the drawings and the paintings has revealed that many water lily sketches resemble Monet’s paintings, although clear one-to-one connections between the two genres could only be recognized in a few of them.20 For instance, the sketch Reflet de saules pleureurs et nymphéas on folio 10 verso and folio 11 recto of the sixth Cahier Marmottan (fig. 1) shares structural similarities with the oil painting Nymphéas, reflets de saule (1916–1919; fig. 2). As is the case with most of his drawings in the sketchbooks, Monet likely did not consider his water lily sketches to be artworks. The fact that the artist did not sign the drawings supports the assumption that he only saw them as preparatory works, as he almost always signed the paintings he sold or exhibited.21 There is furthermore no indication that Monet showed those sketches to others or that he exhibited them.22 This supports the hypothesis that the artist primarily used his sketches as material for his paintings. As such, the sketchbooks can be understood as collections of ideas, as a visual memory tool and a space to strategize compositions and relationships.23 As British art historian John House wrote about the Cahiers Marmottan: “On occasion Monet used preliminary drawings to note down possible viewpoints and compositional structures. […] they were not preparatory studies for individual paintings, but rather preliminary notations of possible viewpoints, a sort of repertory of potential subjects, which Monet might use in deciding which motifs to paint and how to frame a particular scene. Once this decision was taken, they would have had no further use.”24 As stated by House, Monet’s use of the Cahiers Marmottan for the purpose of subject research and for the creation of studies for paintings is attested to by the diversity of angles from which the subjects are shown. Many of the sketched compositions

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cannot be found in Monet’s paintings. Most of the compositions, in addition, are not exactly reproduced in his paintings, being painted from different angles.25 There are not only drawn but also painted études in Monet’s oeuvre.26 The art critic Théodore Duret described Monet’s working process in 1880:

Claude Monet, Reflet de saules pleureurs et Nymphéas, ca. 1916–1919, wax crayon on pencil on paper, 23.5 × 31.5 cm, sixth Cahier Marmottan, folio 10 verso and folio 11 recto, Musée Marmottan, Paris. 2: Claude Monet, Water-lilies, Reflections of Weeping Willows, 1916–1919, oil on canvas, 100 × 200 cm, Chichu Art Museum, Naoshima, Kagawa.

1:

Claude Monet’s Graphic Work and the Myth of a Plein Air Painter

“He places a clean canvas on his easel, and briskly starts to cover it with slabs of colour which correspond to the coloured patches shown him by the natural scene. Often during the first session he can only make an ébauche [result of the first session of work on the final canvas; trans. V. F.]. The next day, returning to the same spot, he adds to the first sketch (esquisse), and the details are brought out, the contours sharpened.”27 Accordingly, the artist started his work directly on a canvas, sketched with color and thus created a first ébauche. A sketch refers, in this context, to the first version of a painting after an observation of the natural landscape in plein air.28 As stated by House, Monet at the beginning of his career also used crayon (in part) to sketch the contours of the subjects on the canvas before painting them.29 After creating his first ébauches of his artworks outdoors, Monet finished them mostly in his atelier.30 For example, the main part of his London- and Venice-series was completed by memory and possibly with the help of his studies in Giverny.31 Many artists traveled during the summer, creating études or ébauches and perfected and finalized the paintings when they returned to their ateliers in the winter. Monet also did this repeatedly during his career.32 Several of his paintings can be understood as unfinished ébauches, since they exhibit sketchy strokes and because the canvas appears under the paint, as in Les Agapanthes (ca. 1914–1917). Today, it remains unclear how often and how long Monet worked on a painting before it was finished. The artist himself stated in an interview with the Duc de Trévise (1883–1946) that he could work on a piece up to twenty or thirty times. Other sources indicate that the artist could have worked on a painting between one and sixty times.33 At the same time, Monet claimed in the last years of his career that he never possessed an atelier and only painted out in the open.34 Making an untrue statement such as this, for the artist did work in, and always had access to, an atelier throughout his life, he was able to reinforce his image as the unsurpassed master of plein air painting—an image that has persisted to the present day.35 As an Impressionist, Monet wanted to capture light effects and a true image of living nature in his paintings.36 It is precisely his painted or drawn sketches which outline the essential elements of a scene—a particular moment— that are the first impression of the natural scene on the artist. However, Monet rejected these études, which he principally saw as unfinished. This paradox runs through his whole artistic career.37

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The Role of Photography in Monet’s Working Process Could photography have played a similar role in Monet’s artistic work? A photograph of Monet’s water pond in Giverny, presumably taken by Monet himself and dated around 1905, indicates the artist’s interest in the medium. The photograph shows the shadow of a person wearing a hat (fig. 3). Some authors claim that it was not Monet who took a picture of himself and that the photograph was rather taken by his son, Michel Monet (1878–1966), due to his known interest in photography. Despite this dispute over the photograph’s author, Monet’s interest in photography is evident as he had a darkroom built in his home in Giverny during the last years of his life.38 Several facts suggest that photography played a role in Monet’s work pro­­ cess.  From a general point of view, it is known that photographs influenced the Impressionist’s choice of motifs. Different publications have discussed the influence of postcards and photographs on the works of Impressionists between 1850 and 1874, during Monet’s youth and his debut as an artist.39 Some of these photographs

3: Claude Monet, Autoportrait à la surface du bassin aux nymphéas, Giverny, ca. 1905, citrate print from a negative film, 4.3 × 5.7 cm, Collection Philippe Piguet.

were taken by photographers of the Barbizon School near Fontainebleau or show landscapes of the coast of Normandy. Monet traveled to those locations and painted motifs that were very similar to the ones pictured in the photographs. For instance, Monet’s painting in Fontainebleau depicts the same subject as the photograph Tree, Forest of Fontainebleau (ca. 1856) by Gustave Le Gray (1820–1884; figs. 4, 5).

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4: Claude Monet, The Boadmer Oak, Fontainebleau Forest, 1865, oil on canvas, 96.2 × 129.2 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 5: Gustave Le Gray, Tree, Forest of Fontainebleau, ca. 1856, albumen silver print from glass negative, 52.7 × 69.7 cm, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

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Letters and photographs show that Monet used photography to stimulate his memory in his atelier.40 In a letter from L. A.  Harrison, a friend of the artist John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), to Monet’s art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel (1831–1922), Harrison writes that Monet had asked him for photographs of London after a visit to England. This was followed by a letter from Durand-Ruel advising Monet not to advertise this working method by asking for photographs so as to avoid damaging his reputation as a plein air artist.41 Furthermore, Monet used photographs as a way of documenting his paintings. This can be seen in his answer of November 6, 1906 to the art collector Charles Deudon (1832–1914), who requested information on paintings by the artist: “Dear Sir, I would like to write you an answer to your letter of the 4th. I do not have and there are no catalogs of my paintings, except for some more or less old notes; so it is only possible for me to give you the information you want if you send me a photographic print of the canvases of which you do not know the name and the place of origin. In this case I am at your disposal. Yours sincerely. Claude Monet.”42 Photography played a significant role for many of Monet’s fellow artists. It is well known that Edgar Degas (1834–1917) took pictures of motifs similar to those found in his paintings or pastels.43 The first Impressionist exhibition of 1874 was held in the atelier of the photographer Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (1820–1910), known under the pseudonym Nadar. In 1899, Nadar took a photographic portrait of Monet, with whom he was befriended. The first section of this paper showed that Monet used painted and drawn sketches as memory aids for subjects and as models for compositions in his paintings. Sketches are to be regarded as part of Monet’s artistic process, as primary material and as a source of inspiration. The elements presented in this second section suggest that photography might have played a similar role. Contrary to the common belief of his contemporaries and critics, the artist did not solely paint his artworks outside but re-worked on them and re-created most of them from memory in his atelier with the help of his drafts, drawings and photographs, which had quickly captured outdoor light and weather effects.

The Shaping of an Artist’s Own Reputation Monet was a master at presenting himself as a plein air painter. This image suggests the absence of preparatory works, sketches or an atelier and evokes the idea that the artist painted in nature. Not only did Monet welcome many visitors to his studio in Giverny, he also organized interviews and permitted biographical publications about himself. In the interviews, Monet often contradicted himself or made

Claude Monet’s Graphic Work and the Myth of a Plein Air Painter

false statements, for example that he never owned a studio. Yet one aspect remains constant in the interviews The artist was intensively exploring the visual character of his garden, aiming to capture one fleeting moment of nature.44 This image of a plein air artist becomes evident in the documentary Ceux de chez nous (1915) by Sacha Guitry (1885–1957). In the film, Monet is shown painting in his garden in Giverny, wearing a hat and smoking a cigarette. The following statement by Monet is particularly intriguing as it shows how the artist saw himself as playing an active role in forging his own reputation by destroying his études: “I have to keep an eye on my reputation as an artist while I still can. Once I am dead, no one will destroy a single painting of mine, however bad it may be.”45 This also transpires in a letter to Durand-Ruel from 1907, in which Monet writes: “[I destroyed] at least thirty of them, to my great satisfaction […] You remind me, it is true, that I have sold one of these canvases to Mr Sutton. I’m the first to regret this, because if I still had it, I should destroy it, and in any case I would not want it to appear in the planned exhibition.”46 The paintings in question were probably seen by the artist as first drafts. Monet had partially destroyed his études, possibly because he saw them as unfinished. As such, he did not want to leave them as legacy.47 Thus, one needs to consider whether Monet destroyed preparatory drawings and sketches or sketchbooks because they did not correspond to his ideal of a plein air artist. They indeed show that Monet did not solely paint en plein air but also with the help of preparatory works. In several cases, Monet drew over previous sketches on the same sketchbook folio. This shows his lack of interest in the first underlying sketch and its disposable quality.48 There are some indications that Monet purposely destroyed further sketchbooks or that they disappeared because they had too little value to be kept. This raises the question of how many sketches and sketchbooks might have been lost or were purposely destroyed by Monet. There are some surviving sketches of all of Monet’s painted series with the exception of his Japanese bridge series.49 The drawing Le soir à Belle-Isle (1890–1891) could originally have been part of a sketchbook as it has irregular cracks on the left page margin of the sheet, suggesting that it was ripped out of a sketchbook (fig. 6). As the size of the sheet corresponds to that of the sixth Cahier Marmottan, there is evidence to suggest that it originally belonged to that sketchbook (this still needs to be verified against the originals, notably by comparing the type of paper). Still, this evidence strongly suggests that some of Monet’s loose sheets might have initially been part of a sketchbook. Another loose sheet, currently kept in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the Louvre, reveals a drawing titled Deux barques de pêche, voiles tombées, amarrées à un quai, which shows two boats in a harbor on the recto (fig. 7). On the verso is a rowboat study also drawn by Monet. The recto has four tear marks on the top margin of the

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6: Claude Monet, Le Soir à Belle-Isle, 1890–1891, charcoal on paper, 23.4 × 31.5 cm, The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. 7: Claude Monet, Deux barques de pêche, voiles tombées, amarrées à un quai, 1868, pencil on paper, 26.8/26.9 × 17.1/17.2 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

paper. These tears indicate by their regular spacing that this page might have been extracted from a sketchbook.50 As none of the sketchbooks documented so far have this particular format, this might indicate the existence of a previously unknown sketchbook.51

Drawings and Photographs as Dissemination Media Drawing and photography, in addition to their function in the process of creation, played a significant role in the reception of the artworks. Next to his sketches, Monet made drawings of his completed paintings for reproduction purposes. Wildenstein counted fourteen such drawings on loose sheets in his Catalogue raisonné.52 On Durand-Ruel’s request, Monet created drawings of some of his paintings, including Le soir à Belle-Isle (1890–1891), for an article about him written by the art critic Octave Mirbeau (1848–1917) in L’Art dans les deux mondes, published in March 1891 (fig. 6).53

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8: Sacha Guitry, Claude Monet dans l’allée centrale sous les arceaux, Giverny, 1915, black and white illustration in Gustave Geffroy, “Claude Monet”, L’Art et les Artistes: Art ancient, moderne, décoratif: Revue d’Art des Deux-Mondes, no. 11 (1920), 51, Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Journalists and photographers came to Giverny to interview Monet, photograph his paintings and take portraits of the artist. Monet’s art dealers played a pivotal role here as they were personally interested in disseminating Monet’s paintings and his image as an artist so as to generate sales of his work. Alongside the art dealer Georges Petit (1856–1920) and the Bernheim-Jeunes, a family of art dealers and publishers, Durand-Ruel strongly supported the artist. Not only did Paul Durand-Ruel exhibit and sell his artworks internationally, he also founded two journals, the Revue internationale de l’art et de la curiosité (1869–1870) and L’Art dans les deux mondes (1890–1891), which promoted the artist’s work.54 With help from art dealers, many articles published during Monet’s lifetime reproduced his paintings and presented portraits of the artist. In L’Art et les Artistes, published by Armand Dayot (1851–1934) in 1920, the article on “Claude Monet” by the art critic Gustave Geffroy (1855–1926) presents—next to 32 artworks—one family portrait as well as three photographic portraits of the artist, one of them taken by Guitry (fig. 8).55 The greyscale photographic portraits and reproductions for this article were provided by Durand-Ruel.

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There may be a link between such widely disseminated reproductions and one artwork by the Japanese artist Shigeru Aoki (1882–1911). Aoki never traveled outside of Japan and it is unlikely that he ever saw an original artwork by Monet. Nevertheless, he created the painting Seascape Mera (1904), which resembles the style and composition of Monet’s work Belle-Isle, Effet de pluie (1886) and it stands in clear opposition to Aoki’s other paintings.56 Another example of the reception of Monet’s paintings through reproductions is seen in the case of the Neo-Impressionist painter Paul Signac (1863–1935). In an interview, Signac states that what brought him to painting was seeing reproductions of Monet’s paintings in the literary and art magazine La Vie Moderne: “What made me want to paint? – It is Monet or rather the sight of some reproductions of paintings in La Vie moderne. What attracted me to this artist was the revolutionary aspect of his work.”57 Just as drawings and photography played a central role in Monet’s creative process (which the artist did not acknowledge or even concealed), drawings and photo­ graphs of his paintings were key to the international dissemination of his work.

Monet’s Portraits: A Carefully Tailored Mirror of the Artist’s Image? The process of creating an artist’s image, partly through the presentation or misrepresentation of the artist’s working process, is something most can relate to in our current image-driven society. The internet and social media have made it possible for anyone to curate their own public identity with the help of photographs. Intended to present an ideal or best possible self, it goes without saying that such images are not free from bias. As a result, questions surrounding the creation and curation of a public image are now experienced at a personal level by a wide audience. This new perspective creates the need to better investigate the interactions between artists and their image. To what extent can the perception of an artist’s working process be influenced by visual representations? How can biases in these representations be interpreted? Differences between the advertised and the actual process might reveal delib­ erate intentions and strategies of self-marketing. Monet, as a master of self-portrayal, created a myth of himself and controlled the facts of his biography in interviews in accordance with his ideas about his artistic ideal.58 The art historian Virginia Spate emphasizes this aspect of Monet’s self-fashioning: “When he began them [the Orangerie paintings], Monet was extremely wealthy and internationally famous; he had been, and continued to be, interviewed so

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9: Portrait of Claude Monet in Arsène Alexandre, “Claude Monet, his career and work”, The International Studio 34 (1908), 89, N1.I6 v. 34, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

often that his life had taken on mythic form; he was the genius, the maître, the self-taught artist who had triumphed over all obstacles to become the greatest French artist of his generation.”59 Monet was portrayed by many: the image of a plein air painter can be found in Ceux de chez nous as well as in photographic and drawn portraits by the French filmmaker Guitry, in photographs by the American photographer Thérèse Bonney (1894–1978), and in drawings by the American painter Theodore Robinson (1852– 1896). About a third of Monet’s portraits synchronize with the myth that exists of the artist today. The portraits are replete with symbols and attributes that characterize the artist’s image to this day; his large hat protecting him from the outdoor sun, his painter’s palette, brushes in his hands and his garden in Giverny in the background. At the same time, there are no portraits of Monet showing him as a

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sketching artist. In addition, many portraits, such as figures 8 and 9, include allusions to his activities as a gardener. Written accounts by authors who interviewed or visited Monet reveal similar attributes. The writer Marc Elder (1884–1933) underlines the artist’s passion for gardening in his description of the artist: “A hand in his pocket, a cigarette in his beard, Claude Monet walks with this firm tranquility that is specific to a good equilibrium and perfect health. He is clothed in light fabrics, never suffering dark colors on him or around him. In winter, large beige coats and a taupe waistcoat, soft, silky—garden taupes [my italics], of course. In all seasons, rustic, felt or straw hats, are firmly planted on his head. It is the silhouette of the good gardener, stocky and plump, evoking both the power of the forest and the lights of April.”60 Guitry photographed the painter in his garden in 1915, depicting him with his long white beard, wearing a light-colored coat and a straw hat in the central aisle, under the rose arches in his garden. He looks behind the photographer, seemingly gazing into the natural world around him (fig. 8).61 Another picture, which accompanies the article “Claude Monet, his career and work” by the art critic Arsène Alexandre

10: Agence de presse Meurisse (unknown photographer), Claude Monet, peintre, dans son atelier, 1926, negative photograph on glass, 13 × 18 cm, Bibliothèque nationale de France, département des Estampes et de la photographie, Paris.

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(1859–1937), published in The Studio (1908), shows Monet in his garden in front of his water lily pond (fig. 9).62 This photograph portrays the white-bearded artist holding a cigarette nonchalantly in his right hand standing next to his paradisiacal garden in Giverny, which served him as a source of inspiration. In accordance with Elder’s description, Monet wears a light-colored jacket over his elegant clothes as well as one of his hats. This photograph evokes both Monet’s role as gardener and creator of his Asian-inspired garden in Giverny and his visual approach.63 Less in agreement with the image of a plein air painter, Monet was also photographed in his house in Giverny, either in his gallery or second studio, where he made the Orangerie paintings. In a photograph from the news agency Meurisse, Monet was portrayed in his second studio in Giverny in front of three partially visible water lily paintings (fig. 10). One such painting is Le Matin aux saules (1915–1926), positioned behind a couch covered with coats and one of Monet’s hats, as well as tables displaying brushes and other work materials. The painter himself poses with two brushes and his color palette in his left hand, resting his right hand in the pocket of his jacket. Other portraits, and this excludes family photographs, depict a Monet who is not engaging in artistic activities, without direct symbols of plein air painting.

11: Agence de presse Meurisse (unknown photographer), Claude Monet, peintre, à son bureau, 1926, 13 × 18 cm, Bibliothèque nationale de France, département des Estampes et de la photographie, Paris.

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These photographs show a different image of the artist but have been reproduced just as often in biographies and in exhibitions as historical illustrations. Another portrait from the news agency Meurisse titled Claude Monet, peintre, à son bureau (1926) shows the artist sitting at his office table in Giverny (fig. 11). In this picture, Guitry’s photograph of Monet as a plein air painter is placed on his desk next to a drawn portrait of Édouard Manet (1832–1883) by Degas. It is unlikely that this mise en abyme is accidental. Accordingly, Monet’s portrait on his office desk points to one of the painter’s main preoccupations towards the end of his career: his own image. This example pointedly summarizes the various elements which come together in the artist’s creation of an image of himself as a plein air painter: the importance of his interviews in depicting his alleged plein air working process, the reproduction and dissemination of his oeuvre through graphic works, as well as portraits of Monet. In the artist’s portrait, the potential of photography unfolds as a multiplying and cross-artistic medium, with its roles as both a reproduction technique and a dissemination tool for artworks, and its crucial position as an instrument in the portrayal of artists.

Notes

1

Théodore Duret in Daniel Wildenstein, Monet or the Triumph of Impressionism, volume I, 135. (Cologne: taschen, wildensteininstitute 1999), 135. 2 Cf. James A. Ganz and Richard Kendall, The Unknown Monet: Pastels and Drawings, exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts, London; Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2007), 259–271. 3 In this article, the term sketch or étude is to be defined as a rough drawing outlining the essential lines of a composition, a drawn or painted draft or preliminary study and is therefore not to be understood as a completed artwork. A drawing is usually a more detailed drawing, stands as a completed artwork and is often, as such, signed by the artist. 4 Including but not limited to Wildenstein, Monet or the Triumph of Impressionism (see note 1), John House, Monet: Nature Into Art (New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 1986) or Paul Hayes ­Tucker, Monet: Life and Art (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995). 5 The state of the research on Monet‘s sketches was summarized in 2007 in the introduction to the exhibition catalog

6 7

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10

11

by Ganz and Kendall. Ganz and Kendall, The Unknown Monet (see note 2), 4–5. Ibid. Daniel Wildenstein, Monet: Catalogue raisonné: Tome V: Supplément aux peintures, dessins, pastels, index (Lausanne: Wildenstein Institute 1991) and idem, Monet: Catalogue raisonné: Werkverzeichnis, volumes II–IV (Cologne: Taschen; Wildenstein Institute, 1996). Ganz and Kendall created a further categorization of the Marmottan sketches. Cf. Ganz and Kendall, The Unknown Monet (see note 2), 172–175. The detailed drawings created and signed by Monet in his youth were most likely considered finished artworks by the artist. Cf.  Ganz and Kendall, The Unknown Monet (see note 2), 16–18. Before being sold, Monet identified some of the sketches, which are recorded in Wildenstein’s Catalogue raisonné. Cf. Wildenstein, Monet: Catalogue raisonné: Tome V (see note 7), 59. Cf. Ganz and Kendall, The Unknown Monet (see note 2), 33–53, cf.  Wildenstein, Monet or the Triumph of Impressionism (see note 1), 12–17 and cf.  Tucker, Monet (see note 4), 9.

Claude Monet’s Graphic Work and the Myth of a Plein Air Painter

12 Cf. Ganz and Kendall, The Unknown Monet (see note 2), 161–181. 13 Ibid. 171, 181 and cf.  House, Monet (see note 4), 227–230. 14 There are some exceptions, including the portrait studies of his children and stepchildren, which are much more detailed and polished. Cf. Ganz and Kendall, The Unknown Monet (see note 2), 172–175. 15 Claude Monet, Le village de Sandviken et le pont de Lökke, 1895, pencil, seventh cahier Marmottan, folio 24 verso and folio 25 recto, Musée Marmottan, Paris and Claude Monet, Sandvika, Norway, 1895, oil on canvas, 73.4 × 92.5 cm, The Art Institute of Chicago. Cf.  Ganz and Kendall, The Unknown Monet (see note 2), 167–169. 16 Ibid., 175–178. 17 In this article, the term abstract is to be defined as being limited to the essential lines of a subject. 18 Wildenstein, Monet: Catalogue raisonné: Tome V (see note 7), http://archive. clarkart.edu/exhibitions/monet/sketch books/. Accessed August 19, 2018 and documentation provided by the Musée Marmottan. 19 The resulting paintings of his Grandes Décorations project can be seen today at the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris. 20 Cf. Victoria Fleury, Première impression? Claude Monets Skizzenbücher und das Sujet der Seerosen (MA Thesis: University of Zurich, 2017), 44–53. 21 It is known that Monet signed and dated his artworks retrospectively, for example when a painting was sold. He only rarely parted with a painting he had not signed. Additionally, some of his signatures were created by stamps. In the latter case, the artworks might not have been seen as finished by the artist and it is known or it is possible that the stamp was placed after the death of the artist. A few unsigned artworks might also have been those he wanted to keep for himself. Cf.  House, Monet (see note 4), 177 and cf.  Iris Schaefe, Caroline von Saint-George and Katja Lewerentz, Painting Light: The Hidden Techniques of the Impressionists, exh. cat. Wallraf-Richartz-

22 23

24 25 26

27 28 29 30

31

32

33

34

35

Museum & Fondation Corbourd, Cologne; Palazzo Strozzi, Florence (Milan: Skira, 2008), 178. Cf. Ganz and Kendall, The Unknown Monet (see note 2), 262. Cf. Richard Brettel and Christopher Lloyd, A Catalogue of the Drawings by Camille Pissarro in the Ashmolean Museum, exh. cat., Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), 46. House, Monet (see note 4), 45. Cf. Ibid. Cf. Wildenstein, Monet of Impressionism (see note 1), 163, 376 and cf.  House, Monet (see note 4), 2, 69–74, 135, 157–166, cf. Virginia Spate, Claude Monet: The Colour of Time (London: Thames and Hudson, 1992), 96 and cf.  Schaefer, von Saint-George and Lewerentz, Painting Light (see note 21), 95–96. Théodore Duret in House, Monet (see note 4), 69. Cf. Ibid. Ibid., 66. Cf. Daniel Wildenstein, “Monet’s Giverny”, in Monet’s Years at Giverny: Beyond Impressionism, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1978), 31 and cf. Édouard Mortier Duc de Trévise, Chez Claude Monet: Le pélerinage de Giverny (Paris: L’Echoppe, 2016), 19. Cf. Tucker, Monet (see note 4), 2, 199 and cf. Charles S. Moffett and James N. Wood, “Introduction”, in Monet’s Years at Giverny (see note 30), 11; 13. Cf. Miriam Stewart, “Curating Sketchbooks: Interpretation, Preservation, Display” in Angela Bartram, Nader El-Bizri and Douglas Gittens, eds., Recto Verso: Redefining the Sketchbook (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), 171. Cf. House, Monet (see note 4), 69 and cf. Édouard Mortier Duc de Trévise, Chez Claude Monet (see note 30), 24. Cf. Wildenstein, Monet or the Triumph of Impressionism (see note 1), 160–163 and cf.  House, Monet (see note 4), 140. Ibid.

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36

37

38

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40

41 42

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Cf. Desmond Fitzgerald, “Claude Monet: Master of Impressionism”, in Brush and Pencil 15, no. 3 (1905): 195. Cf. House, Monet (see note 4), 220–225, cf.  Ganz and Kendall, The Unknown Monet (see note 2), 270 and cf.  Spate, Claude Monet (see note 26), 205. Cf. Christoph Becker, “Monets Garten”, in idem et al., Monets Garten, exh. cat., Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich (OstfildernRuilt: Hatje Cantz, 2004), 90 and cf.  Pierre Georgel, Monet: Le cycle des Nymphéas: Catalogue sommaire, exh. cat., Musée national de l’Orangerie, Paris (Paris: Editions de la Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1999), 58. For example: Kimberly Jones et al., eds., In the Forest of Fontainebleau: Painters and Photographers from Corot to Monet, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 2008). Cf. Wildenstein, Monet or the Triumph of Impressionism (see note 1), 372–373, cf.  House, Monet (see note 4), 151–152, cf.  Wildenstein, “Monet’s Giverny” (see note 30), 32 and cf.  Spate, Claude Monet (see note 26), 265. Cf. Wildenstein, Monet or the Triumph of Impressionism (see note 1), 372–373. “Cher Monsieur, Je m’empresse de répondre à votre lettre du 4 ct [= courant]. Je n’ai pas et il n’existe pas de catalogue de mes tableaux en dehors de certaines notices plus ou moins anciennes; il ne me serait donc possible de vous donner les renseignements que vous désirez que si vous pouviez m’envoyer une épreuve photographique des toiles dont vous ignorez le nom et l’endroit où ils ont été faits. Dans ce cas je me mets à votre disposition. Agréez, je vous prie, l’expression de mes meilleurs sentiments. Claude Monet.” Claude Monet in Wildenstein, Monet: Catalogue raisonné: Tome V (see note 7), 217 (trans. V.  F.). Cf. Richard Kendall and Jill Devonyar, Degas and the Ballet: Picturing Movement, exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts,

44

45

46 47

48 49 50

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52 53 54

London (London: Royal Academy Books, 2011). Cf. Ganz and Kendall, The Unknown Monet (see note 2), 9; 259–271 and cf.  House, Monet (see note 4), 140. Je dois veiller à ma réputation d‘artiste pendant que je le puis. Lorsque je serai mort, personne ne détruira un seul de mes tableaux, quelque mauvais soit-il. Claude Monet in Wildenstein, Monet: Catalogue raisonné: Tome V (see note 7), 181 (trans. V.  F.). Claude Monet in House, Monet (see note 4), 159. Cf. House, Monet (see note 4), 157–159 and cf. Wildenstein, Monet: Catalogue raisonné: Tome V (see note 7), 181. Cf. Ganz and Kendall, The Unknown Monet (see note 2), 169–171. Ibid., 265. There are four cracks: two are at a distance of ca. 1.4/1.3 cm from the paper margin and two are ca. 3.7/4.2 cm from the first cracks in the direction of the center of the page. There is an approximate symmetry between the four cracks. The other page edges are smooth in comparison. Some sketchbooks are larger and the page might have been cut to the present size but this seems unlikely due to the distance between the cracks on the page. The page might also be a sheet from another artist’s sketchbook, if they were painting or sketching together. It might also come from a saddle-stitched paper pad. Cf. Wildenstein, Monet: Catalogue raisonné: Tome V (see note 7), 121. Cf. Ganz and Kendall, The Unknown Monet (see note 2), 200–213. Ibid., 200, 259–271 and cf. Paul-Louis Durand-Ruel and Flavie Durand-Ruel, “Paul Durand-Ruel (1831–1922): A Portrait” in Sylvie Patry et al., eds., Inventing Impressionism: Paul Durand-Ruel and the Modern Art Market, exh. cat., Musée du Luxembourg, Paris; The National Gallery, London; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia (London: National Gallery Company Limited, 2015), 44–47.

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Gustave Geffroy, “Claude Monet”, L’Art et les Artistes: Art ancien, moderne décoratif: Revue d’Art des Deux-Mondes, no 11 (1920): 51–81. 56 It cannot be excluded that Aoki saw a reproduction of Monet’s painting. The exhibition Tokyo-Paris Chefs-d’œuvre du Bridgestone Museum of Art, Collection Ishibashi Foundation at the Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, 2017 and cf. J.  Thomas Rimer, “Des impressionistische Impuls in Japan und China”, in Norma Broude, ed., Impressionismus: Eine international Kunstbewegung 1860–1920 (Cologne: DuMont, 1990), 162. 57 “Qu’est-ce qui m’a poussé à faire de la peinture? – C’est Monet ou plutôt la vue de quelques reproductions de tableaux dans La Vie moderne. Ce qui m’attirait chez cet artiste, c’était l’aspect révolutionnaire de son oeuvre.” Paul Signac in Marina Ferretti-Bocquillon et al., eds., Signac: Les couleurs de l’eau, exh. cat., Musée des impressionnismes, Giverny; Musée Fabre, Montpellier Agglomération (Paris: Gallimard, 2013), 22 (trans. V.  F.). 58 Cf. Tucker, Monet (see note 4), 5. 59 Spate, Claude Monet (see note 26), 253. 60 “Une main dans le poche, la cigarette dans la barbe, Claude Monet marche avec cette tranquillité ferme qui est le propre d’un bel équilibre et d’une santé parfaite. Il est vêtu d’étoffes claires, ne souffrant jamais sur lui ni aux entours les couleurs sombres. L’hiver, de grands

CREDITS

manteaux beiges et un gilet de taupe, tendre, soyeux – des taupes du jardin, naturellement. En toute saison, des chapeaux rustiques, feutre ou paille, bien campés sur le chef. C’est la silhouette du bon jardinier, trapu, d’aplomb, évoquant à la fois la force sylvestre et les clartés d’avril.” Marc Elder, A Giverny. Chez Claude Monet (Paris: Mille et une nuit, 2010), 10 (trans. V.  F.). 61 Guitry created many portraits of Monet in which he depicted him using only a few lines and attributes, which are, to this day, associated with his image: his having a long beard, wearing a large coat, and in some cases a hat, smoking a cigarette, standing next to or holding brushes, a painter’s palette, a white canvas, looking with an intense stare at the observer. Refer to Jean-Claude Soyer, “Guitry, ou l’art du trait” in André Bernard and Alain Paucard, eds., Sacha Guitry (Lausanne: Editions L’Age d’Homme, 2002), 115 for further descriptions of Guitry‘s drawings. 62 Arsène Alexandre, “Claude Monet, his career and work”, The Studio: An Illustrated Magazine of Fine and Applied Art 43, no. 180 (1908): 89–106. This photograph was reproduced in The Studio, courtesy of the French photographer and editor Jacques-Ernest Bulloz (1858–1942). 63 Cf. Ganz and Kendall, The Unknown Monet (see note 2), 259–262 and cf. Tucker, Monet (see note 4), 178.

1: Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris, France/ Bridgeman Images; 2: Chichu Art Museum, Naoshima, Kagawa; 3: Collection Philippe Piguet; 4: bpk | The Metropolitan Museum of Art; 5: The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museum purchase funded by the Brown Foundation Acces­ sions Endowment Fund, The Manfred Heiting Collection, 2004.577; 6: Photo: NMWA/DNPartcom; 7: bpk / RMN - Grand Palais / Thierry Le Mage; 8: Bibliothèque nationale de France; 9: The Huntington Library, San Marino, California; 10.–11. Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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Nadja Köffler Destabilizing the Myth of the “Nanny Photographer”. Vivian Maier’s Self-Portraits AS A Feminist Counter-Voice to Her Public Depiction

Who was Vivian Maier? A childless nanny? A woman photographer without an audience? A lonely outsider? The portrayal of Vivian Maier in various photography books and documentary films has produced a curious image of Maier as a “bizarre nanny photographer,” which, through social media, has taken on increased resonance. Typecast by the media as a consistently uncanny and peculiar figure, Maier has been highly marketable as a “mystery woman.”1 The documentary film Finding Vivian Maier (2013) grossed more than 3.5 million dollars.2 Maier’s vintage prints are today fetching up to 12,000 dollars apiece. International exhibitions on Maier in New York, Chicago, London, Antwerp, Moscow, Toronto and elsewhere have drawn large numbers of visitors.3 Maier and her photographic legacy have become the commodities of a lucrative business. While the self-proclaimed discoverers and administrators of Maier’s oeuvre, among them the real estate agent John Maloof, the art collectors Randy Prow and Ron Slattery as well as the gallerist Jeffrey Goldstein have earned millions in revenue through their promotion of “Mary Poppins with a camera,”4 Maier died poor in an old-age home in Chicago in 2009, two years after the “sensational discovery”5 of her estate. Because Maier’s legacy has been in the hands of these four men for many years, who appear to be more interested in marketing than in the academic study of her oeuvre, the time is ripe to listen to a female voice—Maier’s voice—and there is no better way to make it heard than through Maier’s work, through an analysis of her images. This article will consider the photographic books and documentary films put out in recent years by John Maloof, Howard Greenberg and Richard Cahan, and Michael Williams, examining through extracts how they portray Maier and interpret her works, and it will juxtapose these statements with the self-portraits Maier completed over the course of forty years, considering them with a view to Jacques Lacan’s theory of the subject and comparing them with the works of other photographic artists. This is to say that the media-critical consideration of Maier’s reception in the following will be complemented by an analysis of the self-portraits that is grounded in pictorial science, thereby making a significant contribution to the art-historical study of Maier’s oeuvre, which has so far been treated with neglect.6

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A Nanny, a Photographer, a Feminist? – The Invented Artist John Maloof, Jeffrey Goldstein, Randy Prow, and Ron Slattery were without a doubt key figures in making the works of Vivian Maier known. They only publicized a fraction of her photographic estate, however, and they each suggested certain interpretations of it, thereby creating an incomplete and fragmentary image of Maier’s photographic oeuvre.7 Premiered in 2013, the multiple award-winning documentary film Finding Vivian Maier, for instance, tells the story of the glorious discovery of a “strange” nanny, focusing on John Maloof’s detective skills as he researches the protagonist’s family history. Here, the presentation of Maier’s complex and multifaceted character as a woman artist and the assessment of the quality of her work take a back seat to the presentation of the young real estate agent as a deft genealogist. Parallels are subtly drawn to Berenice Abbott’s (1898–1991) efforts to make Eugéne Atget (1857–1927) and his work known to the wider world: What Abbott was to Atget, John Maloof is to Vivian Maier—such is the tenor of the film.8 Weighing more heavily than Maloof’s filmic self-fashioning, however, is the fact that Finding Vivian Maier fails to interview and present individuals who knew Maier during her lifetime as someone with an interest in art, people who perceived her as a photographer. Instead, Maloof interviews the children who were in her care in Chicago and New York, thereby creating a one-sided image of Maier, a portrait of her as an eccentric nanny with an affinity for photography rather than as a talented photographer with a knowledge of stylistics, and it certainly goes without saying that no efforts were made to interpret her unconventional behavior as artistic idiosyncrasy or as a feminist answer to the social constraints of her time.9 In the film, Maier’s bonding and interpersonal behavior, her passion for collecting old objects, and her repeated use of pseudonyms are shown not only as non-conformist, but as pathological to a certain extent. In 2014, the journalist and photographer Rose Lichter-Marck expressed criticism in the New Yorker about the way Maier’s supposedly unconventional behavior is interpreted and constructed in Finding Vivian Maier. For Lichter-Marck, Maier’s feminine non-conformity is explained “in the language of mental illness, trauma, or sexual repression as symptoms of pathology rather than as an active response to structural challenges or mere preference.”10 In the recently published photography book Vivian Maier: The Color Work (2018), the mysterious side of Maier is emphasized much as it is in Finding Vivian Maier, and Maier’s sexual orientation is puzzled over. Here, the American curator Colin Westerbeck detects in Maier’s photographs of naked mannequins a latent pornographic gaze and he searches for indications of her lesbianism.11 If indeed she was lesbian, says Westerbeck, Maier was able “to keep her sexuality hidden from others, and possibly herself. Hints of it came out only in the one universal language

Vivian Maier’s Self-Portraits

she possessed: her photography.”12 These words are a prime example of how Maier is being cast as someone who has now been exposed; they claim that her photographs appear to surrender as yet unknown truths about her life. Do they not express the perpetual question as to why Maier withheld her photographs from the public—because they seem to uncover the aspects of her life that did not conform to societal expectations? Do we not also see in these words a repudiation of female homosexuality, which, according to Westerbeck, she needed to conceal? Unlike what Westerbeck’s reading tells us, Maier’s photographs of naked mannequins may just as well be a criticism of the dictates of the beauty industry if one understands the identically shaped bodies of these artificially produced promotional objects to constitute the imposition of a socially constructed beauty norm. As becomes clear from the reception of Maier’s work, her photographs are often taken to be—and to some extent are instrumentalized as—the bearers of supposed secrets, as authenticators of certain suppositions about her life. What Westerbeck criticizes in his introduction to Maier’s color photography in Vivian Maier: The Color Work (2018), namely that a cult of personality is being initiated by presenting the photographer as an enigmatic personality,13 is ultimately inscribed in his interpretation of Maier’s work as well. The fact that no one appears to have known Vivian Maier very well leaves—as Maloof puts it in an interview—“a lot of room for the imagination to create who she was.”14

The Narrative of Maier’s Oeuvre: From Diane Arbus to Lee Friedlander According to today’s estimations, Vivian Maier’s photographic estate comprises more than 150,000 images,15 which are ascribed to the genre of street photography.16 This attribution arose from the publication of six photography books and two documentary films that made more than 1,000 of Maier’s photographs public, in part illegally, between 2011 and 2018.17 This repertoire of images, circulated coram publico, derived from two competing private collections: one under the aegis of John Maloof, the other (until 2014) in the hands of Jeffrey Goldstein.18 If one considers the magnitude of the collected works, Maloof and Goldstein were offering only a fraction of Maier’s estate to the public eye, and in the process they each put forward different interpretations. This can be observed in the first photography books published by Maloof, in which he suggests parallels between Maier and Diane Arbus (1923–1971) as well as Lisette Model (1901–1983), even though the prints which Maier herself had made do not correspond to the images selected by Maloof for his publications.19 Maloof’s Maier was primarily active in the 1950s and 1960s in Chicago and New York, using her twin-lens Rolleiflex to create a historical-sociological portrait of urban life in the poor neighborhoods of the American cities.20 Here, Maloof creates an analogy

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to the tradition of social documentation as carried out in images of the Federal Resettlement Administration, and to the activity of photojournalism, better known as “documentary photography,” as practiced by Margaret Bourke-White (1904–1971), Lewis W. Hine (1874–1940), Walker Evans (1903–1975), and others, as well as by the Photo League in New York (1936–1951), belonging to which were such well-known photographers as Berenice Abbott, Aaron Siskind (1903–1991), Robert Frank (1924–), Dorothea Lange (1895–1965), and Helen Levitt (1913–2009). In Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows (2012) the photo-historians Richard Cahan and Michael Williams show street photographs from Maier’s time as a nanny in New York and Chicago as well as photographs that cannot be correlated to the aforementioned names and photographic styles. Included here are Maier’s vista shots, which she took with her Kodak Brownie in Saint-Bonnet-en-Champsaur, France, in the early 1950s, which exhibit an unmistakable similarity to Marguerite Joubert’s photographs of French village landscapes.21 In their publication, Cahan and Williams also made room for Maier’s night photography, which she practiced as early as the mid-1950s. The chapter titled “Night,” which draws Out of the Shadows to a close, brings together photographs of street lamps, shadow images of branches as well as out-of-focus pictures of streets punctuated by lights. Maier’s ethnographic-sociological studies, in which Maier appears to examine the cultural practices of different social milieus belonging to American society are also given significantly more room in Out of the Shadows than in Maloof’s first two photography books. In 2018, John Maloof and Howard Greenberg published the book Vivian Maier: The Color Work, putting into circulation approximately 150 of Maier’s color photographs which she completed over a period of thirty years. Maier began to work with color photography as early as the mid-1950s and practiced it regularly, something to which previous photography books had only made scant reference.22 As a result of her versatile practice, Maier mastered an extensive repertoire of photographic styles and techniques “that go well beyond the street—both physically and intellectually.”23 She worked with reflections and perspectives in the style of New Vision, shared the modern gaze upon urban life with the American photographer Lee Friedlander (1934–), but also showed the poverty-stricken AfroAmerican milieu of downtown Chicago. Even if Maier’s photography, with the intention of increasing its value, is frequently connected to great names such as Diane Arbus, Lisette Model, Garry Winogrand (1928–1984), and Lee Friedlander, and even when correlations to their work cannot be denied, it still remains unclear to this day which art forms, styles, and artists truly influenced Maier. Her oeuvre, accordingly to Richard Cahan and Michael Williams, “predates that of many of her supposed inspirations.”24 Furthermore, the quality of Maier’s photography cannot be measured on the work of canonical photographers alone. Maier developed her own signature, which unmistakably marks each of her images: “You can tell a Maier photograph.”25

Vivian Maier’s Self-Portraits

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Vivian Maier, Self-Portrait, 1954, gelatin silver print, John Maloof Collection.

Characteristic of Maier’s photographic gaze is, for example, her talent for “straightforward” and “on point” shots,26 which, with a seasoned sensitivity, sound out interpersonal relations of closeness and distance, or are characterized by an irony that hardly needs explanation.27 Maier furthermore took numerous photographs in which all that mattered was the right moment, and she understood how to capture the essence of a moment in a picture. As if in homage to Henri CartierBresson (1908–2004), these photographs—characterized as photographic “haikus”

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by the New York gallerist Steven Kasher—exhibit a presence of mind as they capture the sudden, fleeting appearance of events in a moment décisif, and can be read as “images that freeze blinks of life, lyrical and lasting.”28 Later photographic series, which Maier began to produce in the early 1960s, are powerful due to a formalism that seeks continuity in the midst of visual contrasts, and coherence in visual antitheses.29 In many of them, the outlines and contours of ostensibly contrary objects connect with one another, become alike and, through their symbiosis, result in a new shape. In one color photograph from 1966, a young woman with a head scarf approximates the shape of a rusty garbage can through her body language—lowered head and crossed legs. Through the formal composition of the image, the garbage can and woman enter a dialog, perfectly engaging in a pas de deux.30 A color photograph from 1978 similarly shows an old woman in a red cloth coat taking a rest on a red fire hydrant, becoming one with her seat through the correspondence of shapes and colors. Maier was moreover finely attuned to oppositions and possessed the ability to bring them together in her photographs, to maintain distance while also creating a sense of intimacy, and to balance presence with absence.31 This interplay is illustrated above all in those photographs which depict Maier in the form of a shadow. On the one hand, Maier’s contours have become familiar to us as a recurring subject in her self-portraits, but on the other, Maier, due to her portrayal as an image made visible through a visual prosthesis, maintains a distance to the viewer. Something else that is striking in Maier’s oeuvre is her continual self-portraiture, which spans decades and shows her in a photographer’s stance while simultaneously capturing feminine subjects in the same frame. In a photograph from 1954, for example, two pictorial layers overlap, whereby the transparent reflection of Maier’s body overlays the portrayal of two women, in such a way that their legs are surrounded by Maier’s lower legs. Because Maier looks down into the viewfinder of her camera’s focusing screen, the viewer’s gaze is automatically directed at the two women, whose clothing and posture create a clear contrast between them and the depicted photographer (fig. 1). This suggests that Maier in her selfportraits was devoting herself to the deconstruction of female role models, that she was lending expression to a feminist position in her photographic work, and that she was taking a stand vis-à-vis the traditional gender roles in contemporary society in and through her self-portraits.32

Vivian Maier’s Self-Portraits

The Artist’s Voice: Self-Portraits as a Feminist Articulation Until the early twentieth century, the work of women artists remained strongly tied to established female roles in society. Because women artists in the art world moved in a scene dominated by the male gaze, they were particularly compelled in their self-portraits to observe societal conventions within a framework constructed by men.33 Thus they had to be careful not to appear bold or vain in their self-portraits, not to present themselves in dramatically exaggerated poses and not to dispense entirely with feminine gestures, facial expressions, or clothing.34 It is also known that for a long time women in their self-portraits were not to wear their hair down, and were certainly not to spread their legs or gesticulate noticeably.35 For women, completing a self-portrait often meant bridging the gap between their own self-perception and society’s image of a woman.36 As the twentieth century progressed and the development of photography and film advanced, a type of woman artist gradually made an appearance who operated more independently of conventional ideas about gender and femininity, gradually becoming detached from them. Here, the photo camera was an important accomplice; after all, art photography in the early twentieth century was, unlike painting and sculpture, a field that was not as thoroughly dominated by men, though it would later become more so.37 Due to the fact that photography was not taught at art academies, women artists working in photography—since they were not bound by academic rules and traditional, institutional pictorial conventions—experienced the opportunity to experiment with the image of the feminine and to oppose the stereotypical ideas of their male colleagues with their own pictorial conceptions.38 The large number of portrait series by various women artists such as Ilse Bing (1899–1998), Imogen Cunningham (1883–1976), Claude Cahun (1894–1954), and Germaine Krull (1897–1985) attests to their newly discovered joy in self-observation and self-examination as they explored their role as female creators of art. Here, the photographic self-portraits alternate between self-assurance on the one hand and doubt with regard to the gender roles assigned to them on the other. Changing radically through the emergence of the femme nouvelle in the early twentieth century, the female image in Western Europe, which gradually began to encompass a sexually self-determined, active woman who was independent of men, prompted a break with established role models of the past—those that promoted traditional values for women such as care-giving, modesty, domesticity and motherhood—and it encouraged the development of a new female self-understanding, which led female avant-gardists to work with innovative subjects. In addition to thematizing their sexuality and erotic fantasies, women artists increasingly began to play with attributes of masculinity and to visually intersect gender roles. They moved between different codes: In one instance they would play with feminine

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attributes, in another with masculine, and sometimes all these qualities would come together in one and the same representation and could not be clearly attributed to one gender norm.39 Thus we see Margaret Bourke-White in her Self-Portrait with Camera (1933) in masculine clothing striking a masculine pose next to a camera that appears powerful on its tripod, and which emphasizes her feminine strength insofar as it, a “third eye,” is pointed at the viewer, underlining her female authority.40 Similarly, Germaine Krull in her Self-Portrait with Icarette (1928) performs the power of the camera’s eye, making the viewer the target of her photographic shot (fig. 2). The masculine gesture, the staging of her hands with a cigarette between the index and middle finger, the too tight-fitting, showy ring on her pinky finger as well as the out-of-focus contours of her upper body all blur the boundaries of a dichotomous allocation of gender. Maier, too, consistently visualized canonized gender images and thematized female gender characteristics. This is well illustrated in the way Maier relates to photographic subjects whose connotations are feminine, such as high-heeled shoes, women’s legs, or elegantly dressed women, drawing close to which is the silhouette of Maier taking the picture—a shadow, or a reflection on any number of reflective surfaces. By consistently juxtaposing femininely-connoted, femininelyshaped photographic subjects with a different image of a woman, one that serves as an alternative gender model and is embodied by the photographer herself, Maier’s self-portraits unmask the traditional norms and cultural codes of femininity that are under the patronage of pre-existing images and role models.41 The oscillation between norm and desired image in the tension between selfperception and external perception shows itself above all in those self-portraits in which Maier captures the contemporaneous female image that became propagated with the rise of fashion and advertising photography, and which was defined by high-heeled shoes, form-fitting clothing, leather gloves, and artfully pinned-up hairstyles. With respect to the pose struck by the photographer, her physical expression delivers a distinct counter-image to the “feminine” gestures and facial expressions that follow the socially-prescribed formula, such as a head tilted slightly to the side or an embarrassed little smile, as sometimes displayed by the female subjects in Maier’s photographs. By constantly making visual reference to the act of photography, which is accomplished by the photographer dominating the pictorial space as a woman artist taking the picture, as well as by Maier’s assumption of the role of the observing producer of the image entered into the image as a powerful subject, a clear contrast is created to the women who share the pictorial space with the photographer in many of her portraits. These are women as passive subjects because they are observed and photographed, women who are utterly dissimilar to Maier. Viewing Maier’s self-portraits, one is thus confronted with images of women that are set apart from one another, and this raises the question as to which of

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2: Germaine Luise Krull, Self-Portrait with Icarette, ca. 1928, gelatin silver print, 23.6 × 17.5 cm, Ann and Jürgen Wilde Foundation/ Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich.

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3: Ilse Bing, Self-Portrait with Leica, 1931 (printed 1941), gelatin silver print, 26.7 × 31.2 cm, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Alistair McAlpine Photography Fund 2005.

these representations can be reconciled with one’s own image of femininity and masculinity. Similar aspects can be found in self-portraits by Claude Cahun and Ilse Bing for example, which destabilize the boundaries of traditional binary sexuality—or else remove or replace them. To do this, the artist’s own body is instrumentalized: its boundaries are probed, its surface is used as a screen or disguised, and its traditional role as an object on display is negotiated.42 Bing’s self-portraits thematize in the same manner as Maier’s works a schism between the depicting and depicted producer of the image on the one hand and her different roles with respect to the viewing process on the other. Thus, Ilse Bing’s Self-Portrait with Leica (1931, fig. 3) shows a young Bing with a camera, who through the use of two mirrors is depicted in the photograph both frontally and in profile. With these two different views, facilitated by the medium of the mirror, Bing is able to stage herself as both an object on display and as the creator of the image, making reference here to John Berger’s gender-specific roles in the viewing process, whereby active viewing has masculine connotations and passive “being viewed” feminine.43

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4: Claude Cahun, Self-Portrait, 1928, gelatin silver print, 31.8 × 24.1 cm, Jersey Heritage Collection.

Much like Maier, Claude Cahun, too, portrayed themself in a self-portrait of 1928 (fig. 4) as a figure who refuses to adopt a binary gender code. Cahun is wrapped in a coat; only their head is shown doubled in the middle of the picture. With Cahun’s short haircut and serious facial expression, the photograph does not allow for an unambiguous gender allocation. The self-portrait thus removes the photographic female image from normative codes of definition, thematizing the visualized “neither-nor” as the resilient space of the neuter. Also interesting is Cahun’s coat,

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whose checkerboard pattern covers and protects the body of the depicted photographer and, similar to Man Ray’s (1890–1976) portrait of Marcel Duchamp (1887– 1968) as Rrose Sélavy (1921), disrupts the strictly binary order of the black and white squares through irregularities in the coloration. Cahun’s self-portrait thus appears to subvert the duality of socially constructed gender insofar as the squares on the coat exhibit more than two shades, with some of them even appearing as blanks, thus claiming more leeway in the tight corset of prescribed conventions.44

The Mirrored Self and Vivian Maier’s Exploration of Identity Maier’s mirror portraits offer diverse views of the artist and give expression to the plurality of the self in the context of an artistic-photographic exploration of questions of identity. Insofar as Maier’s reflected artist body is often subjected to an iconographic isolation—something that arises from the selected planimetric and scenic arrangement of Maier in the pictorial space—Maier’s self-portraits, drawing on psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan’s theory of the mirror phase in early childhood, make reference to the young child’s longing, prompted by the mirror image, “to be one,” which exists in the tension between inner world and environment and in the perception of the self as a conglomerate of fragmentary partial objects. Exemplifying this is a self-portrait from 1975 which shows Maier’s eyes in a small hand mirror that lies forlorn, tucked into a bouquet of flowers on a brick sidewalk in Chicago. In another photograph, of 1955, Maier’s hands with the camera appear in a cosmetic mirror in a window display, and under the cosmetic mirror her head is reflected in a hand mirror. This separation of individual body parts shows a fragmented self-image, which “lends indirect expression to that truth that evades the intact image: namely that the self is always something split, wandering between conscious and unconscious processes just as it wanders between the search for authentic images of the ego and the conventions of pictorial language that shape our self-understanding.”45 Many of Maier’s portraits thus signify the conviction, dominant since modernism, that identity no longer finds representation as an entity but rather must be conceived as a construct that is incomplete and in constant flux, always subject to reinterpretation.46 Due to the fact that Maier, with the exception of her shadow portraits, used mirror surfaces for her self-portraits, multiple synchronous pictorial events can be glimpsed at once. And this is how she is able to capture different realities in one image: the reality depicted in the mirror, and the reality that is going on behind the mirror. For example, a self-portrait created in Florida in 1957 shows Maier reflected in the mirror of a cigarette vending machine, taking the picture, and at the same

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time gives us a view of the scene unfolding behind the machine, where, next to Maier’s mirror image, a woman walking toward her becomes visible in the picture as she walks by the vending machine. For the art historian Slavko Kacunko, this means of visualization, which he illustrates using the example of the painting Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez (1599–1660), enables a form of “second degree” viewing, whereby the viewer, thanks to the medium of the mirror as a prosthesis, is in the position to explore in equal measure the real and the virtual side of the simultaneity of the participants’ oppositional points of view.47 For Vivian Maier’s self-portraits, this means that through the constellation of views created by a mirroring surface, a wide field of representation can be surveyed, whereby the photographer as creator of her visual understanding of the world is always present in the image. Here, the viewer of the image is observing both the observed and photographed subject as well as the process of observation itself, becoming the observer of the observer observing. Moreover, the mirror not only allows the visible translated into the two-dimensional to come to the fore, but always also the virtual dimension of the other.48 This not only makes the position of the artist known, but to an equal degree it emphasizes and calls into question the process of viewing and the roles of the viewer. Thus the viewer does not only look through the eye of the camera, but is also confronted with the reflected other, in this case with Maier herself as the creator of the image, who is hereby entering a dialog with the beholder. By putting herself in the picture with a camera aimed at the viewer, this viewer experiences herself as an object on whom the photographer has set her sights, perhaps even targeting her. In the mirror portraits that depict the surrounding environment, like a women’s shoe store (no date), the window display of an antique shop (1977), and a living room with a television on (1979), the viewer is staged as someone whom Maier has spied within the scene and caught doing whatever he or she is doing. In this way, Maier ensures that the said mirror portraits do not give the impression of a captured moment, transforming them instead into a discursive process that is subject to the authority of the photographer. While the viewer of Maier’s mirror portraits enters a relationship with Maier as a virtual other, in Maier’s shadow portraits she finds herself in the role of a ghostlike shadow figure who, like a spy, infiltrates the respective scene. These different kinds of perception evoked in Maier’s self-portraits allow the viewer to participate in the pictorial narrative in a different way each time: In the photographs with a shadow image, she assumes the role of the woman photographer and thus, as the viewer, is involved in the pictorial narrative. In the images where Maier enters the picture as a reflection, the viewer, in addition to being an observer, is also the observed, an object on display. The self-portrait is primarily concerned with the question of existence. Both mirror and shadow bear witness to the physical, spatial, and chronological presence of the artist in the world. The mirror gives a reflection of Maier; the shadow requires Maier’s body and its contours in order

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to be cast. In both cases, Maier puts herself on view as a depiction in a depiction. Both mirror and shadow thus spark questions regarding appearance and being as well as regarding the existence of the artist and her visibility/visibilities, and they underscore the fact that the image she thus creates can only ever be a trace of her.

Conclusion With her camera often squarely focused on the image plane and shown in the picture, Maier emphasized her role as the creator of her photographs while announcing her interest in the gender discourse through her choice of photographic subjects. In her self-portraits, she pushed against traditional notions of identity that were prevalent in her time, and she re-envisioned images of women in a way that prompted new definitions of conventional gender categories. She availed herself of the freedom to express visually the complexity and universality of human existence. Maier used the female bodies of her selected subjects, as well as her own body, as a “screen,”49 so as to highlight the constructions of binary gender and its modes of representation that are propagated in society, to partially deconstruct traditional notions of femininity, and to contrast them with her own body, the artist body. For Maier, photographic self-portraiture therefore did not exclusively fulfill the function of constructing or exploring the identity of the art-making subject by creating or depicting what is or desires to be. Rather, it must equally be read as a feminist statement insofar as the portraits give access to different forms of Maier’s artistic position with regard to a traditional feminine ideal in the context of standards and norms created within an androcentric social order.50 In this respect, Maier’s self-portraits always inhabit an in-between place, meaning a tension between an identity that is shown by examples and defined by the way society lives, i.e. a fixed identity, and one that unfolds before the backdrop of these fixations, continually interrelating with them. Maier’s decades-long practice of photographing herself as a photographing and observing producer of images and not in her role as a nanny unmistakably signals to us that Maier understood herself as a photographer and must have had the intention of being perceived as one. As a final statement, let me borrow from the fictional confessions of Maier in Jeffrey Goldstein and Lisa Vogel’s short film Vivian Maier – Photographer Extraordinaire (2011): Vivian Maier was not a nanny who happened to be a photographer, but a photographer who happened to be a nanny. This is a message that without a doubt is conveyed by Maier’s self-portraits, since the image that Maier created of herself was first and foremost one of a productive and serious artist. Translated by Logan Kennedy and Leonhard Unglaub

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Notes

The author wishes to thank Bettina Gockel (Zurich), Jadwiga Kamola (Berlin), Martin Sexl (Innsbruck), and Gregor Kastl (Munich) for comments on the text and for their kind assistance in the publication process.

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John Anderson, “A Mystery Woman’s Eye on the World,” The New York Times (2014): https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/ movies/a-documentary-looks-at-thephotographer-vivian-maier.html. Accessed March 14, 2019. Pamela Bannos, Vivian Maier: A Photographer’s Life and Afterlife (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 2. In reference to his first Maier exhibition, gallerist Howard Greenberg confirms that he had “never seen so many people walk through this gallery. They came in droves.” in Claire Sykes, “Vivian Maier. Private Life. Public Eye,” Photographer’s Forum, no. 34 (2010): 19–20; 19. Marvin Heiferman, “Verloren und Wiedergefunden. Das Leben und das photographische Werk von Vivian Maier,” in John Maloof and Howard Greenberg, Vivian Maier: Das Meisterwerk der unbekannten Photographin 1926–2009. Die sensationelle Entdeckung von John Maloof (Munich: Schirmer/Mosel, 2014), 10–39; 36. John Maloof and Howard Greenberg, Vivian Maier: Das Meisterwerk der unbekannten Photographin 1926–2009. Die sensationelle Entdeckung von John Maloof (Munich: Schirmer/Mosel, 2014). See the works of Bannos, Vivian Maier: A Photographer’s Life and Afterlife (see note 2) and Abigail Solomon-Godeau, Photography after Photography. Gender, Genre, History (Durham, London: Duke University Press, 2017). Solomon-Godeau, Photography after Photography. Gender, Genre, History (see note 6), 141. Finding Vivian Maier conceals the fact that other people had also purchased a fraction of Maier’s estate by auction. Since neither Ron Slattery nor Randy Prow appear in the documentary film, the suspicion arises that Maloof has been “airbrushing them out of Maier’s […] story, glorifying his own role as sole

‘finder’” in Paul Gallagher and Rob Hastings, “Row between Collectors over Discovery of Works by American Photographer Vivian Maier as New Documentary Is Released,” Independent (July 21, 2014]): https://www.independent.uk/ arts-entertainment/art/news/row-between-collectors-over-discovery-ofworks-by-american-photographervivian-maier-as-new-9615697.html. Accessed March 15, 2019. 9 “But the movie did Vivian Maier a disservice by not portraying her as a photographer above all else. The movie’s presentation of its subject as an enigma was easily accomplished through interviews with people with whom Maier chose not to share of herself, and their lack of familiarity with her and her photographic work heightened the confusion. Unlike the BBC documentary [Vivian Maier: Who took Nanny’s Pictures? (2013); added by Nadja Köffler], Maloof and Siskel’s movie did not introduce anybody who knew Maier through her photography or through her passion for cinema.” in Bannos, Vivian Maier: A Photographer’s Life and Afterlife (see note 2), 240. 10 Rose Lichter-Marck, “Vivian Maier and the Problem of Difficult Women,” The New Yorker (2014): https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/vivianmaier-and-the-problem-of-difficultwomen. Accessed March 20, 2019. 11 Colin Westerbeck, “Introduction,” in John Maloof and Howard Greenberg, Vivian Maier—The Color Work (New York: Harper Design, 2018), 10–32; 18. 12 Ibid., 18. 13 Ibid., 12. 14 Bryce J. Renninger (2013), “John Maloof and Charlie Siskel Talk Researching the Life of the Nanny Street Photographer Vivian Maier,” IndieWire (2013): https:// www.indiewire.com/2013/09/johnmaloof-and-charlie-siskel-talk-resear-

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ching-the-life-of-the-nanny-street-photographer-vivian-maier-34992/. Accessed March 10, 2019. The estate included undeveloped film rolls, negatives, vintage prints, and videotapes. “Street photography” is a problematic term as it does not describe a coherent genre. Bannos, Vivian Maier: A Photographer’s Life and Afterlife (see note 2), 2. In 2014, Jeffrey Goldstein sold his stock of pictures to the Canadian gallerist Stephen Bulger. Bannos, Vivian Maier: A Photographer’s Life and Afterlife (see note 2), 161. Maier acquired her first Rolleiflex in 1952. Over the years, she photographed with a Rolleiflex 3.5T, a Rolleiflex 3.5F, and a Rolleiflex 2.8C model. Other cameras Maier used were a Leica IIIc, an Ihagee Exakta, and a Zeiss Contarex. “Presented side by side, some of Joubert’s and Maier’s photographs appear as if made by the same person standing on the same spot.” (Bannos, Vivian Maier: A Photographer’s Life and Afterlife [see note 2], 61.) Ibid., 154. Richard Cahan and Michael Williams, Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows (Chicago: Cityfiles Press, 2012), 20. Ibid., 207. Ibid., 207. Ibid., 15. “She had a way of knowing just how close she could come to her subjects in order to pierce their façade without exploiting them.” (Ibid., 207). Ibid., 16. Westerbeck, “Introduction” (see note 11), 24. Ibid., 23. Heiferman, “Verloren und Wiedergefunden. Das Leben und das photographische Werk von Vivian Maier” (see note 4), 32. At this point, it should be noted that Maier’s portrayal of the female artist has to be negotiated primarily in the context of the gender discourse as it existed at the time, which towards the middle of the twentieth century, propa-

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gated the system of naturalized sexual dualism. For this reason, Maier’s genderrelevant statement is subsequently seen as related to a dualistic model of gender. Special attention should also be paid to what were possibly Maier’s attempts to undermine the existing male-female logic. Frances Borzello, Wie ich mich sehe. Frauen im Selbstporträt (Vienna: Brandstätter, 2016), 36. Ibid., 35. Ibid., 36. Ibid., 35. Inka Graeve Ingelmann, “Female Trouble. Die Kamera als Spiegel und Bühne weiblicher Inszenierungen,” in Inka Graeve Ingelmann, Female Trouble. Die Kamera als Spiegel und Bühne weiblicher Inszenierungen (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2008), 29–39; 30. Ibid., 30. Elisabeth Bronfen, “Frauen sehen Frauen sehen Frauen,” in Lothar Schirmer, Frauen sehen Frauen. Eine Bildgeschichte der Frauen-Photographie (Munich: Schirmer/ Mosel, 2001), 9–34; 15. Borzello, Wie ich mich sehe. Frauen im Selbstporträt (see note 33), 154. The artist’s look in the mirror is not to be understood as “natural.” Due to the mirror relationship to other references (which is already established in the early childhood mirror stage, for example through the presence of the mother or father), there is a preceding image attached to it, an ideal that is culturally shaped and already foreseen. These “previous” images are subject to a symbolic androcentric order and are oriented on cultural norms that originate in the categories of gender, ethnicity, culture, nation, and heteronormativity. Due to their socially constructed inscription, they thus provide a frame of reference for collective identification. Subjects therefore always form their identity in the “mirror” of collectively pre-defined and internalized patterns. Cf. Marius Rimmele and Bernd Stiegler, Visuelle Kulturen/Visual Culture. Zur Einführung (Hamburg: Junius, 2012), 98.

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42 Theresa Koester, “Über das weibliche Selbstporträt in der Fotografie,” Schirnmag (2016): https://www.schirn.de/ magazin/kontext/weibliche_selbstport raet _fotografie/. Accessed February 10, 2019. 43 John Berger, Ways of Seeing (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972). 44 Gabriele Schor, “Claude Cahun. Das Neutrum begehren,” in Inka Graeve Ingelmann, Female trouble. Die Kamera als Spiegel und Bühne weiblicher Inszenierungen (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2008), 78–81; 78. 45 Bronfen, “Frauen sehen Frauen sehen Frauen” (see note 39), 24 (trans. Kennedy-Unglaub). 46 Graeve Ingelmann, “Female Trouble. Die Kamera als Spiegel und Bühne weiblicher Inszenierungen” (see note 37), 36.

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Slavko Kacunko, Spiegel – Medium – Kunst. Zur Geschichte des Spiegels im Zeitalter des Bildes (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2010), 220. 48 Anna Bremm, “Selbstbildnis im Spiegel,” kunsttexte.de (2010): https://edoc.huberlin.de/bitstream/handle/18452/7953/ bremm.pdf. Accessed May 12, 2019, 4. 49 Patricia Gozalbez Cantó, Fotografische Inszenierungen von Weiblichkeit. Massenmediale und künstlerische Frauenbilder der 1920er und 1930er Jahre in Deutschland und Spanien (Bielefeld: transcript, 2012), 374. 50 Folgende Literaturquelle einfügen: „Nadja Köffler, Vivian Maier und der gespiegelte Blick. Fotografische Positionen zu Frauenbildern im Selbstporträt (Bielefeld: transcript, 2019), 214.

1: Vivian Maier Estate. Courtesy John Maloof Collection and Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York; 2: Germaine Krull Estate. Courtesy Ann and Jürgen Wilde Foundation, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; Courtesy Museum Folkwang, Essen; 3: Ilse Bing Estate. Courtesy Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York; 4: Claude Cahun Estate. Courtesy of Jersey Heritage Collection.

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Gerd Zillner Demiurge, “Tough Prophet” and Scientist. Frederick Kiesler as The Greatest Self-Staging Architect of his Time

The spring 2018 catalog and lookbook of fashion brand H&M contains a booklet for the label’s premium edition.1 Hugo Sauzay, a young French architect from Festen Architecture2, poses as the model. Atelier Franck Durand, a creative design studio specialized in brand expression,3 had been commissioned to design the brochure, and had used the model’s other profession as an architect and interior designer to create an appealing narrative for the presentation. For its part, the booklet’s key visual (fig. 1), photographed by Mark Peckmezian, does not show the young architect with tools of architectural production. Relaxed, lost in thoughts, Hugo Sauzay poses on a large chart, which hangs down from behind and covers the studio’s floor. What at first glance looks like a casual pose struck by the model for the photo shoot is actually a kind of re-enactment of a masterly staged portrait of the Austro-American architect, artist, designer, stage decorator and theoretician Frederick Kiesler (1890–1965), taken by Ben Schnall (1906–1998) in Kiesler’s studio in 1947.4 In Schnall’s photograph, Kiesler poses on his Metabolism Chart of Correalism (fig. 2). His Correalism theory was a holistic design concept. The term itself is a neologism combining “co-realism” and “correlation.” Correalism is the “science (of the laws) of inter-relationships; the expression of the dynamics of continual interaction between man (as the nucleus of forces) and his natural and technological environments.”5 Kiesler developed his theory at the Laboratory for Design Correlation at Columbia University in New York, which he directed from 1937 to 1941.6 Its critique of Functionalism, best expressed by the motto “Form does not follow function. Form follows vision. Vision follows reality,” was further elaborated in the course of the 1940s and expanded by Kiesler to include the search for the “unification of the arts.”7 This new concept was so important for him that he found a way to use it for his self-staging. But how could an architect stage himself as having emerged in his theory? There are two slightly differing photographs of the subject that were taken by Schnall.8 One of them was published as the major illustration for an article titled “Design’s Bad Boy” in the renowned magazine Architectural Forum.9 A second version taken at the same shoot became even more iconic (fig. 3).10 Whether as the cover for

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1: H&M Frühlingsmode 2018. Ihr Wegweiser zu den neuesten Trends. Atelier Franck 2: Ben Schnall, Frederick Kiesler with his Durand, photograph by Mark Peckmezian. cat Sing Sing on the Metabolism Chart of Correalism, New York 1947, illustration for „Design’s Bad Boy,“ Architectural Forum 86/2, (February 1947), press clipping, Frederick Kiesler Foundation, Vienna.

exhibition catalogs, invitation cards or posters, Ben Schnall’s photograph finds repeated use as a representative and recognizable portrait of Frederick Kiesler. Furthermore, it has become an iconic image showing Kiesler in the role of architectas-scientist. Resting on one arm, lying on the chart, Kiesler in Schnall’s photograph compares the notes in his notebook with the notations on the chart. Loose sheets and a folder are within grasp on the other side of the diagram for further analysis.11 The banner on which the architect is lying was a slightly modified version of the Metabolism Chart which Kiesler used to illustrate the article “On Correalism and Biotechnique.” It was published in Architectural Record in 1939, 12 and is still preserved in the archives of the Frederick Kiesler Foundation. I would even go as far as to claim that the banner was made specifically for this mise-en-scène. Kiesler’s great objective in those years was to achieve “NEW STANDARDS IN LIFE ACTIVITIES.” This is emblazoned in capital letters in the composition’s foreground. In contrast to Kiesler’s mission to improve the world, which was compressed into the logo-like slogan, the overprint above the booklet’s chart remains an advertisement for trendy outfits. Of course—it had to follow the requirements of a fashion catalog. Using Kiesler’s self-fashioning, H&M appropriated the masterly staged image of the architect-as-scientist who is researching “new standards in

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3: Ben Schnall, Frederick Kiesler with his cat Sing Sing on the Metabolism Chart of Correalism, New York 1947, gelatin silver print 25.4 × 20.5 cm, Frederick Kiesler Foundation, Vienna.

life activities.” A drafting board, compass, setsquare and ruler were no longer of importance. The success of the staged portrait does not stem from Kiesler as an architect in all his seriousness, but from Sing Sing, his cat. Apparently mirroring his posture, the architect’s feline companion monitors the scenery from the background. The Kieslers, Frederick and his first wife Stefi,13 were both cat lovers, so it is hardly

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4: Ben Schnall, Frederick Kiesler with his cat Sing Sing on the architect’s writing desk, New York 1947, gelatin silver print 34 × 26.8 cm, Frederick Kiesler Foundation, Vienna.

surprising that a large number of snapshots of the couple’s cats remained in the estate. Apart from the portrait of Kiesler with his cat on the Metabolism Chart, Ben Schnall photographed a second series of portraits of Kiesler with Sing Sing at the architect’s writing desk (fig. 4).14 In contemplating Frederick Kiesler’s estate, one cannot help but notice the immense number of photographs.15 At around 5,000 objects, they represent the largest group in terms of media—more than drawings, correspondence and plans. Their quantity alone leads one to suspect that photography was of special significance to Kiesler, and this despite the fact that the artist hardly ever took any photographs himself. The Frederick Kiesler Foundation’s inventory of photographs encompasses images documenting his ephemeral exhibition designs, stage sets and gallery spaces, photographs of architectural models and sculptural environments, as well as many photographs of him posing in his studio or among his circle of friends including Hans Arp, Theo van Doesburg, Marcel Duchamp, Arshile Gorky, Piet Mondrian.16 The photographs range from incidental snapshots to meticulously

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composed stagings of his works and of himself. Besides these photographs, many of his visionary projects, like the Raumbühne (Space Stage),17 or the Raumstadt (City in Space),18 which was conceived as the display structure for the Austrian theater contribution to the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes at the Grand Palais in Paris in 1925, are documented in photographs only. Kiesler was a multi-talent and worked in all artistic disciplines. Photography is not included here as it does not act as an independent artistic mode of expression in the context of Kiesler. With the exception of a few snapshots, Kiesler did not engage in photography. So much the greater was his awareness of the potential of photography as a medium for conveying his artistic concepts. Often Kiesler was not merely the classic client who commissioned photographers; rather, he frequently accompanied the entire photographic process. His contribution went far beyond choosing a suitable print—although he loved to annotate contact sheets, too. Kiesler collaged photographs in planning and design sketches. He used photographs of his Endless House models to find the perfect contour lines by applying tracing papers to

5: Anonymous, Fernand Léger and Frederick Kiesler on the Space Stage, Vienna 1924, historic reproduction of retouched photograph, gelatin silver print 12 × 18 cm, Frederick Kiesler Foundation, Vienna.

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the photographs, which he then transferred to the final plan drawings.19 He utilized retouching to intensify the dramatic quality of a scene. For example, he painted over each construction detail except for the spiral-shaped ramp for a photograph that showed him on the Space Stage with Fernand Léger (fig. 5).20 One should not forget his sophisticated photomontages like the fold-out triptych showing Marcel Duchamp in his New York studio, which was featured in the special issue of the View magazine that was dedicated to Duchamp.21 Beyond this, Kiesler took up the topic of photography in his writing. In “Design Correlation,” his series of articles for the Architectural Record,22 he published a two-part essay about the history of photography and its technical development.23 Shorter text fragments and an essay about the production of the photographic portrait Marcel Duchamp at the age of 85 round out Kiesler’s theoretical reflections about photography.24 The priority given to photography by Kiesler is also evident in his choice of photographers, who include Berenice Abbott (1898–1991), Ruth Bernhard (1905–2006), Hans Namuth (1915–1990), Arnold Newman (1918–2006), and Irving Penn (1917–2009). If we examine Kiesler’s architectural work in terms of media, working with architectural models assumes a very important role alongside drawing. This is true above for his preoccupation with space, endless space, which Kiesler pursued all his life and which is most strongly associated with the architect. Space is a core theme which runs through Kiesler’s oeuvre and culminates in the designs for his Endless House of the late 1950s. In the following, I will focus on photographs taken of Kiesler with the Endless House, the model for his most important architectural project, to show how Kiesler employed photography for self-staging or self-fashioning as a visionary artist-architect.

The First Endless House — From the Gallery to the Museum “Everybody has only one basic creative idea and no matter how he is driven off, you will find that he will always come back to it until he has a chance to prove it in purity, or die with the idea unrealized.”25 Following this uncompromising postulate, the Endless House remains an unrealized vision. As such, in order to examine Kiesler’s lifelong project we must today draw on sources other than the built architecture: information stemming from manifestos, essays, articles in the daily press and magazines, several hundred drawings, studies and sketches, several plans, autobiographical notes and poetical texts, as well as models and an incredible number of photographs of the architect.26 Kiesler is a prototype of an artist leading an “autobiographical life.”27 Besides his staged portrait photographs, he was masterful at staging interviews and autobiographical notes and was a skilled creator of all kinds of ego-documents.28 He especially

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endeavored to historicize his own oeuvre. A perfect example is the interview for Progressive Architecture, which he gave in 1961.29 Asked about when he first conceived his Endless House, Kiesler, as always, made reference to his first years of work in Vienna. What appears to be simply an attempt to date the idea of his Endless House to the earliest time possible gains relevance and credibility when one agrees with Kiesler’s dictum of only pursuing “one basic creative idea.” On October 3, 1950 the exhibition The Muralist and the Modern Architect opened its doors at the Kootz Gallery in New York.30 To encourage architects and builders to make use of modern artists, gallerist Samuel Kootz presented the joint projects of a group of distinguished modern architects who conceived projects for artists and made models showing the use of the mural in their planning. The artists featured in the exhibition were William Baziotes (1912–1963), Adolph Gottlieb (1903– 1974), David Hare (1917-1992), Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) and Robert Motherwell (1915–1991). They worked together with architects Marcel Breuer (1902–1981); The Architects Collaborative, founded by Walter Gropius (1883–1969) in 1946; Philip Johnson (1906–2005); José Luis Sert (1902–1983); Paul Lester Wiener (1895–1967); and Frederick Kiesler. The latter had been invited by his friend David Hare, and Kiesler

6: Percy Rainford, Model for Endless House, New York 1950 galtin silver print 18 × 23.4 cm, Frederick Kiesler Foundation, Vienna. 7: Frederick Kiesler with his Model for Endless House, xerox copy of unidentified newspaper clipping, Frederick Kiesler Foundation, Vienna.

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designed an Endless House for a stairway sculpture by Hare. Although the model itself is extensively documented in a series of photographs taken by Percy Rainford (fig. 6),31 it is astonishing that not a single picture of Kiesler with the model has survived. There exists only a Xerox copy of a newspaper illustration, which is filed in the Frederick Kiesler Foundation’s secondary collection and research files. It depicts the architect with his model (fig. 7).32 The model of the Endless House from 1950 is a smooth, egg-shaped body. 33 It can be dismantled so that the pedestal ramp, base plate and dome shell can be viewed separately. Kiesler had the individual parts and the entire model photographed again and again. Either it is shown with fern fronds and miniature figures to illustrate the scale, or else with backlighting, as a dark body without detail and accentuated contour. Although it is a fascinating

8: George Barrows, Endless House, general view, New York 1959, gelatin silver print 20.6 × 25.4 cm, Frederick Kiesler Foundation, Vienna.

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model, Kiesler apparently felt that the diminutive egg-shaped object made of clay did not have the potential for self-presentation: It was simply too small, quite the opposite of the models created in the late 1950s, which will be discussed in detail later. Kiesler pursued the Endless House project in the 1950s, but a press release from the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA) of February 2, 1958 reveals a striking new development.34 The Department for Architecture and Design was receiving a 12,000 dollar grant from the R.  H.  Gottesman Foundation to prepare an Endless House that was to be constructed in the original size (40 × 60 × 25 feet or 12 × 18 × 7.5 meters) and erected in the museum’s sculpture garden. The grant was to allow Kiesler to create work sketches, engineering plans, and models. Kiesler was confronted with the challenge of drawing plans, especially engineering plans, for a free-form structure without CAD (computer-aided design). The solution was

9: Newspaper clippings, c. 1959–1960, Fredrick Kiesler Foundation, Vienna.

astonishingly simple: Kiesler constructed three archi-sculptural studies and two models. From these models, especially from the large model that is today at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York,35 his assistants took the measurements and extrapolated them to full size. First, the overall structure was shaped with wire mesh and successively covered with a mixture of cement and plaster. With the sophisticated interplay of its individual shells and the rough surface, which apparently consisted of a multitude of small cubes—these were created by applying the concrete mixture, which was smeared and pressed from the inside to the outside through the small rectangular holes of the wire mesh skeleton with bare hands—Kiesler created an object that was perfectly suited to photography (fig. 8). The fact that photographs of architectural

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models have always been interpretations of interpretations, like a “duplication through media”36 in no way diminished the potency of representing the model and the architectural concept it tried to visualize—quite the contrary. So it is hardly surprising that the articles published on Kiesler’s Endless House were illustrated above all with photographs of the models, not with drawings or plans (fig. 9).37 Kiesler was aware of the potency of these illustrations and also cleverly used photographs of himself with the model as a tool for self-presentation. This is particularly apparent from two articles published in 1959 and 1960, which appeared before the model was exhibited to the public. Today they are among the most famous portraits of the artist.

The Second Endless House — How to Stage an Unbuilt Architecture? With his assertion that “The architect is his house. The house is its architect,”38 it is clear just how much Kiesler identified with his projects, something that can also be recognized in the many photographic portraits showing Kiesler at work on, in front of, in, and behind his Endless House models. These are skillful mise-en-scènes (of his self), for which Kiesler hired the photographers Hans Namuth, Irving Penn, and others. Arthur Drexler, the head of the Architecture Department at MoMA and one of the most important promotors of Kiesler’s concepts of architecture, realized the potential of these images. In order to arouse interest in the project, Drexler and Kiesler organized a media campaign. In 1959, the “Features and Fiction” section of the October issue of Harper’s Bazaar featured a short text that set out to present new architectural concepts based on Richard Buckminster Fuller’s Geodesic Dome and Frederick Kiesler’s Endless House.39 Some months later, the January issue of VOGUE had an article by Drexler on Frederick Kiesler and his Endless House.40 Although both photographs feature Kiesler with his model as the subject, they could not be more different. Hans Namuth shows Kiesler standing in front of the rear side of his model (fig. 10). Dressed in black, he appears to be coming out of the void of the atmospheric darkness embracing the scene. The artist rests his head in his hand and is positioned precisely in front of the central window opening of the Endless House, which appears to surround his head like a dark halo. Thanks to a consistent appearance of the black-and-white tones in the photograph, Kiesler’s head, his hand and the model all seem to share a similar materiality. Thoughtful, with a furrowed brow, he addresses the viewer, appearing as a “tough prophet” who presages the future of housing; this is the image of him put forth in contemporary newspaper articles.41 A short excursion should be taken to describe the friendship of Namuth and Kiesler: Namuth, like Kiesler, was an emigrant, and was connected to him through the same mother tongue—although the former came from Germany, the latter from

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10: Hans Namuth, Frederick Kiesler with his Model for Endless House, New York 1959, gelatin silver print 20.5 × 25.3 cm, Frederick Kiesler Foundation, Vienna. Photograph by Hans Namuth. 11: Irving Penn, Frederick Kiesler with his Model for Endless House, New York 1959, gelatin silver print 16.8 × 23.9 cm, Frederick Kiesler Foundation, Vienna.

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Austria-Hungary. The mutual nature of their friendship is evident from an exchange of letters. Namuth sent Kiesler a print, not without mentioning that he was only able to give him the less appealing one. In a playful mixture of English and German, he informs his friend that he has had to sell the better ones because he is broke (“pleite”).42 In Irving Penn’s photograph, Kiesler is staged at work on the model (fig. 11). The artist is standing behind his Endless House and seems to be applying concrete with his bare hands, his sleeves proverbially rolled up. The bowl with the concrete, which has been casually set down on the roof of the house, indicates that the model is an incomplete object, soon to be finished by the artist. Kiesler gazes out of the picture, appearing serene and also rather tired. Compared with the photograph of this series that does not show the bowl, Penn stages Kiesler as a demiurge lending final form to the matter of his creation.43 Kiesler, as a matter of fact, dealt extensively with the origins of architecture. Even in a “magical” sense. Although a creator-god or God as the master builder are not mentioned in “Magic Architecture,”44 his unfinished manuscript in pursuit of a cultural anthropology of architecture, the topos of the architect as demiurge must have been known to him.45 A series of snapshots capturing the work on the models in Kiesler’s studio in the winter months of December 1958 and January 1959 (fig. 12) reveals how much Penn worked on the staging of Kiesler in the photograph.46 The snapshots are important contemporary documents because they give a real-life, unvarnished glimpse of Kiesler’s New York studio on 9th  Street. They also allow us to date the various models. Thanks to the dates printed on them, they help us draw a timeline of the work process, and they give important insights into the making of the models. They show the artist and his assistants creating the basic structure of the models, constructing them from wood and wire netting, cutting sheets of wire to size, or joining different parts. The photographs from January 1959, for example, show the basic structures of the sculptural studies for the Endless House already covered with concrete. Here, Kiesler is shown as starting to work on the small model. Kiesler had a great liking for the unfinished wire-mesh models not yet covered with concrete, as evidenced by a large number of photographs. It is hardly surprising that, alongside the studio snapshots, there is a small series of eight photographs of Kiesler building the large model for an Endless House. These photographs portray his dynamic work with wire netting and his modeling of space.47 In the composition of these photographs (fig. 13), special attention is paid to the interplay of Kiesler’s eyes and hands. The artist seems to look through the various lengths of wire netting, fashioning space with expansive gestures. In some of the pictures, Kiesler appears inside the model. Furthermore, these photographs portray the semitransparent character and special materiality of the wire mesh when they capture the animated play of reflections of varying intensity on the surface, changing depending on the curvature and angle of lighting.

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12: Anonymous, Frederick Kiesler and studio assistants working on his model for Endless House, New York 1958–59, gelatin silver print c. 9 × 9 cm, each, Frederick Kiesler Foundation, Vienna.

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Time was pressing: The Endless House was to be erected in the sculpture garden as early as possible in the summer of 1960 and this date was quickly approaching. The later the house was constructed, the shorter it would be on view, since the construction of a new wing of the MoMA would certainly limit the exhibition time.

13: Anonymous, Frederick Kiesler working on his Model for Endless House, New York 1959, gelatin silver print 8.8 × 12.9 cm, Frederick Kiesler Foundation

On May 20, 1960, Kiesler met with the curator Arthur Drexler and Director Renée d’Harnoncourt to discuss the problems: “Simply build it on the roof of the new museum wing,” Drexler suggested.48 Finally, he made the artist another offer, making amends for the missed opportunity, since the model would not be erected in the sculpture garden after all. His idea was to show the Endless House as a central project in the Visionary Architecture exhibition of 1960.49 Kiesler made a point to commission photographs of the interior of the model so that he could convey the sense of being on the inside, which he found so important. These interior photographs were displayed next to the model as wall-sized blowups in the Visionary Architecture exhibition. Here, too, one can see how Kiesler consciously availed himself of the full palette of possibilities offered by the medium of photography, especially photographs of architectural models, in order to promulgate his unrealized, visionary Endless House. Considering the effectiveness of the wall-sized interior views, one could agree with, or even extend, Arthur Drexler’s argument that “[t]he model generated its own truth.”50 They, models, create an ideal space, which could

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14: John F. Waggaman, Frederick Kiesler working on Bucephalus, Long Island, c.1964, gelatin silver print 17.8 × 12.7 cm, Frederick Kiesler Foundation. 15: Adelaide de Menil, Frederick Kiesler working on Bucephalus, New York 1964/65, gelatin silver print 27.5 × 35 cm, Frederick Kiesler Foundation.

only be corrupted by realization, while, as models, they remain open for all of the visitor’s projections. Although disappointed by setbacks as an architect—none of his projects were carried out and, as a result of artistic differences, he terminated his successful collaboration with the architect Armand Bartos on The Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem (1957–1965)—the work was inaugurated on April 20, 1965 in the presence of the former companions.51 Kiesler began to concentrate increasingly on painting and sculpture in the course of the 1960s. During the final years of his life, he created a number of large sculptural ensembles including Bucephalus. In the summer months of 1964 and 1965, Kiesler rented a barn on Long Island as a studio and worked on

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his sculptural projects. He sought to unite the entire oeuvre of his final years in a single work: Bucephalus is a walk-in sculpture, a miniature Endless House, charged with mythology (Bucephalus being Alexander the Great’s war horse) as well as symbolism and even furnished with theatrical special effects.52 Kiesler had the working process that created Bucephalus documented in photographs. Again, it was Hans Namuth, with whom he had a longstanding friendship, who accompanied the making of the sculpture with his camera. This process gave rise to a series including the photographs of Kiesler at work inside the wire mesh structure of the horse’s body, which were often used as illustrations. In addition to Namuth’s photographs, there is a series of documentary photographs taken by the photographer John F. Waggaman, who accompanied the working process. Among these photographs is an image showing Kiesler inside the wire mesh, which evokes the idea of Kiesler working inside an Endless House. This is so effective that the pictures of Bucephalus were often thought to show the Endless House (fig. 14).53 Once the casting molds were completed on Long Island, they were cut up and transported to Kiesler’s studio on Broadway. It was the photographer Adélaïde de Ménil (born in 1935) who documented Kiesler as he finished his work (fig. 15). In the darkness of the studio, the contours of the horse are blurred. Only the inside of the sculpture is illuminated. Kiesler has crawled into the interior on all fours and seems to be applying the last brushstrokes—like the caveman of prehistoric times, whom the artist so fondly invoked.554 Since the light source is located behind Kiesler inside Bucephalus, only his contours are visible. He himself seems to emerge from the same blackness as the surrounding space. Compared with the pictures from Amagansett, the staging of these photographs is particularly noticeable. De Menil spent a lot of time with Kiesler during the last two years of his life, always accompanying him with her camera when he went to his studio, to workshops, to foundries. The photograph of Kiesler inside his sculpture conveys this long-established intimacy. Kiesler, according to an ambiguous compliment by Philip Johnson, was “the greatest non-building architect of our time.”55 Considering the masterly self-re­ presentation in Kiesler’s photographic portraits, the quote should be altered to: Frederick Kiesler was the greatest self-staging architect of his time.

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Notes

1 H&M. Frühlingsmode 2018. Ihr Wegweiser zu den neuesten Trends [sales catalog, n.d.]. 2 Festen Architecture, https://www. festenarchitecture.com. Accessed July 14, 2019. 3 ATELIER FRANCK DURAND, direction artistique, http://www.franckdurand.com. Accessed July 14, 2019. 4 For Frederick Kiesler’s biography cf. Friedrich Kiesler: Architekt, Künstler, Visionär, exh. cat., Martin-Gropius-Bau (Munich: Prestel, 2017). 5 Frederick Kiesler, “On Correalism and Biotechnique. A Definition and Test of a New Approach to Building Design,” Architectural Record 86/3, (September 1939): 60–75. Cf. “Index of Terms,” added to the separate reprint. ÖFLKS (Austrian Frederick and Lillian Kiesler Private Foundation), INVT, MED  5981/0. 6 On Frederick Kiesler’s Laboratory for Design Correlation cf. Bechara Helal, Les laboratoires de l’architecture. Enquête épistémologique sur un paradigme historique (PhD dissertation: ­Université de Montréal, 2016); Stephen Phillips, Elastic Architecture. Frederick Kiesler and Design Research in the First Age of Robotic Culture (Chicago: MIT Press, 2017). 7 Cf. Frederick Kiesler, “Pseudo-Functionalism in Modern Architecture,” Partisan Review (July 1949): 733–742, Frederick Kiesler, “Manifeste du Corréalisme,” L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui 2 (June 1949): 79–105. 8 Although Ben Schnall worked for major architects and designers besides Kiesler, Marcel Breuer should be mentioned here, though little is known about his life. Schnall and Kiesler frequently worked together. There are about sixty photographs in the archive, among others an amazing series documenting Kiesler‘s aluminum cast Nesting Tables (mid 1930s). 9 “Design’s Bad Boy,” Architectural Forum 86/2, (February 1947): 88–91, continued 138, 140. 10 The archive of the Frederick Kiesler Foundation holds various vintage prints from the same negative varying in size. ÖFLKS INVT, PHO  4862/0–3.

11

If one looks at the notes lying on the banner in front of Kiesler, one can see through a looking glass that it is probably Kiesler‘s unpublished manuscript MAGIC ARCHITECTURE and not, as one would expect, the book template for ON CORREALISM AND BIOTECHNIQUE, which was written at the same time. 12 Frederick Kiesler, “On Correalism and Biotechnique. A Definition and Test of a New Approach to Building Design,” Architectural Record 86/3, (September 1939): 60–75. 13 Stefi (Steffi) Kiesler (1897–1963), née Stephanie Frischer was an artist, writer and critic. She married Frederick Kiesler in Vienna in 1920. After the couple’s arrival in New York, she gave up being an artist and worked in the New York Public Library to make a living. After retiring, she worked as an editor for the Aufbau. Cf. Jill Meißner, Stefi Kiesler (1897–1963). (MA Thesis: Vienna University, 2013). 14 ÖFLKS INVT, PHO  4661/0, PHO  4662/0 and PHO  4670/0–4672/0. 15 Cf. Gerd Zillner, “Design by Light. On Frederick Kiesler’s Use of Photography,” Frederick Kiesler. Life Visions. ArchitectureArt-Design, exh. cat., Museum of Applied Arts Vienna (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2016), 179–191. 16 Cf. Peter Bogner and Gerd Zillner eds., Frederick Kiesler: Face to Face with the Avant-Garde. Essays on Network and Impact (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2019). 17 Kiesler showed the full-scale model of his theatre stage concept as the centerpiece of the Internationale Ausstellung neuer Theatertechnik (International Exhibition of New Theater Technique) in the Mozart Hall (at that time the Mittlerer Saal) at the Konzerthaus. The exhibition took place from September 24 to October 15, 1925. Kiesler acted as curator and designed the printed matter as well as the exhibition architecture Cf. Vienna 1924. Hotspot of The Avant-Garde, exh. cat., Frederick Kiesler Foundation (Vienna: Frederick Kiesler Foundation, 2018).

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Cf. Markus Kristan, L’Autriche à Paris 1925. Österreich auf der Kunstgewerbeausstellung in Paris (Weitra: Bibliothek der Provinz, 2019). Cf. Frederick Kiesler, Plans for Endless House. Project for Museum of Modern Art, New York 1959, ÖFLKS INVT, PLN  240/0. The contours of the West Elevation and East Elevation are apparently taken from the general view of the Endless House model, ÖFLKS INVT, PHO  782/0–8. ÖFLKS INVT, PHO  780/0 still has the tracing paper attached to it. Fernand Léger and Frederick Kiesler on the Space Stage, Vienna 1924, ÖFLKS INVT, PHO  332/0. Frederick Kiesler, “Space-Poem Dedicated to H(ieronymous) Duchamp,” (fold-out photomontage) View no. 1 (March 1945). Frederick Kiesler, “The Architect in Search of… Design Correlation. A Column on Exhibits, the Theater and the Cinema,” Architectural Record 81/2 (February 1937): 7–15; Id., “Design-Correlation,” Architectural Record 81/5 (May 1937): 53–59; Id. “Design-Correlation. Animals and Architecture,” Architectural Record 81/4 (April 1937): 87–92; Id., “Design-Correlation. Certain Data Pertaining to the Genesis of Design by Light. Part  I,” Architectural Record 82/7 (July 1937): 89–92; Id., “Design-Correlation. Certain Data Pertaining to the Genesis of Design by Light. Part  II,” Architectural Record 82/8 (August 1937): 79–84; Id., “Design-Correlation. Towards a Prefabrication of Folk Festival,” Architectural Record 81/6 (June 1937): 93–96; Id., “On Correalism and Biotechnique” (see note 10). “Design-Correlation. […] Design by Light. Part I and II” (see note 19). Cf. Herbert Molderings, Marcel Duchamp at the Age of 85. An Icon of Conceptual Photography (Cologne: Walther König, 2013). Thomas Creighton, “Kiesler’s Pursuit of an Idea,” Progressive Architecture 42/7 (July 1961): 104–123. Cf. Gerd Zillner, “Frederick Kiesler’s Endless House. An Attempt to Retrace an Endless Story,” Klaus Bollinger et al.,

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eds., Endless Kiesler (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2015), 98–168. Cf. Carl Pletsch, “On the Autobiographical Life of Nietzsche,” George Moraitis and George H. Pollock, eds., Psychoanalytic Studies of Biography (Madison, Con.: International Universities Press, 1987), 405–434. Ego-documents (in German “Selbstzeugnisse” or “Ego-Dokumente”) reveal something about the (self-)perception and representation of the ego. They can be both intentional or unintentional. Cf. definition by Winfried Schulze, “EgoDokumente: Annäherungen an den Menschen in der Geschichte? Vorüber­ legungen für die Tagung ‘EGO-DOKUMENTE,’” Winfried Schulze, ed., EgoDokumente. Annäherung an den Menschen in der Geschichte (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1996): 11–30. Creighton, “Kiesler’s Pursuit of an Idea” (see note 25). The Muralist and The Modern Architect, exh. cat., Kootz Gallery (New York: Kootz ­Gallery, 1950). Cf. Michael R. Taylor, Percy Rainford: Duchamp’s “invisible” Photographer (Vienna: Verlag für moderne Kunst, 2018) Xerox copy of an unidentified newspaper clipping, ÖFLKS, research material. Kiesler contributed two models to the show: a larger one containing David Hare’s sculpture staircase and the smaller egg-shaped clay model. Kiesler was not satisfied with the larger model, which was later destroyed. It is only known from the exhibition views. The small model was purchased by the Mu­­ seum of Modern Art in New York: Frederick Kiesler, Model for Endless House, New York 1950, clay (ceramics), 20 × 11 ½ × 6” (50.8 × 29.2 × 15.2 cm), MoMA, New York, object no.  MC 25. “GRANT GIVEN TO MUSEUM FOR ARCHITECTURAL PROJECT,” press release from ­February 2, 1958, ÖFLKS INVT, TXT  616/0. Frederick Kiesler, Model for Endless House, New York 1959, Cement, wire mesh, wood and plastic, 35 5/8 × 97 ¼ × 39 9/16”

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(90.5 × 247 × 100.5 cm), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, accession no. 89.8. Gift of Mrs. Lillian Kiesler. Rolf Sachsse, “Eine kleine Geschichte der Architekturmodell-Fotografie,“ Das Architekturmodell. Werkzeug, Fetisch, kleine Utopie, exh. cat., Deutsches Architekturmuseum Frankfurt (Zurich: Schneid­ egger & Spiess, 2012), 23. There is a bundle of press clippings filed at the Archive of the Frederick Kiesler Foundation, ÖFLKS, box txt 101 (Endless House). “L’architecte est sa maison. La maison est l’architecte,” Frederick Kiesler, “Manifeste du Corréalisme,” L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui 2 (June 1949): 79–105 [no pagination in Kiesler’s essay]. “New concepts of architecture,” Harper’s Bazaar (October 1959): 182–183. The photograph with Kiesler is reproduced on page 183. Arthur Drexler, “Frederick Kiesler and his Endless House,” VOGUE (January 1, 1960): 114–115, continued on page 163. “Tough Prophet,” TIME (May 25, 1959): 80-81, Ada Luise Huxtable, “The Architect as a prophet,” New York Times (October 2, 1960): × 21. “(Sehr in Eile../In great haste..) / I have made two prints of each picture that I selected – one for you and one for me. To be quite frank: I am keeping the better print for myself, because I want to show the picture to Liberman [Alex Libermann] of Vogue, […] I could not do without an assignment at the moment because I am so pleite/broke. […],” Hans Namuth to Frederick Kiesler, undated letter [c. 1960], ÖFLKS INVT, LET  1707/0. For the print at the Frederick Kiesler Foundation—ÖFLKS INVT, PHO  801/0; cf. Lillian and Frederick Kiesler papers, [circa 1910]–2003, bulk 1958–2000 at The American Archives of Art in Washington, Smithsonian Institution, contains other versions of Namuth’s portrait series: folder Papers related to Frederick Kiesler, Photographs, Contact Sheets and Negatives. There are several versions of this setting, and the Frederick Kiesler Founda-

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tion holds three photographs of the series. ÖFLKS INVT, PHO  808/0, which was used for the article and one that shows Kiesler stripped to the waist, adding to the effect of the enactment as a creator-god: ÖFLKS INVT, PHO  807/0. The third one ÖFLKS INVT, PHO  771/0. Frederick Kiesler, Magic Architecture. Origin and Future. The Story of Human Housing, unfinished manuscript, New York c. 1945–1947, INVT, ÖFLKS TXT  5877/0 and related material (several boxes with preparatory material). Cf. Christian Freigang, “Gott als Architekt,” in Winfried Nerdinger ed., Der Architekt. Geschichte und Gegenwart eines Berufsstandes, exh. cat., Architekturmuseum der TU München in der Pinakothek der Moderne (Munich: Prestel, 2012): Vol. 2, 383-401; esp. „Der christlich-jüdische Schöpfergott und Platons Demiurg.“ cf. ÖFLKS, box pho 10, folder  EH  59  DB  PHO PRODUKTION  3. c. 40 photographs. cf. ÖFLKS, box pho 11, folder  EH  59 WHITNEY  PHO  PORTRAIT; ÖFLKS INVT, PHO  733/0, PHO  802/0–806/0, PHO  2245/0. Frederick Kiesler, Inside the Endless House. Art People and Architecture. A Journal (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1966), 278. Visionary Architecture, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, Exhibition dates: 29  September – 4  December 1960. “Like the architecture it represents, the model is thought to be ‘objective,’ meaning that it correspondents to ‘facts,’ which are taken for ‘truth.’ […] [it] suppresses certain elements in order to present an ideal […] which the actual building can only corrupt. […] The model created its own truth.” Arthur Drexler, “Engineer’s architecture: truth and its consequences,” Id. ed., The Architecture of the École des Beaux-Arts, exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art (Museum of Modern Art, 1977), 15. Cf. Kiesler and Bartos. The Shrine of the Book, exh. cat., Frederick Kiesler Foundation (Vienna: Frederick Kiesler Foundation, 2015).

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Cf. portfolio of the Estate of Frederick Kiesler, Jason McCoy, Inc., New York. Kiesler never cast the sculpture in aluminum. In view of its deteriorating condition, Jason McCoy had the sculpture cast in 2007 under the supervision of Len Pitkowsky, Kiesler’s studio assistant. 53 ÖFLKS INVT, PHO  4435/0 and PHO  4441/0, as well as PHO  5695/ 0–PHO  5710/0. 54 Cf. Frederick Kiesler, Magic Architecture. Origin and Future. The Story of Human Housing, unpublished manuscript, New York, c. 1945-1947. ÖFLKS INVT, TXT  5877/0 (and related versions/fragments).

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Philip Johnson, “Three architects ­Presented by Philip Johnson,” Art in America 48, no. 1 (Spring 1960): 70–75. Frederick Kiesler, “Building Architect. To the Editor,” Sunday Times (April 17, 1960). For a discussion of Johnsons quote and Kiesler’s repost cf. Stephen Phillips, Elastic Architecture, (see note 5), 1 and Footnote 1; Ben Nicholson, Michelangelo Sabatino, eds., Avant-Garde in the Cornfields: Architecture, Landscape, and Preservation in New Harmony, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, will be published in autumn of 2019). The author would like to thank Ben Nicholson for sharing his essay in advance.

3–9: Frederick Kiesler Foundation, Vienna; 10: 1991 Hans Namuth Estate; 11: Condé Nast; 12–14: Frederick Kiesler Foundation, Vienna; 15: Adelaide de Menil.

Weronika Kobylińska-Bunsch Impossible Self-Portrait. Photographic Games and Existential Inquiries in the Photographic Work of Witkacy–Głogowski

Dear Monster from Düsseldorf, How to Describe You? Napoleon, a dangerous bandit, a monster from Düsseldorf—these are just some of the many characters Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (1885–1939) impersonated during photoshoots in the 1930s. Witkiewicz, also known as Witkacy, was a painter and writer who created many theoretical and philosophical essays, novels, and dramas. Already during his lifetime, his individual style and uncommon manner attracted attention. For instance, many of his paintings were annotated with mnemonics listing the drugs taken while creating the painting, even if this happened to be only a cup of coffee. After World War  II, he was considered to have anticipated the “theater of the absurd.” Witkacy was a visionary ahead of his time and is still a crucial figure for Polish culture. His legacy was an important reference point for people such as Tadeusz Kantor (1915–1990, painter, theater director) and Czesław Miłosz (1911– 2004, poet, Nobel Prize winner). Even the current generation of Polish artists is continuing his work: Visual artist Paulina Ołowska (born 1976), for instance, re-produced Witkiewicz’s Mother at the Tate Modern in 2015.1 Witkacy should not be confused with his father, Stanisław Witkiewicz (1851–1915), who was also an artist and is mainly recognized as a creator of the so-called “Zakopane style” in architecture. Photographs showing Witkacy embodying various non-existent characters have such an appeal that in 1990s they quite rapidly became a common subject of studies.2 The figure of the powerful and mysterious artist, whose unusual visions and cutting-edge judgments are indeed meaningful, also contributed to the popularity of this subject among researchers. As Monika Ples has stated, the analysis of these atypical photographs “resembles a school play with an author, who is giggling as honestly as the spectator.”3 According to Ples, the key element here is the comic mystification. Krzysztof Jurecki, who focused on the “ironic absurd” visible in the pictures, therefore classifying them as Dadaistic, shared a similar belief.4 Maria Potocka, who was looking at the photographs through the lens of social anthropology, argued that they should be interpreted as visual testimonies attesting to the artist’s fascination with his psyche.5

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Paradoxically, even though we have at our disposal plenty of interpretations, so far Witkacy’s photographs have not been compared to his paintings, nor have they been examined with reference to similar artistic strategies from the same period. The reason for this is the common assumption that Witkiewicz rejected photography’s status as a “true art.” Therefore, his photographic oeuvre remained in “splendid isolation” and was for long forgotten by art history. Emphasizing the absence of photography in the theoretical system constructed by this artist implies that Witkacy’s so-called series of miens were merely innocent trifles or private amusements. However, if one goes by the research attitude that goes hand in hand with the valuation criteria stemming from the artist’s theoretical doctrine, it is clear that not only the significance of the photographs connected with his figure is diminished, but also the significance of his novels and portraits. Let us remind ourselves that according to the strict principles explicated by Witkacy in his New Forms in Painting and the Misunderstandings Arising Therefrom (1919)6 and in the Introduction to the Theory of Pure Form in the Theatre7 (1923), Witkacy devalued and repudiated not only photography, but also many genres of painting, and literature (for instance, drama8 pieces were far more appreciated than poetry). In his hierarchical system, photography and pastel painting, for example, did not attain the status of art. Today, the value of Witkacy’s pastel works is undeniable, even though the author himself would undoubtedly consider this an abomination. At some point, Witkacy even declared that he was not able to continue to create within the theoretical frames that he himself had established (namely the “Pure Form” concept),9 and he became active in other creative fields, for example in his commercial portrait-painting firm.10 He considered his resignation from following the rules of “Pure Form” to be a radical gesture, which was equal to a definitive abandoning of the world of art.11 We should acknowledge, however, that Witkacy— presumably the greatest scammer in the interwar Polish art world—admitted in his other theoretical essay, published in the volume titled Aesthetic Sketches (1922), that there are no specific determinants in the evaluation of works of art.12 An accidental pile of rubbish and the abstract work, corresponding with the idea of “Pure Form,” can both make us reconsider the metaphysical problems of a “mystery of being.”13 It therefore seems appropriate to juxtapose Witkiewicz’s specific photographic works with his unconventional artistic activity. Even though Witkacy contributed, perhaps unconsciously, to this field of visual culture in great depth, the meaning of the photographs goes far beyond the playground of silly, meaningless caprices. In order to enrich the field of possible re-readings of these photographs, I will analyze three important aspects in Witkacy’s photographic work: a) the specifics of photographic technology, that is, the method of taking these photographs; b) the theoretical thought of Witkacy; and c) Witkacy’s ongoing fascination with his own image, which can be seen in his literary, philosophical and pastel works. These factors will allow us to look at Witkacy’s photographs through a new research prism.

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As a result, we can position Witkiewicz’s photographs in the context of the grotesque, which has a vital effect on the reception of his oeuvre.

The Problem of Authorship What is the reason for such a significant difference between various interpretations, particularly those proposed by Maria Potocka and Krzysztof Jurecki? Why does Potocka14 analyze these photographs in light of the psychological conditions of the artist, while the second well-known theoretician does not attach equally important value to the images? The most controversial issue arises in connection with the problem of the authorship of the discussed photographs. The question about Witkacy’s input into these photographs remains valid. In 2009, Maria Potocka curated a vast exhibition devoted to Witkacy’s work titled Witkacy – Psychoholizm (Witkacy – Psychoholism) at the Bunkier Sztuki in Cracow.15 The exhibition catalog features photographs which either represent ­Witkacy or were created by Witkacy. The list of images includes two different types of captions. In addition to the obvious shortcut “fot.” (which meant “photo by”), the non-transparent research term “wyk. fot.” (photograph done by) is also used. The first designation—“fot. Witkacy”—indicates that the photograph was created by Witkacy (he was responsible for both idea and technical procedures, such as developing film or printing). In the second case, the reader is confronted with quite a peculiar inscription, for instance, “Witkacy, wyk. fot. Józef Głogowski.” Such a formula is supposed to underline that even if someone else (for example a professional photographer such as Józef Głogowski) pressed the shutter release, this person contributed only to the technical aspect of the photograph, while it was Witkacy who is to be identified as the author of the image.16 As a consequence, some of the pictures are not attributed to their actual creators. This questionable labelling system proposed by Potocka was first noticed by Stefan Okołowicz,17 the owner of a vast collection of photographs by Witkacy. My study considers the classification of Wikacy’s works, as proposed in Witkacy – Psychoholizm, to be unsatisfactory and hardly respectful of historical truth and technical facts. It therefore opposes the publication’s claim that Witkacy was the only creator of the many discussed photographs, which date to circa the 1930s. It should be noted that Witkacy was capable of taking photographs on his own. The correspondence between himself and his father, as well as the evidence brought forth by visual material preserved in the Muzeum Tatrzańskie (Tatra Museum) in Zakopane indicate that young Stanisław Ignacy perfectly mastered the photographic technique. As a young artist, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz created photographic landscapes, portraits (fig. 1) and self-portraits (figs. 2 and 3). However, the photographs created later, during the interwar period, were only the result of his concept, not his usage of the camera—although, of course, this only is to be taken as significant

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1: Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Portrait of Stefan Żeromski (Portret Stefana Żeromskiego), ca. 1912, gelatin silver print, 12.6 × 17.2 cm.

at the same time.18 The series of miens from the 1930s is a record of performances in which Witkacy was the main actor, not the photographer.19 Not only did someone else press the shutter button—which, one can argue, does not settle the issue unequivocally—but also the cameras used in the analyzed process were the property of other photographers (different formats of preserved negatives indicate this fact). Therefore, not only mechanical exposure of the film but also all subsequent processes, such as cropping and making prints, were somebody else’s responsibility (the photographer). Let us underline that it was the photographer who decided how to arrange Witkacy’s body within the frame and how to develop the final image, and therefore that it was the photographer who determined the ultimate character of the print. Even if the figure of the photographer quite often disappears in the darkness of memory, this fact should not be underestimated. Moreover, in the letters addressed to his wife, Witkacy always notes the name of the photographers, and never attributes these works to himself.20 The seals and marks visible on some of the portraits of Witkiewicz testify that these photographs were taken in professional studios, which at that time were valued as recognizable brands. Nonetheless, the uniqueness of these works is not diminished by recognizing the contribution of the other photographers. The photographs taken by different people maintain a consistent style, and this indicates that they are a materialization of a long-term photographic project, the specifics of which are worth considering.

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2: Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Self-portrait (Autoportret), ca. 1910, scan of a glass negative, 12 × 9 cm. 3: Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Self-portrait (Autoportret), ca. 1910, scan of a glass negative, 12 × 9 cm.

Classification An extensive collection of photographs connected to Witkacy can be divided into at least two categories. The circumstances in which the photos were taken may serve as guidelines determining the classification of this visual material. One coherent set comprises photographs taken at professional photography studios, run by, for instance, Henryk Schabenbeck (1886–1939). Group photographs should be considered to constitute a different category since they were created spontaneously during social gatherings, where the game with a camera took place only by chance, the result of an opportune moment. For this reason, the distinction between these two types seems to be justified. The crucial aspect to consider is that collective play with the camera is an entirely different process than the paid, individual session in the studio. In these two situations there is not only a dissimilar atmosphere when taking pictures, but the nature of the cooperation between model and photographer is also different. The narrative scenes of the group are a specific type of visual farce, a parody. Works of this type are the recording of unplanned, impulsive moments with friends such as the writer, fine artist and literary critic Bruno Schulz (1892–1942) and the pianist Roman Jasiński (1900–1987). Jadwiga Witkiewiczowa (1893–1968), Witkacy’s wife, looking back on how this group of friends used the camera, compared their actions to the basic nature of children: unpredictable and wild.21 In turn, photographs in which only Witkiewicz performs are portraits

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of a conventional type, where the static composition does not affect the narrative power of a shot (the composition is usually unoriginal, only the field size varies and ranges from American shot to medium shot).22 In this case, the photographers put emphasis on recording Witkiewicz’s gestures and facial expressions,23 leaving the background neutral. In this way, they highlighted Witkacy’s variable and complex disguises—when he appeared, for example, as “an uncle from California,”24 a referee, or even a cowboy. Józef Głogowski (1893–1969) was the author of the photographs whose aesthetics are analogous to those of Schabenbeck, but his works elude the proposed division and seem to deserve special attention as a separate category. Głogowski did not have his own atelier; as the director of the municipal power plant in Zakopane,25 he was occupied with photography mainly as an advanced amateur.26 The outstanding artistic cooperation between Głogowski and Witkiewicz stemmed from their friendship, which bound them for six years. Most probably no other photographer established such a harmonious relationship with Witkiewicz in the 1930s. Głogowski did not charge his friend for the photographs but passed them on to Witkiewicz as part of a mutual exchange. To show his gratitude for the photographs, Witkacy made pastel portraits of Głogowski, his wife and his daughters. It is worth noting that Głogowski is responsible for a significant part of the visual material showing Witkiewicz in this period. Bearing this in mind, we should generally acknowledge that Głogowski’s oeuvre seems to be dominated by works of a moody, pictorial aesthetics.27 The gum bichromate prints of his daughters in ballet costumes, who were pupils of the notorious German-born dancer Rita Sacchetto, can serve as confirmation of this thesis.28 These images, tinted in warm brown color, are intentionally slightly out of focus and their surface is marked by visible brush strokes. Vague shapes and subdued tonalities convey a sense of elegiac melancholy, whereas the images showing the unconventional faces of Witkacy constitute an enclave of a noticeably different style in Głogowski’s work. How should we interpret Głogowski’s decision to refrain from his favored printing methods (alternative process)?29 In my opinion, the photographer demonstrated an exceptional understanding of the artistic activities of his eccentric friend and applied a different poetics in order to record them. The complex nature of the relationship between Głogowski and Witkacy allows us to conclude that in the eyes of a well-known painter, the photographer was an extremely close associate. This leads us to conclude that their creative initiatives transcended the domain of innocent games or the simple, universal need for photographic commemoration.

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The Critical Power of the Grotesque In view of these facts, one may conclude that it seems necessary to recognize the phenomenon of co-authorship and acknowledge the existence of an artistic duo: Witkacy-Głogowski. What results from this conclusion is by no means a marginalization of the role of Witkiewicz, because it can be assumed that as the initiator, he contributed essential intellectual content to the project. From the palimpsest of meanings hidden in every visual representation, I propose to focus on one of them: I would like to re-read the photographs created by Głogowski and Witkacy in light of the complex meanings associated with the category of the grotesque. These photographs evoke a feeling of both joy and unpleasant disgust, since they combine repulsive miens and comic, amusing titles. Therefore, these strange, caricaturesque images are well served by the definition proposed by Thomas Mann, who labeled the grotesque as the “genuine antibourgeois style,”30 which could be seen from both an aesthetic and a philosophical perspective. Certainly, the anti-aesthetic program (deforming the face of the model, expressive gestures, and hideous facial expressions) is significant for the photographs in question. Distorted lips, furrowed eyebrows, deep wrinkles—they express various extreme feelings like fear, anger and joy. One cannot deny that Witkacy’s real face remains hidden under all these “clownish grimaces.”31 A spectator may wonder how to verbalize the perceptual experience of being confronted with these works. When describing them, we are eager to use descriptors such as “quirky,” “absurd” or “whimsical.” This vocabulary, charged as it is with devaluating and pejorative meanings, corresponds well—as Lee Byron Jennings has pointed out—with works of a grotesque type, which call to mind congenital deformity or medical anomaly.32 However, let us not remain at a very rudimentary level in the interpretation process since Witkacy’s photographs deserve more than being labelled a farce or a joke. The shocking brutality of the images allows one to link satire and tragicomedy, sense and nonsense. The departure from classical models of beauty and harmony opens up the possibility of creating a narrative about the brutal conflicts which disrupt society such as violence, intellectual conformity, and moral crisis. It is along these lines that Leah Dickerman argues that the motif of half-mechanical men in Dadaist work can be seen in terms of the grotesque.33 Literary and visual scholars analyzing the meaning and complexity of pieces to which the grotesque category applies point out that grotesque artworks in their most outstanding manifestations are an expression of artistic rebellion, that is, an attempt to face the contradictions of the modern world, to confront taboos or the establishment.34 Having said that, casting doubt on the harmonious order of reality was at the heart of Witkacy’s philosophy. The key concept of his theoretical system was the problem of “metaphysical anxiety.” Witkiewicz defined it as a feeling of existential fear affecting the human being, who is conscious of his or her alienation from society. Although it would seem to be a negative and undesirable

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feeling, the outstanding individual in Witkacy’s opinion can try to surpass the tremendous feeling of terror via intellectual effort, a process that results in religion, philosophy, and art. The inevitable defeat of humanity, according to Witkiewicz, is determined by the unification of society, which is a result of the gradual disappearance of metaphysical feelings and the atrophy of the culture associated with it.35 Witkacy’s proposition here was included not only in his theoretical essays but also in his novels and dramas (Insatiability,36 or the unfinished The only way out).37 One of the characters appearing in the play Mother shares Witkacy’s opinion that the end is inevitable for the individual who is maimed by society.38 Many theoreticians have examined the catastrophic vision introduced by ­Witkacy in his novels and plays. In this study, I stress its essential points while concentrating on his approach towards the feelings of the human individual. As Jan Kott stated, Witkiewicz was a catastrophist gifted like Orwell, and “Orwell from Animal Farm rather than from 1984,” with amazing clarity and sharpness of vision.39 Witkiewicz foresaw a civilization full of equal, mechanized beings, a society which is fragile, prone to madness and defenseless in confrontation with psychopaths.40 Żaneta Nalewajk has summarized Witkacy’s philosophical system with these words: “To Witkacy, a creator is like a messenger of those ideas addressing a society insensitive to metaphysical experience. According to his grim visions, social indifference to metaphysics grows with time: for, at the beginning, there was no division between the individual and society; the notion of individuality was redundant (Witkacy believed it was the most influential in the period of Renaissance). Later on, the division into the subordinate and the superior was established, and the pursuit of power dominated human activity. Since the French revolution until Witkacy’s own times, humanity existed in an apocalyptical period, the times of an eliminative revolution: with crowds and masses in the forefront and individuality in retreat; an ant-like society emerged, and people were reduced to their functions in society and, consequently, the ability to experience the metaphysical was almost annihilated. As a result, humanity concentrated on destroying its most eminent achievements and for one reason only: to please equally all people in terms of material property.”41 Since Witkiewicz was thus expressing this catastrophic concept in so many fields of artistic activity,42 it seems likely that photography became for him a tool to illustrate these existential dilemmas. The first premise confirming this assumption can be found in the series of photographs of miens. These works should not be considered classic portraits or images aimed at conveying the physical appearance of the model. Głogowski and Witkiewicz challenged the “truth” inherently attached to the photographic medium.43 The model’s body constantly experiences interventions, and thanks to make-up, props and grimaces, Witkiewicz perfectly illustrates

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the famous poetic statement by Arthur Rimbaud: “Je est un autre” (“I is another”).44 The “authentic” image of Witkiewicz balances on the border of visibility and eventually becomes inaccessible, impossible to reconstruct. It is important to note that Witkiewicz does not limit his role solely to the function of the director in the sense of an aloof puppet master, but his own I is undergoing multiple modifications. Therefore, in this case we can observe a visualization of the problem articulated in 1990 in Soi-même comme un autre (Oneself as Another) by Paul Ricoeur. According to this French philosopher, selfhood is far from referring to something concrete, discrete and fully understood, and it implies otherness to an unacknowledged degree.45 The second interesting element of the artistic strategy of the GłogowskiWitkiewicz duo is the emphasis on multiplication. This aspect allows us to better understand their activity when it comes to artistic reflection on the existential status of the subject. Identification with the temporal “embodiment” of one of Witkacy’s faces does not mean that a state of stability or integrality was reached, not even in the short term. The character adopted by Witkacy at a given point in time is multiplied, that is—using Witkiewicz’s own terminology—it suffers the process of “socialization.”46 Witkiewicz used this term to describe the emerging ideology of obligatory collectivism, which would result in absolute subordination of the individual to the collective. Socialization would henceforth lead to a blurring of the differences between individuals and to the reign of an anonymous mass, unaccountable in their passions and reactions. When Głogowski-Witkiewicz operate with various sequences, this could be interpreted at first glance as a common strategy since the photographer in general always looks for the best shot and chooses the most successful compositions. In this case, however, we are dealing with a series recorded not only as negatives.47 Dozens of original vintage prints have also survived to this day: The numerous images of one selected grimace intentionally create a set, a sequence. These cycles aim to visually present the brutal process of collective decay. At their theoretical root lies Friedrich Nietzsche’s polarization of society and its division into the elite and the masses, as expressed in his On the Genealogy of Morality.48 One can thus claim that Witkacy shared some of the concepts presented both in The Dehumanization of Art and Ideas About the Novel (1925) and The Revolt of the Masses (1930) by José Ortega y Gasset. Witkacy’s numerous extreme, freakish postures can be interpreted as brutal interventions carried out on the territory of his own body. According to the concepts of such thinkers as Hans Belting and Tomasz Bocheński, this strategy is synonymous with posing a philosophical question about the status of the individual’s threatened subjectivity.49 Tension visible in Witkacy’s face or claw-like gestures express the fears and anger that torment the human being. It is also worthwhile to compare photographs depicting Witkacy with his selfportraits made in different media: oil paintings and pastel drawings. The catalog of the Witkacy’s works, prepared in 1990, lists at least seventy surviving self-portraits of the artist.50 This collection’s diversity stems from technique (oil on canvas;

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4: Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Self-portrait (Autoportret), 1931, pastel on paper, 62 × 47 cm. 5: Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, False woman with self-portrait. The portrait of Maryla Grossmanowa (Fałsz kobiety z autoportretem. Portret Maryli Grossmanowej), 1927, pastel on paper, 115.5 × 184 cm.

pastel on cardboard), subject, but also from the pluralism of the poetics of imaging. Sometimes Witkiewicz’s face is only a reflection created on the surface of a mirror (fig. 4),51 while in another case, the artist reveals himself as the portraitist with a hideous smile (fig. 5). In the self-portrait from the museum in Białystok, Witkiewicz appears as a magician or a gambler, suspended in an unreal, imaginative space.52 The painter occasionally decides to be faithful to the details, accurately reflecting his serious expression and frowning eyebrow, as with the painting from Słupsk (fig. 6). Other times, for instance in the pastels from the collection of the Tatra Museum in Zakopane, synthetic, simplified works are marked by the strength of a spontaneous gesture and a sweeping, nervous line (fig. 7). Each self-portrait reveals a new face of the artist. Previous studies comparing Witkacy’s painted and photographic works have been limited to the search for similar motifs in both techniques.53 For instance, the object of Anna Żakiewicz’s interest was, first and foremost, photographs that constituted a starting point for Witkacy’s later works in oil.54 Analyses that have concluded that in some of Witkacy’s paintings we encounter an echo of a particular photograph follow the formalistic approach typical of art history. However, this path does not explain Witkiewicz’s fascination with his own images. The artist gave us the crucial clue in one of his last pastel works. The collection of the National Museum in Warsaw has a noteworthy diptych of two self-portraits executed in pastel, inspired by the famous novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. Self-portrait – Dr. Jekyll

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6: Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Self-portrait (Autoportret), 1930, pastel on paper, 66 × 51 cm. 7: Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Self-portrait (Autoportret), 1930, pastel on paper, 63.3 × 45.7. 8: Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Self-portrait – Dr. Jekyll (Autoportret – Dr. Jekyll), 1938, pastel on paper mounted on cardboard, 65.7 × 49.1 cm. 9: Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Self-portrait – Mr. Hyde (Autoportret – Mr. Hyde), 1938, pastel on paper mounted on cardboard, 69.7 × 49.5 cm.

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(fig. 8) and Self-portrait – Mr. Hyde (fig. 9) complement each other. It is a pair of works drawn during one night,55 from April 26 to 27, 1938, showing a person marked by an internal personality conflict. In this context, it is worth considering that the pieces described here express a sense of disorientation, confusion, or dread in the face of a meaningless or absurd world. It is a juxtaposition of the concept presented by Albert Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus (1942) in which man becomes conscious of his pointless, wretched condition. Nonetheless, man—who is metaphorically presented as Sisyphus—is capable according to Camus of overcoming the absurdity of life in spite of his apparent hopelessness—he does so in an act of revolt, since “there is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.”56 Meanwhile, Witkacy does not “imagine Sisyphus happy,”57 but rather sees Sisyphus as the individual immersed in despair. His eternal, useless effort proves that he is unable to enrich his being with meaning and to proverbially “find closure.” Witkiewicz seems to suggest that he shares the fate of the dramatis personæ of his own dramas, who fight with a sense of loneliness and blindly search for metaphysical experiences—a quest doomed to fail as they turn against morality and perpetually execute brutal acts.58 Duality understood as a “constant conflict between [the] individual [as] part of a multiplicity and [the] individual as a self-sufficient unity”59 is finally resolved to the disadvantage of the subject who is lost in the mass of society. In conclusion, I must diverge from the common assumption that Witkacy can be considered a representative of an avant-garde movement understood as experimental, aesthetic innovation.60 Paintings, drawings and photographic works showing the figure of Witkacy demonstrate that they are concerned with the problem that is at the heart of the broader artistic movement and existentialist thinking, that is, the diagnosis of the situation of the individual. Witkacy can be considered one of the most crucial European modernists, who created his own, original style—a “grotesque-ism,” which had its manifestations in different fields of art and literature. It combined formal experiments with a deeply catastrophic philosophical system. Some elements of Witkiewicz’s approach were similar to the Dada movement, especially its rejection of cultural and intellectual conformity. However, artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Tristan Tzara believed that “Anybody can Dada.”61 One of the key elements of the Dada manifesto was its anti-art component; according to Hans Richter, Dada represented the opposite of everything art stood for.62 Witkacy shared the Dadaistic criticism of modern times, but he did not reject the post-Romantic belief that art has a certain task: to affect the spectator and to make it possible for the individual to experience the mystery of existence. The downfall of art announced by Witkacy was connected to the end of intellectual and cultural improvement, not with a Dadaistic challenging of the accepted definitions of art. Ontological camouflage photographically recorded by Głogowski visualized the specific conditions of human existence and its metaphysical characteristics. Edward Kasperski has indicated that Witkacy “expressed fears growing in the individual, fully understood and justified (for he had seen these things for himself) by the atrocities of World War  I,

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the Russian Revolution, modern dictatorships, the greedy exploitation of colonies, the advancing fascist and anti-Semitic atmosphere, dangerous economic crises […].”63 Witkiewicz, along with those he worked closely with, present a universal, philosophical problem: mankind’s futile search for meaning in the world.64 Words by Bruno Schulz, who wrote to Witkacy in 1935, may serve as a summary: “The very fact of individual existence here on earth implies irony, trick playing, sticking one’s tongue out like a clown. Here, I believe, is the common ground between my Cinnamon Shops and the world of your creative work in painting and theater.”65 As well as in photography, we should add.

Notes

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On the reception of Witkacy’s works worldwide see Janusz Degler, “Witkacy around the World,” Tekstualia, no. 1 (2014), 105–128. The discourse on the status of photography created by (or connected to) Witkacy began in Poland in the late 1980s with the appearance of the Polish and English album titled Against Nothingness. See Przeciw Nicości: fotografie Stanisława Witkiewicza, ed. Ewa Franczak, Stefan Okołowicz (Cracow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1986). Monika Ples, “Pertraktacje z rzeczywistością. O komizmie w fotografii Stanisława Ignacego Witkiewicza,” Fragile, no. 2 (2010), 43. Krzysztof Jurecki, “Maski Witkacego,” Exit, no. 4 (2003), 3238–3241. Maria Anna Potocka, “Antropologia sztuki. ‘Ja’ jako materiał twórczy,” in Maria Anna Potocka, ed., Witkacy. Psychoholizm (Cracow: Bunkier Sztuki, 2009), 303–305. Original Polish title: Nowe formy w malarstwie i wynikające stąd nieporozumienia. Excerpts translated into English published in Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, “New Forms in Painting and the Misunderstandings Arising Therefrom (1919),” in Timothy Benson, Éva ­Forgács, Between Worlds, A Sourcebook of Central European Avant-Gardes, 1910–1930 (Cambridge, MALondon: The MIT Press, 2002), 245–250. Original Polish title: Wstęp do teorii Czystej Formy w teatrze. Fragments translated into English and published in Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, “Pure Form

in the Theater (1921),” in Daniel Gerould, The Witkiewicz Reader (Evanston: North­ western University Press, 1992), 147–152. 8 Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, “A few words about the role of the actor in the theatre of pure form,” trans. Daniel Gerould, Theatre Quarterly 5, no. 18 (1975), 66–68. 9 Pure Form was an art concept coined by Witkiewicz. It encompassed all arts, including music. In painting, for instance, it involved a formal experiment, which brought forth a series of oil works by Witkacy in the early 1920s. For more detailed information, see Christine Kiebuzinska, “Witkacy’s Theory of Pure Form: Change, Dissolution, and Uncertainty,” South Atlantic Review, no. 4 (1993), 59–83. 10 Witkacy established The S.I. Witkiewicz Portrait Painting Company sometime after 1925. The one-man firm had an ironic statute, which all customers needed to accept in advance before the posing started. Several types of portraits were offered, from the realistic and representational to the more expressionistic and the narcotics-assisted. The fictional company (it was not officially registered) provided Witkacy with economic sustenance, but in his letters he underlines how much he despises portraying other people. See Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, “The Rules of the Portrait-Painting Firm,” trans. Beata Brodniewicz, in Kevin Anthony Hayes, Mark Rudnicki, Witkacy: 21st Century Perspectives (London: The Witkacy

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Convention Heritage Company, 2014), 53–58. Irena Jakimowicz, Witkacy – malarz (Warsaw: Auriga – Wydawnictwa Artystyczne i ­Filmowe, 1985), 63–75. Original, Polish title: Szkice estetyczne. Translation published in Stanisław Ignacy ­Witkiewicz, “Aesthetic Sketches (1922),” in Timothy Benson, Éva Forgács, Between Worlds, A Sourcebook of Central European Avant-Gardes, 1910–1930 (Cambridge, MA-London: The MIT Press, 2002), 261–264. Ibid. Since 2010, the director of MOCAK, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cracow. Witkacy. Psychoholizm, place of the exhibition: Bunkier Sztuki Gallery [Galeria Sztuki Współczesnej Bunkier Sztuki], Cracow, 30.04–14.06.2009, curator: Maria Anna Potocka. Potocka, “Antropologia sztuki. ‘Ja’ jako materiał twórczy” (see note 5), 347. Stefan Okołowicz, “‘Muszę mieć maskę, wściekłą maskę’. Polemika z Marią Anną Potocką,” in Przestrzenie Teorii, no. 14 (2010), 227–233. One can argue that Witkacy was ahead of his time and in this case the idea— the pure concept of creating such a series of photographs—took precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns, as in later conceptual art. We should acknowledge that performance in front of a camera is a phenomenon as old as photography itself. On the aspect of the pictorial movement, see Krase Andreas, “Club Bohème. Die Piktorialisten und ihre Kunst der Selbstinszenierung,” in Bodo von Dewitz, La Bohème. Die Inszenierung des Künstlers in Fotografien des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen: Steidl, 2010), 123–127. Letters sent by Witkacy to his wife, Jadwiga Witkiewiczowa are proof of this. The correspondence has been published in Polish, see Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Listy do żony (1928–1931), ed. Janusz Degler, 1st ed., (Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 2007).

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Jadwiga Witkiewiczowa, “Wspomnienia o Stanisławie Ignacym Witkiewiczu,” in Janusz Degler, Spotkanie z Witkacym. Materiały sesji poświęconej twórczości Stanisława Ignacego Witkiewicza, Jelenia Góra 2–5 marca 1978 (Jelenia Góra: Teatr im. Cypriana Kamila ­Norwida, 1979), 91. American shot refers to a shot that ends at knee level. Medium shot (also called mid shot) is a camera angle shot from a medium distance that ends at the waistline. The parodic potential constitutes the main difference between Witkacy and Claude Cahun, see Howgate Sarah, Gillian Wearing and Claude Cahun: Behind the Mask, Another Mask (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017). I refer here to the series by Witkacy and Głogowski, see Józef Głogowski and Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, seria Wujcio z Kalifornii (the Uncle from California series), 1931, 18.3 × 12.2 cm, collection of Stefan Okołowicz, reproduced in Bożena Czubak, Stefan Okołowicz, Witkacy i Inni / Witkacy & Others (Warsaw: Fundacja Profile, Muzeum Pałac w Wilanowie, 2011), 246–247. Światosław Lenartowicz, Witkacy, Głogowski – portrety wzajemne (Cracow: Muzeum Narodowe, 1998), 11. The term “amateur” does not have a negative meaning. I use it as Clément Chéroux would advise to mean “image producers” who usually do not earn money from their works, take photographs occasionally and/or do not use studio equipment with professional lightning devices, but still crucially contribute to the world of visual culture. Here, the word “amateur” can be treated as a synonym for “dilettante.” See also Claire Grey, “Theories of Relativity,” in Jo Space, Patricia Holland, Family Snaps. The Meanings of Domestic Photography (London: Virago, 1991), 106–116. It should be noted that Głogowski was following the aesthetic trends established by pictorialism, the international movement that dominated photography during the later nineteenth

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and early twentieth centuries. See ­Lenartowicz, Witkacy, Głogowski – portrety wzajemne (see note 20), 14. See Józef Głogowski, Zofia Głogowska, 1933, 17 × 12 cm, collection of Stefan Okołowicz, reproduced in Czubak, Okołowicz, Witkacy i Inni / Witkacy & Others (see note 23), 152–153. About the long-lasting presence of techniques such as gum-bichromate in Poland, see Weronika KobylińskaBunsch, “The Post-War History of Pictorialism as Exemplified by Exhibitions at the Zachęta and the Kordegarda (1953– 1970),” Ikonotheka, no. 26 (2016), 193–212. John R. Clark, The Modern Satiric Grotesque and Its Traditions (Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1991), 20–21. Janusz Degler, Witkacego portret wielokrotny. Szkice i materiały do biografii (1918–1939) (Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 2009), 13. Lee Byron Jennings, The Ludicrous Demon: Aspects of the Grotesque in German Postromantic Prose (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1963), 1–27. Leah Dickerman, Brigid Doherty, eds., Dada: Zurich, Berlin, Hannover, Cologne, New York, Paris, exh. cat. The National Gallery of Art (Washington: The National Gallery of Art, 2005), 3–4. Michał Głowiński, “Groteska jako kategoria estetyczna,” in Michał Głowiński, Groteska – archiwum przekładów (Gdańsk: Słowo/Obraz Terytoria, 2003), 5–15. About the possible usage of the grotesque style in art confronting the political system, see Peter Tuka, “Avant-Garde and Post-War Totalitarianism: Július Koller and Conceptual Art under Communism,” in Marika Kuźmicz, Revisiting Heritage (Warsaw: Arton Foundation, 2019), 83–91. Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, “Aesthetic Sketches (1922)” (see note 10), 261. Original Polish title: Nienasycenie. For a translation, see Stanisław Ignacy ­Witkiewicz, Insatiability, trans. Louis Iribarne (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1996).

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Original Polish title: Jedyne wyjście. Fragments translated into English and published in Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, “The only way out (1931–33)” in Daniel Gerould, The Witkiewicz Reader (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1992), 289–301. Original Polish title: Matka. For English see Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, “The Mother,” in Daniel Gerould, The Mother and Other Unsavory Plays, (New York, London: Applause Books, 2000), 68. Jan Kott, “Witkiewicz albo realizm nieoczekiwany,” Wiadomości, no. 31–32 (1975), 1. Ibid. Żaneta Nalewajk, “Literature Philosophied. Witkacy – Gombrowicz – Schulz,” Tekstualia, no. 1 (2014), 171. Krzysztof Pomian, “Filozofia Witkacego. Wstępny przegląd problematyki,” Pamiętnik Teatralny, no. 3 (1969), 265. This issue already dominated the theoretical discourse about photography in the nineteenth century, when the daguerreotype—which can be considered an ancestor of modern photography—was invented. Edgar Allan Poe, for instance, was fascinated in 1840 by the possibility of creating the perfect mirror of reality thanks to the invention of the photographic camera. See Edgar Allan Poe, “The Daguerreotype,” Alexander’s Weekly Messenger, as quoted in Clarence Saunders Brigham, “Edgar Allan Poe’s contributions to ‘Alexander’s Weekly Messenger’,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, no. 52 (1942), 63. Arthur Rimbaud, “Lettre à Georges Izambard,” Charleville, May 13, 1871, Panorama critique et commentaire: http://abardel.free.fr/petite_anthologie/ lettre_du_voyant_panorama.htm. Accessed August 28, 2019. Paul Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, trans. Kathleen Blamey (Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press, 1994). Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, “Aesthetic Sketches (1922)” (see note 10), 265. The technical aspect is important here. Images creating a series but which are

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recorded as such only as negatives (the film roll, for instance) do not need to be interpreted as an intentionally planned cycle. As we often know after observing various contact sheets, it is quite common for photographers to photograph the same model from different angles, choosing only one shot in the end. The famous photograph Child with a toy hand grenade in Central Park (1962) by Diane Arbus can serve as a perfect example here. The final photograph presented in the galleries and albums shows a boy whose overall strap hangs awkwardly off his shoulder, and he is clenching a grenade in his long, skinny hands. However, his maniacal facial expression and strange pose were absent in the other pictures taken by Arbus, which we can note thanks to the preserved, original contact sheet. The artist purposely selected only one shot from this photo shoot, opting not to create a series. See Diane Arbus, Sandra Phillips, Diane Arbus: Revelations (Munich: SchirmerMosel, 2003), 164. 48 Friedrich Nietzsche, Zur Genealogie der Moral, ed.  Otfried Höffe (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2004). 49 Hans Belting, Faces: Eine Geschichte des Gesichts (Munich: Beck, 2013); Tomasz Bocheński, Czarny humor w twórczości Witkacego, Gombrowicza, Schulza: lata trzydzieste (Cracow: Universitas, 2005), 69–99. 50 Irena Jakimowicz, Anna Żakiewicz, eds., Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz 1885–1939. Katalog dzieł malarskich (Warsaw: Muzeum Narodowe, 1990). 51 There are at least two self-portraits with the mirror motif. Compare Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Self-portrait in a Mirror (Autoportret w lustrze), 1922, pastel on paper, 63.7 × 47.8 cm, National Museum in Cracow [Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie]. See the article about this piece Irena Jakimowicz, “O rozmaitym użytkowaniu lustra czyli autoportrety Witkacego,” Rocznik Muzeum Narodowego w Warszawie, no. 31 (1987): 499–533. 52 Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Self-Portrait (Autoportret), 1922–1924, oil on

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canvas, 86 × 81 cm, Museum in Białystok (Muzeum Okręgowe w Białymstoku). Światosław Lenartowicz, “Wpływ fotografii Stanisława Ignacego Witkiewicza na jego twórczość plastyczną,” in Anna Żakiewicz, Materiały sesji poświęconej Stanisławowi Ignacemu Witkiewiczowi w 60. rocznicę śmierci. Słupsk, wrzesień 1999 (Słupsk: Muzeum Pomorza Środkowego, 2000), 200–201. Anna Żakiewicz, “‘Ja na krześle siedzący’ oraz inne sceny krew w żyłach mrożące,” in Maria Anna Potocka, ed., Witkacy. Psychoholizm (see note 5), 266–279. Żakiewicz, “‘Ja na krześle siedzący’” (see note 54), 275. Albert Camus, The Myth Of Sisyphus, and other essays, trans. Justin O’Brien (New York: Vintage, 1955), 77. See Camus, The Myth Of Sisyphus (see note 56), 78. Jan Błoński, “Prawodawca sztuki i prorok zagłady – Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz,” in Bolesław Faron, Prozaicy dwudziestolecia międzywojennego: sylwetki (Warsaw: Wiedza Powszechna, 1974), 759–762. Krzysztof Pomian, “Filozofia Witkacego. Wstępny przegląd problematyki” (see note 31), 279. Urszula Czartoryska, “Twentieth Century Experimentation” in William Ewing, ed., Fotografia Polska. Featuring Original Masterworks from Public and Private Collections in Poland 1839 to 1945 and a Selection of Avant-Garde Photography, Film and Video from 1945 to the Present (New York: International Center of Photography, 1979), 16–40; Przemysław Strożek, “Acting in front of the Camera. AvantGarde Approaches to Staged Photography,” in Rebecca ­Ferreboeuf, Fiona Noble, Tara Plunkett, Preservation, Radicalism, and the Avant-garde Canon (New York: Palgrave, 2016), 215–232. Barbara L. Miller, “‘Apoleptic’ Ironies and ‘Accident-ed’ Realities: World War  I and Berlin Dada Photomontage,” Dada/ Surrealism, no. 22 (2018): 5. Hans Richter, Dada: Art and Anti-art, trans. David Britt (London: Thames & Hudson, 1977), 92–96.

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63 Edward Kasperski, “Under the Sign of Parody and the Grotesque (Stanisław Ignacy ­Witkiewicz, Bruno Schulz, Witold Gombrowicz),” trans. David Malcolm, Tekstualia, no. 1 (2014), 194. 64 It is thus worth comparing his oeuvre with the works selected in the volume

CREDITS

Paris Post War: Art and Existentialism 1944– 55, exh. cat. Tate, Frances Morris (London: Tate ­Gallery, 1993). 65 Bruno Schulz, as quoted in Daniel Gerould, The Witkiewicz Reader (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1992), 342.

1: The National Library of Poland; 2–3: Tatra Museum, Zakopane; 4: Museum of the Middle Pomerania, Słupsk; 5: National Museum, Warsaw, Piotr Ligier; 6: Museum of the Middle Pomerania, Słupsk; 7: Tatra Museum, Zakopane; 8–9: National Museum in Warsaw, Tomasz Dąbrowa.

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Wilma Scheschonk “Jeff Koons is back!”. Forces at Work

The star artist Jeff Koons (1955–) is fond of chatting about his rigorous training routine: For an hour at noon on weekdays, he works on strength and endurance in the exercise room of his New York studio. This is followed by a light meal of steamed vegetables, preferably broccoli, which does not weigh down the body and the mind.1 With the conversational habitus of a celebrity who is sharing his recipe for the perfect body, Koons underlines his status as a star artist, celebrating, as it were, just how well things are working out for him. It is the mark of a star that his fame is decidedly made by the media, yet Koons, in a photograph that Annie Leibovitz (1949–) shot of him for Vanity Fair in 2014, shows himself in the pose of an athletic hero. And the special status of someone like that is owed to hard work and a great willingness to make sacrifices.2 Leibovitz’s photo series shows the artist in his studio space and in his ranch home with his large family in Pennsylvania. The series illustrates the article “Jeff Koons Is Back!” which talks about the artist’s glorious return to the institutionalized art system as its most expensive and most successful proponent. The title picture shows Koons working out in the exercise room of his workshop in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, posing in the style of a classicist hero (fig. 1). The artist body, reflected in mirrors multiple times and nude except for black gym gloves, is framed by a professional training rack, whose brand name—Hammer Strength—appears above Koons’s head. On the one hand, the moderately sculpted body is showcased as natural. In the context of the publication in the lifestyle magazine Vanity Fair, its light cover of body hair may prompt a discussion of lifestyle decisions. Hair or no hair—Koons, who has repeatedly espoused a non-judgmental equality of all tastes and questions of tastes when discussing his artistic vision, would certainly welcome such discussions about his appearance as having an equalizing effect.3 At any rate, his appearance in the photograph in no way causes us to suspect that imageediting software was used to address superficial cosmetics, and thus it is acting as something of a guarantor for the artist’s authenticity and creatureliness. Koons does not present himself as an oiled and jacked-up muscleman, as an inauthentic body machine, but instead puts taste above classic mediocrity. On the other hand,

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1: Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair, “Body of Work,” color illustration.

the artificiality of the body is thematized through the mirrors that show the artist from all sides, alluding in the medium of photography to the three-dimensionality of a sculpture in the round. Yet, the artist not only claims his body to be like a work of art but also shows himself in the nude like the mythical athletes of antiquity and thus as the deified creator of himself. In this way, Koons fully embodies the utopia of being one’s own maker and thus an ideal artist. Leibovitz and Koons, as I will show in the following, create an artist’s image that follows the category of strength, force or power,4 which has been absolutely central in the history of art. They update a question that male (and eventually also female) artists have raised again and again ever since the canonization of this category in the early modern period: the question of the physiological roots of force in art. By making his physique a subject, Koons connects to the tradition established in the history of art whereby assertions of effectiveness and strength made linguistically and/or metaphorically in the field of art require further reification and quite often the authentication of physics. After all, Koons engages in the analogy that brings together the mechanical exertion of force involved in musclebuilding and far-reaching concepts of a distinctive artistic power of form and effect as found in his works (fig. 2). Koons further constructs the heightened vitality of a fit artist body as the historical engine of art’s vital forces. And although “force” as a key category of artistic creation can be traced all the way back to the

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2: Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair, “Veiled Reference,” color illustration.

early modern period, I will focus—based on this self-representation of the invigorated artist that exists in the nexus between photography and body—on Koons’s reflection on modern and specifically performative demonstrations of strength by artists of the post-war avant-gardes.

On a Winning Track Although no actual training sessions were captured by Annie Leibovitz, Koons, now more than sixty years old, certainly carries out his self-optimization systematically and with passion. This is evidenced in the photograph not only by his wellbalanced, built figure but also by a clock, and the whiteboard on the right, which apparently serves to plan or track training sessions methodically. Smart technologies used in new practices of self-quantification or the wide spectrum of dubious substances for improved performance have not, vegetables aside, become part of Koons’s arsenal. Besides the aesthetic effect of bodybuilding, his exercising practice also aims at a functional gain. The artist aligns himself with the unbridled belief that anything is possible and the promises of relief that are offered by the “hipper” exercising regimens; he associates with the latest yoga style or the even more balanced exercising plan.

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In shaping his fit body, Koons has left behind the social and national utopias of the twentieth century that were once absolutely central to modernisms and beyond. In its vaguely classicist style, his literal bodywork may still evoke the collectivist coercive measures to which the modern Western body—motivated by racist or reformist ideas—was subjected.5 But Koons shapes himself rather as the product of a supposedly individual achievement, and here the mojo of a fitness guru helps cast the artist as a topical savior figure. Leibovitz does not stage the artist’s strengthened body simply as a biographical reference to Koons having, through his own efforts, risen to greatness as an artist once again, and it also does not represent a new expansive gesture on the part of art reaching out to the world of fitness and sports. Nor does the heroization of the artist exhaust itself in the invocation of masculine brawn, taking recourse to antiquity’s athletic vitalism. Koons’s back view is an ironic approach to the subject of the article it illustrates: the “retrospective” show at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2014. Following the financial and personal fiasco which the artist cum entrepreneur has repeatedly described as a process of reformation, he worked his way back up to the top, living the American dream of the self-made man. But it seems clear that Koons, with this cover page, also exposes his physicality to a self-deprecating gaze. The J and S of the headline curl around his sex, whose importance is emphatically underscored in weight training with its physical signaling of masculinity, virility, and hardness. A likewise ironic self-commentary is based on the fact that the figure of the athlete, and by extension artistic heroism is not performed during a contest in an arena but in a “muscle factory” that can hardly be outdone in its solitary functionality. Is masculinity so much in crisis even for the highly remunerated star artist that it requires a—rather pedantically tidy—safe space? Does Koons’s exercising signify the nostalgic desire for a holistic, natural masculinity or at least for a refuge of virile virtues? Is Hammer Strength only a practical label to be used to get on the winning track in the art business, which continues to be occupied by men? Or is the repetitive “arm pressing” to be seen in connection with the gender-theoretical truism that gender is only produced through practice and repetition? Koons, in any case, is aware of masculinity’s grotesque travesty, its trendy exaggeration in the form of his alter ego Popeye. The artist poses in front of cameras holding up his flexed arm, the familiar signature gesture of the puffed-up children’s hero, who has been one of his recurring motifs since 2003, the “sailor man” who, as we know, gains his super strength from eating spinach. By staging his physical power as a naïvely ridiculous antic and gross caricature, the artist further points to the improbability of muscular artistry, the obvious comedy of connecting sheer muscular strength with art. By disclosing his dietary habits, Koons at the same time points to the ethereal basis of his creative forces, though he does so while making reference to the fascinating promises of “super foods” as found in current food marketing.

“Jeff Koons is back!”. Forces at Work

The Boom-Bust Cycle of “Force” since the Early Modern Period By mentioning his artist dietetics, Jeff Koons touches on a subject in art literature, which, as early as the Renaissance, began fueling speculations about the producibility of artistic ability and its precursory processes of transformation.6 Thus Leibovitz’s staging of Koons’s impish show of strength and vitality in Vanity Fair offers only a minimum of irony, just enough to allow a white man to publicly reflect on ideal measurements, time-transcending balance, and universal harmony in the metropolitan areas of the US in the 2010s. Expressing his desire as an artist to delineate a measure and center—to appear as a homo bene figuratus and explorer of the natural relations of forces, taking orientation from formerly cosmically reasoned numbering and ordering principles—Koons connects his practice to the long tradition of male, creative subjectivity, in a word: to the history of the Renaissance genius.7 For its part, “strength” or “force” invokes with surprising continuity an artand art historical topos that was likewise able to assert its canonical outcome and its central position in Western art since the early modern period. This can be said to have happened to a lesser extent through—or sometimes even in opposition to— its physical performance;8 rather, the “forces of art”9 were in circulation in art literature in the sense of a minimal requirement that made itself felt everywhere, but especially with regard to the effect of artistic products. These had to possess “force” or the semantically related efficacies of intensio or vivacità, which were often aimed at via the true-to-life imitation of nature: “For Leon Battista Alberti, painting possesses ‘divine power;’ Giorgio Vasari makes the term (forza) the epoch- and quality-defining criterion.”10 However, such praise of art was sometimes preceded by calculations of, among other things, bodily conditions, meaning that the male artist body, even under the primacy of an idealistic art conception, in turn entered arts’ economy of forces via its vital and generative abilities. In dynamic transfer processes, the artist body was repeatedly understood through the forces of artistic production. This is shown, for example, in the extremely vivid idea that muscular substance was leached, that muscles atrophied as their stored strength was “invested”11 in the artwork. In the conditions of a modern materialism and new possibilities of calculating relations between physical forces, these ideas of artistic-mythical exhaustion led to the downright obsessive argument whether or not artistic power resources could be measured, at least potentially. The male artist, in both his perception of himself and the perception of him by others, increasingly became a work machine, and “inspiration and perspiration”12 were seen as closely related. On the one hand, artistic creative power continued to show itself as an innate, even abundant potential of the artist and as his inexhaustible, physical capacity—Friedrich Nietzsche coined the expression of the artist as a “Kraftthier”13 (power animal) for this type.

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3: Pablo Picasso, Self-Portrait in Front of a Work, 1915–1916, gelatin silver print, 6.6 × 4.7 cm, Collection Dora Maar Paris.

On the other, these resources increasingly could only be represented in the form of physical and mental strengths that became depleted. The prominent artist image that was characterized by pathologically degenerating artistry is based on this model of ecstatic exhaustion, on a smoking and boozing wasting of oneself. As a physical phenomenon, strength emerged as central to the self-description of artists. With virile connotations, this latent strength of the artist, also manifested itself in the body of the young Pablo Picasso, in a portrait taken in his Paris studio around 1915 (fig. 3). Bursting with strength and dressed in the garb of a contemporary boxer, Picasso does more than quote the Parisian demimonde of entertainment shows and the colorful world of acrobats. If Picasso’s adapting a boxer’s body creates the impression that he produces his paintings by punching, the studio as the legendary space of art-making is reframed as a “Kraftraum,” i.e. a strengthtraining room, and thus the groundwork is laid for one of its most significant purposes in the twentieth century. All such assessments of the “physiological precon-

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ditions of the creative furor”14 in the more than 500-year-old history of art seem, however, motivated by the shared and remarkably modern view that it is different states of one “force” that take effect between artist, nature, work, and observer in the contexts of artistic production.15

4: Etienne-Jules Marey and Georges Demenÿ, Montage E. J. Marey – Bandes chronophotographiques, 1890, La Cinémathèque française Paris. 5: Dennis Oppenheim, Flex – Reflex, 1969, two photographs and text strip on cardboard, 12.5 × 9.2 cm.

Photographic Evidence of Energy In the late 1960s, the energetic expenditures of artists’ bodies started to become explicitly central to—and an artistic “goal”16 in—body art and performance art. Photography and the sequential series of images produced in motion-picture recordings were chosen first and foremost as the imaging methods for these performances of exertion and energetic phenomena brought about by artists’ bodies. They reflected the early hopes for the medium of photography as an epistemological technique, as shown in the prominent chronophotography in the field of human factors done by such photographers as Eadweard Muybridge and Etiennes Jules Marey (fig. 4): recording motive forces and thus life principles as pure evidence.17 The transformation of the invisible to the visible was considered the specific medium-related purpose of a photography allied with artistic endeavor. The photo-

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graphic objectivity in Dennis Oppenheim’s pictures Flex-Reflex (1969; fig. 5) causes the physical genesis of form and the visualization of strength in the bulging muscle to converge with the postulate for an indexical visibility in photography. The reflection on the structural conditions of artistic work under the primacy of a modern, materialist concept of force and its strict energetic economy was central in these photographic documentations of moving artist bodies. The expansion of art to the body generally became the decisive gesture of immediate affecting forces in the art of that time, beginning with the practices of post-war art in the USA. Up for negotiation was not only the overcoming of bodily boundaries so much as power structures; artists also took recourse to the strict force-related exchange relationships in modernism and their dualism, with a regulated exercise of force on the one hand and uncontrollable eruptions of force on the other.18 What was important here to artists like Marina Abramovic (1946–), Vito Acconci (1940–2017), and Bruce Nauman (1941–) was precisely not the aesthetic, flexible body improved perhaps by artistic special training, but instead a reflection of artistic work as an exertion of force.19 Departing from sophisticated art techniques such as painting and sculpture, a new creative motor activity was developed, one that subjects the artist body to basic programmatic elements.20 The bodily execution of usually predefined directives and production codes was based on the working model of the industrial machine, its uniformity, continuity, and de-individualizing mode of production.21 The “forces of art” emerged physically. The machinized artist body replaced the artist’s inwardness, which now became located in the production complex of factory work. But exhaustion as well, and the aggressive, at times explosive release of energy, which thus seemed removed from regular cycles, were performed by the artist body.22 Especially these stagings of energy exhaustion were, as a result of the avant-garde’s aspiration for a connection between art and life, considered effective in leaving behind the object status and the symbolism of bourgeois art genres. This so-called “dematerialization of art”23 further renewed the promise that the historically so important “forces of art” would take effect directly through body, an effect that would be weighable or even measurable and did not take a detour through a work. Koons ties in with this thematic orientation of the 1960s, renewing its postulate of the agency of force. His choice of the medium of photography to enact this and Leibovitz’s choosing to set up her camera parallel to the picture plane make reference to the dull documentarism practiced by the body art of that time. The reproach of narcissism that was once brought against this new presence of the artist is countered by Koons through confident self-reflection. On the one hand, Leibovitz’s nude photograph in Vanity Fair continues to feed Koons into a celebrity system and harmonizes the artist with an accelerated media culture. On the other, Koons stays engaged with the dialogue regarding positions of the “body arts” in the post-war avant-gardes of the West. In line with these positions, he inscribes himself in the tradition of creative reflection about the physical driving forces of

“Jeff Koons is back!”. Forces at Work

art, connecting to a history of artistic ergonomics, that is to an artistic negotiation of energy resources and transfers of force within his own work. Following his training plan, Koons similarly subjects his body to a serial sequence of motions to keep transcending his physical limits. The fact that he follows the logic of athletic improvement and stays fit to keep up with the requirement profile of contemporary artists cum entrepreneurs and better meet the high demands for his objects is a sardonic commentary on so-called “dematerialization.” Its promise to make art effective—fulfilled in the immediacy and the material transformations of the body—is also a central aspiration of Koons. Yet, Koons superimposes onto this demand the promises of the wellness and fitness industries, which cast the active body as an achievable and measurable means to salvation. With his physical exercises, Koons curtails the strict separation of artistic concept and its execution, the conceptual differentiation between the work of the mind and the work of the body, which was central for the above-mentioned proponents of the “body arts” in the 1960s. Rather, surrounded by the nebulous holy glow of holism, the concept of force behind artistic work is here proactively charged with natural magic.

The Vital-Virile Forces of the Artist Koons’s staging of untiring creative power is compatible not only with the grandiose idealization of artists’ late works in the history of art.24 It also converges with the neoliberal condition of life-long education. Given the current demographic changes, the tradition of looking benevolently on artists’ late works may be coming to an end, and what is important now is to retain artistic fitness until late in life, in the sense of striving for a sustainability that is as low-loss as possible or even by way of a utopian generation of energy. With his physical activity, Koons also puts an emphasis on demonstrating an above-average health of his bodily functions, something that borders on the uncanny and further gives the artist an opportunity to dissociate himself from the pathological and from melancholically inhibited action.25 Through the performance of his extraordinary physical ability, he indicates the high degree to which the idea and the concrete perception of art— especially in modernism—are determined by the notion of the constitution of the artist body. In querying the bodily origins of artistic ability, sexual forces in particular have been credited as a productive factor—be it in the form of chastely conserving artistic vital forces or, on the contrary, through an excessive indulgence of desires, be it to attest to profuse generative power or to present “man’s creative force spent sexually.”26 When he shows off his fitness, Koons in any case often moves in the tradition of ideals of artistic creation that foreground its biological basis. Not only this, but fertility as a leitmotif as much in Koons’s linguistic discourse as in his

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6: Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair, “Fertile Mind,” color illustration.

artistic self-staging27 indicates that he does not follow an ascetic model, conserving himself for art. On the subject of procreative potency, Koons in his series Made in Heaven (1990– 1991) already invoked further markers of a virile masculinity when he showed himself and his future wife, the porn actress Ilona Staller, having intercourse in different positions.28 For Koons, the artistic procreation of an idea and sexual procreation belong to one and the same economy of drives. In Vanity Fair, surrounded by his large progeny (fig. 6), he updates notions about the work-character of his biological and artistic products via the camera of Leibovitz. His extraordinary vital forces are in any case not in decline; he knows how to regenerate them in his exercise room. With his all-around fitness, Koons also opposes the idea—favored since the modernist artforms of the nineteenth century—that an excess of nervous and sexual irritability, which would disqualify a person from middle-class life, is even a sine qua non for the success of the (usually male) artist. With the zeal of the artistathlete, Koons trumps such modern images of the artist and the accompanying ideals of the artist who is either pathologically ailing or else whose output is purely cerebral.

“Jeff Koons is back!”. Forces at Work

The Studio as a Fitness Room And yet, Koons too invokes the traditional artist model of the tormented genius when he indulges in a rare lamentation regarding his strenuous physical training. In an interview for the Süddeutsche Zeitung, he remarks on the subject of his fitness program that the “grueling work” with the weights seems to him “like an allegory for my life as an artist. Not a minute goes by without me thinking of an empty canvas.”29 The empty canvas brings up the association of a painter in a secluded studio, the clichéd image of the artist who lives at the edge of society, suffering as he tirelessly draws from the wellspring of his inner life. Obviously, this has nothing to do with the reality of Koons’s work. It is a wellknown fact that Koons’s paintings in particular, along with some sculptural works, are created in his New York studio in meticulous precision work carried out by a team of around 120 employees. Quite often, he outsources complex processing steps to world-renowned specialty workshops. What Koons’s bodywork reflects is his absolutely conceptual approach to the production process in his factory-like workshop: In a reversal of the practices of an ostentatious unlearning of traditional artistic and artisanal techniques, Koons places great value in highly specialized and extremely elaborate productions that involve expensive materials and are carried out by specialists. The resulting works, however, must not show any signs of the manual labor. Understanding his workout is then linked to this production process, which is decisive and removed by multiple degrees from the artist body, yet ties value creation to the principle of refining material through physical labor. Within the studio complex that operates through a division of labor, the fitness room is presented as a separate unit, as an attractive incentive to exercise, offered to the company’s sedentary executives. This means that physical exercising is staged here as a recreational break that furthers balance—and thus boosts the alienating productive forces. As a recreative activity, exercising is, on the one hand, separated from artistic creation. The mechanical, repetitive exercises, on the other hand articulate the artist body by functional unit, deeply inscribing the organizational form of the division of labor practiced at Koons’s workshop into the artist body until it comes to embody it. Work and life remain just as tightly connected when the artist body, by way of its sublimation through the work that is stored in its own physique, is revealed as a part of the work- and commodity aesthetics of Koons’s oeuvre.30 Notions of an increased vitality, which formerly remained in an artist’s product as a result of his work, are rendered productive by Koons for his artist body, which becomes involved in the operations of the workshop like an engine of animated forces. Koons stages his vehement defense of art’s commodity status precisely on the basis of the body as a now apparently only historical symbol of art’s liberation from exploitability.

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Koons and Leibovitz stage the exercising artist within traditions of thought in art and art writing that center around the origins of creative forces. By working toward self-perfection in his physical practice, Koons attempts to surmount the limitations of artistic creative power. Yet, by following the condensed and materialist physical efforts of the 1960s, and by referencing the simple, mystifying charm of fitness- and wellness marketing, he does nothing less than put the everlasting inscrutabilities of artistic production on display. Translated by Logan Kennedy and Leonhard Unglaub

Notes

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5

6

Jeff Koons in an interview with Maciek Kobielski, “Jeder Geschmack ist okay” in Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin no. 19 (May 12, 2017), 14–22. See Barbara Engelbach, “Held, Märtyrer oder Star? Künstlermythen in der Aktionskunst um 1970,” in Kathrin ­Hoffmann-Curtius and Silke Wenk, eds., Mythen von Autorschaft und Weiblichkeit (Marburg: Jonas Verlag, 1997), 185–195. See Anne Breucha, Die Kunst der Postproduktion. Jeff Koons in seinen Interviews (Paderborn: Fink 2014). Translators’ note: The German word “Kraft” used here by the author can mean “bodily strength,” “force” (in the context of physics as an attribute of physical action or movement), and it can also overlap with certain meanings of “power.” It is used with respect to the artist and art throughout the article, and we have favored translating it as “force”/ “forces,” except in contexts that refer more closely to bodily strength, or where “power” is more appropriate. As an example for authors who consider regionally specific developments, see Bernd Wedemeyer-Kolwe, Der neue Mensch: Körperkultur im Kaiserreich und in der Weimarer Republik (Würzburg: Königshausen Neumann, 2004). For some of the origins of dietetic stipulations in the artist’s biography, see Philip Sohm, The Artist Grows Old: The Aging of Art and Artists in Italy 1500–1800 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 116f.

7

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For an overview regarding the Renaissance genius, see Wolf-Dietrich Löhr, “Genie,” in Ulrich Pfisterer, eds., Metzler Lexikon Kunstwissenschaft (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2011), 145ff. It can only be mentioned in passing here that even in the early modern period bodily strength and the physical capabilities of the artist were used to speculate about the origin of the power found in artistic products. For the first systematic exploration of the subject, see the dissertation by the author. See also Michael Cole, “The Figura Sforzata: Modelling, Power and the Mannerist Body,” Art History 24 (2001), 520–551; Fabian Jonietz, “Labor omnis vincit? Fragmente einer kunsttheoretischen Kategorie,” in Jan-Dirk Müller et. al., eds., Aemulatio. Kulturen des Wettstreits in Text und Bild 1450–1620 (Berlin: De Gruyter 2011), 573–682; Frank Fehrenbach, “Leonardo da Vinci: Vitruv-Mann,” in Christoph Markschies et. al., eds., Atlas der Weltbilder (Berlin: Akademieverlag 2011), 168–179; Christiane Hille, “Matthew Barney – vir heroicus sublimis: Einleitung zum Begriff einer künstlerischen Athletik,” in Christiane Hille and Julia Stenzel, eds., Cremaster Anatomies. Beiträge zu Matthew Barneys Cremaster Cycle aus den Wissenschaften von Kunst, Theater und Literatur (Bielefeld: Transcript 2014), 17–56, and Andreas Plackinger, Violenza. Gewalt als Denkfigur im michelangelesken Kunstdiskurs (Berlin: De Gruyter 2016).

“Jeff Koons is back!”. Forces at Work

9 Frank Fehrenbach, Robert Felfe and Karin Leonhard, eds., Kraft, Intensität, Energie: zur Dynamik der Kunst (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018), 14. 10 Frank Fehrenbach, Robert Felfe and Karin Leonhard, eds., Kraft Intensität, Energie (see note 8), 13 (trans. KennedyUnglaub). 11 Robert Felfe, “Bernard Palissey,” in Iris Wenderholm, eds., Natura – Materia – Artificio. Eine kommentierte Quellenedition (Petersberg: Imhof, 2019). 12 Gottfried Schnödl “Organisation der Kraft. Kunst-Arbeiter im Zeitalter der Thermodynamik,” in Susanna Brogi et. al., eds., Repräsentationen von Arbeit: transdisziplinäre Analysen und künstlerische Produktionen (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2013), 104 (trans. Kennedy-Unglaub). 13 Friedrich Nietzsche, “Aphorismus No. 359,” in Peter Gast, August Horneffer and Ernst Horneffer, eds., Nachgelassene Werke. Der Wille zur Macht. Versuch einer Umwertung aller Werte (Leipzig: Kröner 1901), 382. 14 Wolf-Dietrich Löhr, “Genie,” (see note 6), 145 (trans. Kennedy-Unglaub). 15 Frank Fehrenbach, Robert Felfe and Karin Leonhard eds., Kraft, Intensität, Energie (see note 8), 13. 16 Marina Abramovic makes use of the modernist form of power, interpreted as “energy,” to her own artistic-programmatic end: “The goal of my art is energy,” in an interview with Martina Kaden, Berliner Zeitung, January 25, 2012, 26. 17 See Marcel Finke, “Bild, Differenz und (Un)Vergleichbarkeit. Fotografische Strategien der Visualisierung von Bewegung im 19. Jahrhundert,” in Lena Bader, Martin Gaier and Falk Wolf, eds., Vergleichendes Sehen (Munich: Fink Verlag, 2010), 337–339. 18 See Barbara Gronau, eds., Szenarien der Energie. Zur Ästhetik und Wissenschaft des Immateriellen (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2013). 19 On Abramovic’s concept of energy see Barbara Gronau, Inszenierung und Evidenz. Zur Ästhetik energetischer Phänomene: https://wissenderkuenste.de/texte/

20

21

22

23

24 25

26

27 28

29

30

ausgabe-2/inszenierung-und-evidenzzur-aesthetik-energetischer-phaenomene. Accessed May 30, 2019. See Barbara Braathen, “Sport in der Zeitgenössischen Kunst,” Du: die Zeitschrift der Kultur 36, no. 6 (1976), 62–63. See as a classic case Caroline A. Jones, Machine in the Studio: Constructing the Postwar American Artist (Chicago: University Press, 1996). On this paradigmatic juxtaposition see Christof Windgätter, “Euphorie und Erschöpfung. Das Paradigma der Kraft im 19. Jahrhundert,” in Christof Windgätter and Thomas Brandstetter, eds., Zeichen der Kraft: Wissensformationen 1800– 1900 (Berlin: Kadmos, 2008), 7–26. See as a classic case Lucy Lippard, The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972 (Berkeley: California University Press 1997 [1973]). See Sohm, The Artist Grows Old (see note 5). For further reading on the motif of purity, see Raphael Bouvier, Jeff Koons – Der Künstler als Täufer (Paderborn: Fink 2012). Frank Zöllner, “Paul Klee, Friedrich Nietzsche und die androzentrische Konstruktion asketischen Schöpfertums,” in Henry Keazor, eds., Psychische Energien bildender Kunst. Festschrift Klaus Herding (Cologne: DuMont 2002), 235 (trans. Kennedy-Unglaub). Anne Breucha, Die Kunst der Postproduktion (see note 3), 138–146. See Ulrich Pfisterer, “Die Kraft der Libido. Peter Flötners Holzschuh-Pokal und der Fortschritt der Kunst,” in Frank Fehrenbach, Robert Felfe and Karin Leonhard, eds., Kraft, Intensität, Energie: zur Dynamik der Kunst (see note 8), 121–123. Jeff Koons, “Jeder Geschmack ist okay” (see note 1), 22 (trans. KennedyUnglaub). Isabelle Graw, “The Value of the Art Commodity. Twelve theses on human labor, mimetic desire, and aliveness,” Arq, no. 97 (2017): 130–145.

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1: Vanity Fair (July 2014): 86–87; 2: Vanity Fair (July 2014): 90–91; 3: Succession Picasso/ VG BildKunst; 4: La Cinémathèque française Paris 5: Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien; 6: Vanity Fair (July 2014): 92–93.

Constance Krüger Natalia LL. Reading Categorical Statements from the Sphere of Post-Consumer Art, October 1975 as a Programmatic Self-Portrait

Natalia  LL’s art is loud. It is shocking, polarizing. It overwhelms you, demands all your attention. The most recent debate, which has flared up around the removal of the works Sztuka konsumpcyjna (Consumer Art, 1972–1975) and Sztuka postkonsumpcyjna (Post-Consumer Art, 1972–1975) from the exhibition of art of the twentieth century at the National Museum in Warsaw, has both roused tempers nationally and provoked an international wave of solidarity, which suggests that the artist’s works have lost none of their electrifying and provocative character.1 This article will focus, however, not on these pervasive and iconic works, but will center, rather, around a less polarizing photographic series which, with its ambivalent and polysemous character, makes room for irony and criticism. The Polish artist Natalia  LL2 completed her Zdania kategoryczne z obszaru sztuki postkonsumpcyjnej, październik 1975,3 or Zdania kategoryczne for short (Categorical Statements from the Sphere of Post-Consumer Art, October 1975, figs. 1–9), when she was nearly forty years old. Largely neglected by academic research so far, Natalia  LL’s theoretical and conceptual approaches, which we find distilled in the work as if in a manifesto, will be studied here with respect to both feminist and neo-avant-garde elements. To what extent can the series be understood as a programmatic self-portrait, and what sort of artist image does Natalia  LL develop with this program? Zdania kategoryczne consists of nine separate color photographs4 as well as a text, which in exhibitions is placed on a panel that precedes the images, but in catalogs usually appears as captions under the images.5 The artist stages herself in a very reduced and highly unspecific interior space that vaguely recalls a photo studio. A dark blue armchair with a checkered pattern is seen in the middle of the image, standing directly in front of a white wall. The only indication that the room is in interior living quarters is a narrow, patterned section at the bottom of the image.6 The artist dominates the image—with her feet almost touching the bottom edge of the picture and her head with blond hair close to the upper edge, she even seems to want to burst out of the frame, with its rectangular and slightly wider than tall format. For this, Natalia  LL keeps her eyes trained on the camera, which in most of the poses she faces more or less frontally, intensifying her presence. At

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1–9: Natalia  LL, Categorical Statements from the Sphere of Post-Consumer Art, October 1975, nine photographs accompanied by a manifesto.

Natalia LL

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Manifesto 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

6.

7.

8. 9.

Art is a result of intellectual abilities of the human mind. Art is the method of formalizing actuality. This formalizing is based on the apparent illogicality of the result and enters into the multi-valued logic. The specific and separate way in which art functions makes it impossible for scientific methods to be introduced into the study of its motivation. The kinds and styles of art: realistic, abstract, deformational correspond to the level of consciousness of the social group and artists working within the group. Post-consumer art is an attempt to go beyond the sphere of experiences and manipulations of art which are the work of critics, the history of art, institutions, etc, these manipulations being an attempt at integrating the world of objects with the world of ideals. Post-consumer art bases itself on creating visual and mental formulas which, though not contradictory in themselves, are as ‘artifical’ as possible and constitute a projection of complicated intellectual and intuitive processes. Post-consumer art, remaining an alogical or extralogical structure, is selfdefinable, which means that any valid opinions on this art can be formulated only from the position of art. Post-consumer art is a permanent dialogue within the consciousness of the social group represented by the creator. Art becomes post-consumer art only when it has been defined by art.

the same time, the artist’s body, covered in black clothing, disappears, seems to fuse with the dark fabric of the armchair, making the artist’s blond hair, which is not tied back, shine all the more brilliantly, and causing her hands, which hold a banana in the last three shots, stand out against the dark background.7

Artistic Self-References: Sztuka konsumpcyjna (Consumer Art) and Sztuka postkonsumpcyjna (Post-Consumer Art), 1972–1975 Through her use of the banana, her construction of the images, and her organization of the photographs as a series, the photographer explicitly links her Statements to the multi-year project mentioned above, which she called Sztuka konsumpcyjna (Consumer Art) and Sztuka postkonsumpcyjna (Post-Consumer Art), and which made her known internationally.8 Parts of the series were shown in 1975, i.e. the year when Zdania kategoryczne was completed, as part of the feminist exhibition Frauen Kunst – Neue Tendenzen (Women’s Art – New Tendencies, Galerie Krinzinger, Innsbruck, Austria), in a solo exhibition by the artist in Turin,9 and at the Paris Biennale.10 For a special edition on feminist art put out by the magazine Heute Kunst (Art Today), the art critic and editor of the magazine Gislind Nabakowski chose to

Natalia LL

reproduce the series on the title page.11 With Sztuka konsumpcyjna (Consumer Art), most of the photographic tableaus are in large formats and are composed of numerous large black-and-white photographs showing frontal close-ups of young women ostensibly consuming various foods, including—alongside bananas—hot dogs, pretzel sticks, but also porridge and pudding. What the images show above all are nearly countless, ever-changing poses and positions that the models experiment with using their mouths and the foods. The erotic character of the works has been discussed by art scholars with some intensity, whereby interpretations have ranged from feminist agency to pornography.12 While Natalia  LL works with models in this series, in Zdania kategoryczne she focuses on herself. The focus on the face, or more concretely, on the women’s mouths, openly suggestive of sexuality, is widened in Zdania kategoryczne in favor of a “complete view” of the artist. In most of the photographs, the artist poses with spread legs. In some cases, the legs are stretched out and the upper body has slid down a little (fig. 4). In two photographs, the artist also grabs her crotch (or touches the fur coat at the level of the crotch); she puts her right index finger in her mouth (fig. 5); she leans back, mouth open and legs spread (fig. 6). Unlike her models, Natalia  LL appears fully clothed in Zdania kategoryczne, whereby the dark colors of her clothing and the armchair tend to make the artist’s body disappear rather than explicitly exhibiting it. This “de-bodying” effect is also found in the work Sztuczna fotografia (Artificial Photography, 1975), in which Natalia  LL, although she appears partially naked in front of the camera, uses multiple exposures,13 thereby blurring the contours of her body, sometimes making it almost unrecognizable.

Marianne Wex: “Female” and “Male” Body Language (1979) In 1979, the German artist Marianne Wex published her book “Weibliche” und “männ­ liche” Körpersprache als Folge patriarchalischer Machtverhältnisse (“Female” and “Male” Body Language as a Result of Patriarchal Structures), which included her collected photographs and her research findings.14 The publication is based on several years of research, in which Wex photographed men and women in everyday situations and then systematized the findings. Wex distinguished the way subjects held their arms, legs, feet, knees, hips, elbows, hands, shoulders, and head,15 denoting the postures she documented as body language: “I understand body language to be all physical movements that we execute in everyday life, everything from the way we walk, sit, stand, or lie to our facial expression. I understand these usually unconscious movements to be a significant element of the way we communicate.”16

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And this body language is gendered. Wex states: “More than anything, a woman makes herself thin, claims little space for herself,” while “A man spreads out, gene­ rally claims much more space for himself than a woman.”17 Deviations from the norm—with women assuming a wider, more comfortable (sitting) position—can be found in the “male-dominated media only as a clear signal that they are offering sex for consumption.”18 If one compares certain poses from Wex’s book with those taken by Natalia  LL in the series Zdania kategoryczne, it quickly becomes clear just how much the Polish artist is borrowing from “male body language:” Spread legs and wide arms reach far into the space, poses where she slides down in her chair or in which one leg is bent and the other is left dangling casually point to an attitude that is untypical of her gender and therefore breaks a norm. Comparisons with other works, for example VALIE EXPORT’s Genitalpanik-Hose (Action Pants: Genital Panic, 1969) and Penny Slinger’s Wedding Invitation (1973) show on the one hand the contemporaneous feminist interest in overcoming traditional body postures, but they also underscore how Natalia  LL’s work is different. First of all, the serialization of the poses in Zdania kategoryczne makes reference to an element of movement, to a flexible handling of poses with female and male connotations, and thus works towards a softening of gender binarity and ultimately towards a destabilization of traditional norms. The body postures Wex lists as “deviations” receive positive connotations with Natalia  LL because they are removed from their clear sexual context. Wex, too, experimented with “cross-sitting,” adopting postures that are not typical for the given gender. Like this personal experiment by the German artist, the photographic series by Natalia  LL can be understood as a probing of “female” and “male” body language. By assuming (formerly) male-connoted body communication in a self-evident manner, Natalia  LL places her work in an emancipatory context, which she claimed for herself by presenting Zdania kategoryczne in exhibitions with a feminist orien­ tation. In 1977, Natalia  LL showed Zdania kategoryczne alongside Sztuka konsumpcyjna (Consumer Art) at the Galerie Labirynt in Lublin, Poland.19 As part of the exhibition, the artist gave a talk about “feminist tendencies”20 and there was a discussion with and film presentations by VALIE EXPORT.21 In her talk, Natalia  LL first referred to the special edition of Heute Kunst from 1975 before turning to VALIE EXORT and introducing her to the Lublin audience. Natalia  LL moreover referred to feminist symposia and exhibitions she had participated in in 1975, thus establishing herself firmly in a feminist context, one that she locates outside the People’s Republic of Poland.22 She continued to position herself in this context even more clearly the following year. In the spring of 1978, she organized an “All-Women Exhibition”23 with the title Women’s Art, held at Wrocław’s Galeria Jatki PSP.24 Alongside her work Zdania kategoryczne, exhibition views show photo collages by Noémi Maidan as well as a work from Suzy Lake’s series ImPositions (1977). Furthermore, the artist’s book Cezanne – She was a Great Painter (1975), by Carolee Schneemann, was presented.25

Natalia LL

The exhibition is considered the first feminist exhibition in the People’s Republic of Poland, although it went largely unnoticed and uncommented at the time.26

The Hidden and the Explicit Camera Let us return to the comparative examination of Natalia  LL’s work with the project by Marianne Wex. The difference between the two artists’ approaches exists at both the conceptual and the epistemological level. Wex took to the streets and photographed people who did not notice this act of documentation. She photographed from a distance and was careful not to be seen. She was photographing people in their natural environment, and it was only after the fact that Wex organized her material according to certain postures, thereby drawing up a typology that she would comment on in terms of its gender specificity. Something that is striking here is that the exceptions that are shown are not drawn from this sociological fund of material, but are primarily images from advertising. Natalia  LL seems to draw from this repertoire of images that Wex shows.27 While Wex’s work can be understood as an inventory that is informed by sociology, Natalia  LL developed an attitude based on artistic reflection. Her analytic approach can already be discerned in how the work is set up: It is always the same person— the artist—who carries out her actions in front of an unchanging white background in a setting that is largely anonymized. Additionally underscored by the image’s axial symmetry, the focus is clearly on the depicted woman. As if under a magnifying glass, Natalia  LL nears the camera, comes into close range of it. The viewer’s gaze, which is the same here as the camera’s gaze, is not only taken up and returned by the artist, but becomes simultaneously visible. The voyeuristic gaze, a remote gaze in Wex’s work, is exposed by Natalia  LL, who casts herself as the object and subject. She poses in front of and plays with the camera, emphasizing its presence. With her gaze focused, she declares the camera to be, as it were, the central place. The camera appears here as a means and a medium that manifests the artist in both her physicality and her pictoriality. As the Polish philosopher Paweł Mościcki states: “In Natalia  LL’s photographs, a philosophical strategy of self-presentation is accompanied by constant references to the very medium in which this ‘self’ presents itself. In her works, the face always appears in plural, in series, sequences, complex compositions.”28 The serial aspect, often presented in large-format compositions, shows the image of an artist who seems to be reassuring herself through it. Zdanie kategoryczne is considered one of numerous self-portraits29 by Natalia  LL in which the searching gaze of the artist must be understood as ambivalent, namely as both constituting

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the subject and as self-questioning. The degree to which the reflective surface of the camera lens can be understood here in terms of the Lacanian concept of the mirror phase as a place of the artist’s subjectification—in which recognizing and failing to recognize go hand in hand as it were—will only be raised as a question here.30 In the literature about the artist, authors have variously pointed to the significance of the self-portraits for the establishment of the persona of Natalia  LL, emphasizing her exploration of the camera as a subject-constituting element.31 Accordingly, the numerous self-portraits the artist created before Zdania kategoryczne can be understood as similarly conceived strategies of subjectification.

Image and Text It seems it is no accident that the works from the early 1970s focus on the artist, who began working under her artist name of Natalia  LL in 1971.32 Here, image (in this case the photographic self-portrait of the artist) and text (usually her first name) are quite often entered into a relationship with one another. This is true in particular of Permanentna rejestracja (Permanent Registration, 1972), in which selfportraits frame the word “Natalia,” which is placed at the center of the work. In NATALIA (1971), the artist forgoes a photograph, instead going through the permutations of the letters that form her first name. The image formed in this work is thus composed of letter sequences, whose variations give rise to ever new words. Image and text are inextricably linked in Natalia ist Sex (Natalia is Sex, 1972) because the letters of the sentence are put together from photographs which the artist mainly took for the work Fotografia intymna (Intimate Photography, 1968–1971).33 Looking at the above-mentioned works as a whole, they evince a struggle on the part of the artist to create her persona, which is first pictured, and subsequently fights for its ability to express itself through language: In Słowo (Word, 1971), the camera gets so close to the artist’s face that only the mouth can be seen—a mouth that, depicted in a photographic series, seems to reproduce the speech act.34 In Tak (Yes, 1972), Latin letters are appended to the photographed mouth shapes, rendering the images “legible” because they are placed as a sequence of sounds (T-A-K). In Zdania kategoryczne the artist no longer communicates individual words but rather sets forth a complex artistic program, whereby word and image continue to be conceived as having a complementary function. Because they are spatially separated, however, the two relate to each other in a less obvious manner. The text is expanded to form entire statements that are devoted to a definition of art. The link between the statements and the poses Natalia  LL strikes in each photograph exists at a more abstract, art-historical level. The idea behind the work Zdania kategoryczne is already expressed in the title, namely the representation of “categorical statements.”35 The text in its entirety36 can be understood as a manifesto setting forth Natalia  LL’s conception of art.

Natalia LL

While the first four sentences point to the artist’s conceptual approach (sentence 1) and clarify her involvement in the Wrocław group PERMAFO (sentence 2), beginning at sentence 5, the concrete connection to her own work is created. Accordingly, half of the sentences refer to general statements about art, and half to her own work with its discussion of the significance of artistic practice. This goes to show the significance of the series for the artist and it conceptualizes her own position within the “system of art” as equal and equally valuable as any other. In this sense, the nine categorical sentences given in the work can be understood as a “personalization” of the artistic approach of PERMAFO. At the same time, Natalia  LL with her own personalized and individualized manifesto draws a distinct line between herself and the group to which she belongs.

PERMAFO Natalia  LL, working jointly with her husband, the artist Andrzej Lachowski, the artist and art critic Zbigniew Dłubak as well as the art critic Antoni Dzieduszycki, founded PERMAFO in 1970. PERMAFO was equally a group, a gallery, and a publishing house, and stood for “permanentna fotografia / permanentna formalizacja,” meaning “permanent photography, permanent formalization.” The gallery was opened with a solo exhibition of works by Natalia  LL. The group existed until 1981 and was active both nationally and internationally. Its publications and exhibitions helped to differentiate Polish Conceptual Art and are still today considered to have been pathbreaking for the neo-avant-garde in the People’s Republic of Poland.37 In December, 1970, just before the opening of the gallery, the group’s two-page manifesto was published, detailing the gallery’s self-understanding in eight points and a summary.38 The three authors formulated the following three central approaches: 1  The camera, or else the object and the light-sensitive material, can be witnesses of phenomena that escape us from one second to the next. These phenomena usually seem trivial and unimportant in the moment. The necessity to record them is (therefore) self-evident. 2  The only way to get to know the current situation is to increase the number of signals received from reality. Condensing their registration is the guarantee that deformations and errors resulting from selection based on habits, conventions and traditions are reduced. 3  The state of ideal registration is the recording of all signals emanating from reality and thus the recording of reality itself. The ideal state of this registration is of course impossible. When we realize that the biological and mental structure of the human being prevents him from receiving all the signals of reality, we are faced with the necessity of choice. Considered as such: Selection – artistic creation.

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Building on this, the group arrived at the following four topics: 1  Intimate facts of personal life, the disclosure of which can be an impulse to stimulate and amplify a group of signals that are otherwise much too weak to be received by us. 2  Recording time, especially recording those moments that were previously always lost between successive images on (photographic) film. 3 Attempts to record the processes between successive artistic facts. 4  Such an absorption of signals from reality, so that everything that seems familiar and trivial reveals its ambiguity, complexity, novelty, and strangeness. What becomes apparent here is that art is entered into a relationship with reality, and further still, that reality can only be perceived as a whole through art—here above all through the technical possibilities of the camera—and thus analyzed in such a way. The “enhancement” of the recording of signals from reality, which is to say the serial photographic shot or “permanent photograph,” is juxtaposed with a pictorial understanding of photography. Art here is approaching science in its methods.39 The group’s manifesto was not published in its entirety in the publication put out by the gallery, but rather a short summary appeared at the bottom of the cover page of the publication’s first edition. (fig. 10) The main part of the page is filled with a reproduction of Słowo (Word) by Natalia  LL, complemented by a portrait photograph of the artist. The gallery’s concept is thus presented to the public with a work and the picture of Natalia  LL—her position within the group could hardly be signaled more strongly.40 Natalia  LL was able to show the vast majority of her works in the context of PERMAFO.41 Zdania kategoryczne, too, was shown not only in the aforementioned feminist context. As early as 1976, the series was on show in the exhibition Protografia,42 organized in Kraków, alongside works by numerous international artists. In 1977, she presented the series in the exhibition Fotogramy (Photograms, Galeria BWA Arsenał, Białystok)43 with works by Andrzej Lachowicz. In 1978, the series was shown at the São Paulo Biennial, for which the text was translated into Portuguese.44 In all of these exhibitions, the work was discussed in the context of PERMAFO, for example in the review of the couple’s exhibition in 1977, in which the author emphasizes the banal, everyday content of the photographic series. The article in the catalog for the exhibition of the series in Lublin, written by Andrzej Sapija, focusses above all on the armchair.45 Significantly, even in the catalog for the Lublin exhibition—an exhibition the artist placed in a feminist context—there is no reference to either VALIE EXPORT’s participation or to Natalia  LL’s talk on feminist tendencies, which she gave during the exhibition.46 Andrzej Sapija, the author of the short exhibition text, makes reference to the structural, theoretical and “artificial” level of the series:

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10: Natalia LL, A Word, 1972, foldout, 66 × 29,5 cm, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Archiv der Avantgarden – Egidio Marzona.

“[The series] contains statements which are at the same time postulates; the most important declaration concerns the progressing structural and visual complexity of art, its growing ‘artificiality,’ resulting in the process of its absolutization and alienation from reality.”47 The author thus focusses on the process of everyday “signals” becoming transferred to the area of art, arguing from the inner logic of the PERMAFO group. He puts the work Zdania kategoryczne exclusively in this context, thus underlining the artist’s place within the group and considering her specific artistic realization of

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the group’s ideas, yet at the same time he neglects to consider the feminist leanings of the photographic series. While this obscuring of obviously feminist aspects of the work is confusing at first, we soon recognize that the artist herself advanced this classification—also textually—and thus also advanced her position within the intellectual and theoretical spectrum of the Polish neo-avant-garde, and here specifically within PERMAFO. Aside from the aforementioned talk about feminist tendencies, no further statements having to do with emancipation or the women’s movement are found in the artist’s extensive body of published writings. Even in the magazine Heute Kunst, Natalia  LL links her position to the theoretical framework of PERMAFO, when she says: “Art pays attention to itself in each moment of reality.”48 And in her other numerous writings composed since the early 1970s, she perpetually thematizes the relationship between art and reality—a central starting point that was also espoused by PERMAFO—without any obvious feminist reference. She develops the morphological and semantic structure of art in her 1974 essay Visual Language: “Art seems to operate within very complicated structures both semantic and morphological.”49 And she continues: “Finally the visual language will be comprehensible only within the limits of the image itself and any anecdotic motivation will lose its sense. In this way art will become art.”50 In Hypothesis of 1977, Natalia  LL makes herself even clearer: “The photograph is not a record of reality, it is the ‘real’ meta-reality in which it is possible to make records that cannot exist as real entities in the real world.”51 Art, in other words, is reality. At the same time, art gives rise to something that does not exist outside of art. The photographic camera is conceptualized here as the medium that can bring forth reality in the first place. It is therefore not something special, unique, specific, or extraordinary that is worth becoming art, but rather every moment in life is. Fully in line with the group’s manifesto, the artist records these moments. However, these snapshots in time transformed into art now derive from the lives of women; most of them are moments the artist lived and experienced herself. Female life, female life forms, and experiences thus enter—through the backdoor, so to speak—an artistic practice whose theoretical basis is rather gender-neutral. To put it differently: Natalia  LL puts into action the art theory she helped develop as part of the PERMAFO group in the form of her specific, gender-sensitive pictorial language, which is compatible with both feminist discourses and the neo-avant-garde.

Natalia LL

The Speaking Female Subject52 If we hold up the categories set out in the group’s manifesto to Zdania kategoryczne, it seems that the work transfers the theoretical considerations to the image in an almost ideal manner: everyday scenes as a distillate (series), transferred to art (background). And so it is not surprising that Zdania kategoryczne was critiqued in the context of the group and thus in the context of conceptual art. Natalia  LL radically individualizes and subjectifies this concept by centering in on herself and her bodily sensuality. The art historian Agata Jakubowska points out the ambiguous character of this “sensual conceptualism:” “Ambiguity was a feature of many of Natalia  LL’s works of the period. On the one hand, she inscribed the photographic images in a rigorous structure, stressing the rationality of the research act, an analysis of the morphology of signs. On the other hand, the very subject of those images referred the viewer to the physical body.”53 Unlike her fellow artists, Natalia  LL documents anything but scenes from everyday life, the way one would encounter them naturally. The postures she takes—with both their male and their female connotations—are constructed and therefore reflected upon. Referencing her own statements and those from PERMAFO’s manifesto, she renders these postures more natural—using her own body. Zdania kategoryczne shows Natalia  LL’s involvement with both the international feminist movement and the more regional Polish neo-avant-garde. The two levels became interwoven in the artist’s work to such a degree that I would speak of a “feminist conceptualism.” Thus, Natalia  LL developed an artistic practice in which feminist criticism is understood as a reflection on the link between art and reality, a practice in which the artist’s gender-specific situation is part of the discourse. Feminist criticism has thus advanced to an integral part of art theory. Through the focus on the person of the artist, this doubly conceived practice—in its coupling function— may be considered an artistic strategy. In this sense, Zdania kategoryczne opened an artistic program in which the feminist and conceptualist levels converge in one shared approach. Translated by Logan Kennedy and Leonhard Unglaub

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1

2

3

4

In the spring of 2019, the work, along with a work by Katarzyna Kozyra, was removed from the Gallery of the Twentieth Century at Warsaw’s national museum, which led to various forms of protest from the incensed public, cf. for ex. the reporting in the Polish daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, http://warszawa.wyborcza.pl/warszawa/ 7,54420,24705474, muzeum-narodoweusuwa-skandalizujace-prace-z-wystawyzamknie.html. Accessed June 7, 2019. Born in 1937 as Natalia Lach; married the Polish artist Andrzej Lachowicz in 1964; practicing under the pseudonym Natalia  LL since 1971. The work was originally published only with its Polish title. The translated English title was first used in the exhibition catalog Natalia LL. The Gardens of Personalism, exh. cat., Center for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle (Warsaw: Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Zamek ­Ujazdowski, 1998). Strictly speaking, the title does not say “statements” but “sentences.” As the English rendering as “statements” has become common in referring to this work, I will adopt it as well. For further works mentioned in this article, I will also give the Polish original titles, followed by the English translations as published previously. There are several versions of this work: As a deposit at the Muzeum Współczes­ ne Wrocław (Wrocław Contemporary Museum), the photographs have the measurements 90.7 × 123.8 × 2 cm. Further, there are versions sized 21.5 × 30.3 × 2.2 cm and also some sized 90.5 × 90.7 × 2.22 cm. Four contemporary prints measuring 110 × 150 cm are found in the collection of the CSW Zamek Ujazdowski in Warsaw (Ujazdowski Castle Center for Contemporary Art, Warsaw). I would like to thank Agnieszka Rayzacher from Galerie Lokal 30 in Warsaw for this information (e-mail from September 13, 2019). The rectangular format, slightly wider than tall, is found in most publications, cf. Natalia LL. Zdania kategoryczne z obszaru sztuki postkonsumpcyjnej, październik 1977, exh. cat.,

5

6

Galeria Labirynt Lublin (Lublin: Galeria Labirynt, 1977), source: archives of Galeria Labirynt, Lublin; Fotogramy Andrzeja Lachowicza i Natalii LL (Fotograms by Andrzej Lachowicz and Natalia  LL), exh. cat., Galeria BWA Arsenał (Białystok: Galeria BWA Arsenał, 1977, source: Dokumentacja Plastyki Współczesnej IS PAN [Documentation of Contemporary Visual Art, Art-Historical Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences], file on Natalia  LL, Warsaw); Natalia LL. The Gardens of Personalism (see note 3), 41–49; Adam Sobota, ed., Natalia LL. Opera Omnia (Wrocław: Ośrodek Kultury i Sztuki we Wrocławiu, 2009), 46–47. The square format mentioned by Hermansdorfer is an exception, cf. Mariusz Hermansdorfer: Polish Artists at International Festivals. Exhibitions of the National Museum in Wrocław 1975–1995 (Wrocław: Muzeum Narodowe we Wrocławiu, 1995), 114. A contemporary exhibition view shows the series lined up on the narrow wall of the exhibition hall, beginning with a white panel of text (Protografia, Cracow 1976; reprinted in Gdzie jest PERMAFO? [Where is PERMAFO?]), exh. cat., Muzeum Współczesne Wrocław (Wrocław: Muzeum Współczesne, Muzeum Narodowe we Wrocławiu, 2012), 118–119). Extant photographs from the exhibition in Lublin (1977) suggest a similar presentation (source: archives of Galerie Labyrint, Lublin). The exhibition Natalia LL. Intimate Spectacle at Galeria Arsenał Białystok in 2013 presented the individual statements framed beneath each photograph, cf. https://galeriaarsenal.pl/wystawy/natalia-ll-spektaklintymny. On the publications, cf. Gardens of Personalism, 41–49 (see note 3), Natalia LL; Lachowicz- Natalia LL; Opera Omnia, 46–47 (all note 4). Anna Markowska understands the artist’s choice of a narrow image as taking a political position: “[To] narrow the frame for their [Natalia and Andrzej Lachowicz] pictures so much, as to leave out the People’s Republic of Poland totally.” Cf. Anna Markowska, “Amour fou among unfriendly decorations,” in

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Natalia LL. Secretum et Tremor, exh. cat., Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle (Warsaw: Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, 2015), 35–50, here: 38. For double and multiple exposures, see also the work Sztuczna fotografia (Artificial Photography, 1975), which exhibits a similar pictorial composition and the same detail of the room, along with the same furniture. To what extent this is a myth cannot be determined in the present article. What is certain, however, is that Natalia  LL was already known to an international audience in the 1960s, among other things through her participation in the international graphic arts biennials, at which her works received several awards. The art historian Agata Jakubowska also points out that Natalia  LL “was always known.” Cf. Agata Jakubowska, “Lips wide shut,” in Three Women. Maria Pinińska-Bereś, Natalia LL, Ewa Partum, exh. cat., Zachęta National Gallery of Art Warsaw (Warsaw: Zachęta National Gallery of Art, 2011), 25–37, here: 37. In any case, the artist’s website opens to the film Sztuka konsumpcyjna, cf. www.nataliall.com. Accessed August 14, 2019. The exhibition poster shows one photograph from the series, cf. Natalia. Opere recenti / New Works, Studio 46 Piergiorgio Firinu, exhibition poster, source: Dokumentacja Plastyki Współczesnej IS PAN (Documentation of Contemporary Visual Art, Art-Historical Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences), file on Natalia  LL, Warsaw. An advertisement for the exhibition can be found in Flash Art, no. 60/61 (1975 / 1975): 6. Bożena Kowalska, “Z 9 Biennale de Paris relacje niewesołe” From the 9th Paris Biennale – Unhappy Relationships, Sztuka, no. 1 (1976): 29–33, here: 33. Heute Kunst. Internationale Kunstzeitschrift. special edition: Feminismus & Kunst, no. 9 (1975). From among the many publications cf. Gislind Nabakowski: “Natalia  LL. Osiem lub dziesięć rzeczy, które wiem na temat

jej sztuki” (“Natalia  LL. Eight or Nine Things I Know about Her Art”) in Permafo (see note 5), 120–144; Agata Jakubowska: “The Attractive Banality of Natalia  LL’s Consumer Art (1972–1975),” Nordlit: Tidsskrift i litteratur og kultur 11. no. 1 (2007): 141–148, https://doi. org/10.7557/13.1763. 13 Seidl writes about this: “The multiplicity of personae in the form of photographic superpositions has been developed in many of Natalia  LL’s works, relating to the multiple manifestations of gender and the difficulty of proposing only one sexual or gendered identity.”, Walter Seidl, “Staging the Body – The Photo and Film Works of Natalia  LL,” in Adam Sobota, Opera Omnia (see note 4), 11–14, here: 14. 14 Cf. Marianne Wex, “Weibliche” und “männliche” Körpersprache als Folge patriarchaler Machtverhältnisse (Hamburg: C. Verlag Marianne Wex, 1979). (Let’s Take Back Our Space: Female and Male Body Language as a Result of Patriarchal Structures, Hamburg: C. Verlag Marianne Wex, 1984). This work was largely ignored by researchers. On a discussion of gender theory cf. Lucie Ortmann, “Körper im Kontext systemischer Zuschreibungen: Marianne Wex und Gaëlle Bourges. Archiv als ‚Ent-Fremdung‘”: MAP - Media | Archive | Performance, # 4, www.perfomap.de, Oct. 2013. Accessed September 24, 2019. 15 The author writes in the foreword: “In 1974, I began photographing women and men in my surroundings, but I began exploring the subject of body language starting in the very early 1970s, initially, however, using photographs from the media exclusively.”, Wex, Körpersprache (see note 14), 5 (trans. KennedyUnglaub). It is thus not surprising that Wex integrated into her project pictures from advertising and art history alongside her own material. 16 Ibid., (trans. Kennedy-Unglaub). 17 Ibid., 6, (trans. Kennedy-Unglaub). Besides the gender-specific differences, Wex mentions differences along the lines of class and age. These observations, however, are not central to her study.

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18

19

20

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24

Ibid., (trans. Kennedy-Unglaub). Wex also enters these deviations into her project by showing reproductions of advertising and/or pornographic images alongside her photographs. The exhibition has been documented with several photographs and a catalog. Both: archives of Galeria Labirynt, Lublin. The writing in the catalog is by Andrzej Sapija, an art critic from Wrocław and long-time friend of the artist, who does not mention the feminist content of the works. Reprint and English translation of the text: Andrzej Sapija, “Post-Consumer Art (1976),” in Natalia  LL, Texts by Natalia LL. On Natalia LL’ creative work (Bielsko Biała: Galeria Bielska BWA, 2004), 314–316. Natalia  LL also gave her talk at a photographers’ conference in Katowice, cf. Natalia  LL, “The Feminist Tendency (1978),” in ibid., 320–324. Natalia  LL likely met VALIE EXPORT through Gislind Nabakowski, at least EXPORT seems to have been co-editor of the feminism edition of Heute Kunst. In 1975, both artists participated together in various exhibitions. So far, it has not been shown, however, who had invited EXPORT to come to Poland and how long she stayed. On the relationship of the two artists cf. Seidl, “Staging the Body” (see note 13), 11. “The issue of feminism is almost unheard in Poland, which is best illustrated by the fact that the national press ran just two (yes, two) articles pertaining to the subject in the whole preceding year, in which the problem was presented with patronizing irony and disdain. Let me remind you again that 1976 [sic! 1975] was the World Year of Women.”, Natalia  LL, “Feminist Tendency (1978)” (see note 19), 323–324. Cf. Agata Jakubowska, Katy Deepwell, eds., All-Women Art Spaces in Europe in the Long 1970s (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2018). PSP (Pracownie Sztuki Plastycznej), i.e. the studios for visual arts, were spaces set up by the Polish artists’ association. Artists could work here and through

PSP’s administration receive commis­ sions. In addition, the spaces were often used for the presentation of artworks. Cf. Łukasz Ronduda, Georg Schöllhammer, eds., KwieKulik. Zofia Kulik & Przemysław Kwiek (Warsaw: Museum of Modern Art, 2012), 498; Ewa Toniak, “Przedsiębiorstwo Państwowe ‘Pracownie Sztuki Plastycznych’ jako narracja o PRL” (The Nationally Owned “Visual Arts Studios” as a Narrative about the People’s Republic of Poland), in same Jan Wiktor Sienkiewicz, ed. Sztuka Polska 1945–1970 (Polish Art 1945–1970), (Toruń: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, 2015), 107–113. 25 So far, the only photo material that could be found is from the review Barbara Bawoworska wrote for the art magazine Sztuka (1978), cf. Agata Jakubowska, “No Groups but Friendship. All-Women Initiatives in Poland at the Turn of the 1980s,” in same Deepwell, Art Spaces (see note 23), 229–247. Annette Messager and Carolee Schneeman had already participated in the exhibition Frauen Kunst – Neue Tendenzen in Innsbruck, Austria (1975). It cannot be determined whether Natalia  LL met the women artists there. Photographs from the time of her scholarship show ­Natalia  LL with Carolee Schneemann, cf. Natalia LL. Texts (see note 19), 266. 26 Agata Jakubowska, “Wystawa Sztuki Kobiet, Galeria Jatki PSP, Wrocław, kwiecień-maj 1978” (The Exhibition Women‘s Art, Galeria Jatki PSP, Wrocław, April–May 1978), in Dzikie Pola. Historia awangardowego Wrocławia (The Wild West. A History of Wrocław’s AvantGarde), exh. cat., Muzeum Współczesne (Wrocław: Muzeum Współczesne Wrocław 2015), 183–187. (English exhibition title: The Wild West. A History of Wrocław’s Avant-Garde); same “No Groups but Friendship” (see note 25). 27 This is not meant literally as Wex’s book was only published in 1979. I do not presume that Natalia  LL was aware of the study in its unpublished form. Both artists draw on “image material that came down to them through history”

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31

32

33

or, taking orientation from Aby Warburg, from a “cultural repertoire of images,” as Lucie Ortmann states. What the artists have in common is their interest in the “everyday unconscious or conscious postures,” whose images are transmitted in the most varied media, shaping the habitus of women and men. Cf. Ortmann, “Körper im Kontext” (see note 14). Paweł Mościcki, “The Graces of the Origins,” in Three Women (see note 8), 44. Cf. Alina Świeściak: “Natalia  LL jako artystka neoawangardowa” (Natalia  LL – The Neo-Avant-Garde Artist), Zagadnienia Rodzajów Literackich 61, no. 2 (2018): 91–102. DOI: https://doi.org/10.26485/ ZRL/2018/61.2/7. Accessed September 24, 2019. This connection is made by, among others, Walter Seidl in his essay about the relation between photography and physicality in the works of Natalia  LL, cf. Seidl, “Staging the Body” (see note 13), 11. Cf. Adam Sobota, “The Album of Presence by Natalia  LL,” in Opera Omnia (see note 4), 28–33; Marika Kuźmicz, “Somebody Else is Me,” in Natalia LL. Doing Gender, exh. cat., ­Galeria Lokal 30 (Warsaw: Fundacja Lokal 30, 2013), 73–76. The pseudonym is more than an abbreviation of her hyphenated surname: The artist developed a new biography for herself, including a fictitious date of birth and a curriculum vitae designated as an “art project,” cf. Natalia  LL, “Biennial in Paris (1975–2004)” (see note 19), 503–504. “The title is the work” stated Kazimiera Szczuka. The work consists of many separate photographs, the majority of which were created for Fotografia Intymna (Intimate Photography, 1971) and show couples engaged in intercourse. The separate images were affixed to the wall in such a way that they first formed individual letters, then words and finally the title phrase “Natalia ist Sex,” cf. Kazimiera Szczuka, “Revolutionary Year 1974,” in Doing Gender (see note 31), 45–52.

34 Cf. the recent work by Agata Jakubowska, “Natalia. Text, Image, Sound” in same, ed., Natalia LL. Consumer Art and Beyond (Warsaw: Ujazdowski Castle for Contemporary Art, 2017), 85–97. 35 With reference to the artist’s English translation of the title as “statements,” we may apply the term “claim” here. As will become clear in the following, the sentences formulated in the spirit of a manifesto by Natalia  LL must be regarded as just that. 36 I realized the significance of the text vis-à-vis the images when I asked the artist for images of the work. While its individual photographs may be reproduced separately, its text must always be printed in its entirety. Cf. e-mail correspondence with the gallerist Agnieszka Rayzacher, Galeria Lokal 30, Warsaw, spring 2018. 37 Cf. the monograph published for the exhibition, which features extensive archival material of the group, some of which was published for the first time, Permafo (see note 5). 38 As yet, only the Polish-language original of the manifesto exists, cf. Permafo (see note 5), 204–205. A part of it was printed in English translation Opera Omnia (see note 4), 224. For this reason, it seems important to me to present larger sections of the manifesto here. (trans. from the German by Kennedy-Unglaub). 39 Cf. Natalia  LL, “Art and Non-Art (1975)” (see note 19), 299. 40 Andrzej Lachowicz was the official director of the gallery. The fact that Natalia  LL occupied a strong, expressive position in the group is illustrated for one thing by her numerous solo exhibitions at the gallery and, for another, by her published writing. Noticeably, when the gallery was opened, the focus was on Natalia  LL, both in the publication and the exhibition, instead of on the group as a whole, as would seem natural for a group presenting itself. 41 Cf. the list of exhibitions by Adam Sobota, “PERMAFO. Kalendarium działalności 1970-1981 (wystawy, pokazy i publikacje)” (“PERMAFO. Calendar of

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Events 1970–1981 (exhibitions, presentations, and publications)”, in Permafo (see note 5), 410–439. 42 “Protografia” is a combination of the words “fotografia” (photography) and the Latin “proto” (first, foremost). The exhibition was curated by Andrzej Lachowicz. It was organized under the auspices of the PERMAFO group, as an accompanying event for the 6th International Graphic Art Biennial in Cracow (1976). On show in the exhibition were works by international artists, including Joseph Kosuth, Sarah Charlesworth, Dora ­Maurer, and Katharina Sieverding. A complete list of participating artists can be found in PERMAFO (see note 5), 422. 43 BWA (Biuro Wystaw Artystycznych) was the name for exhibition spaces set up and operated by the Polish artists’ association for the purpose of promoting contemporary art. In the course of the 1960s and 1970s, a relatively close-knit network of decentralized exhibition spaces developed throughout the People’s Republic. The central office or CBWA (Centralne Biuro Wystaw Artystycznych), is today the Zachęta Galeria Narodowa in Warsaw, cf. Ronduda, Schöllhammer, KwieKulik (see note 24), 474. 44 The text in Portuguese read: “9 color photographs and one text, each 50 × 50 cm.” Also on show was the work titled Breakfast (1978). According to the description, it consisted of six color photographs, one panel with photographs, and one panel of text, each again measuring 50 × 50 cm. Cf. XV Bienal Internacional de Arte Sāo Paulo, Polónia Proposiçāo (15th International Art

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47 48

49 50 51 52 53

Biennial Sāo Paulo, The Polish Contribution), exh. cat. (s.l., 1979), n.p., copied detail, source: Dokumentacja Plastyki Współczesnej IS PAN (Documentation of Contemporary Visual Art, Art-Historical Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences), file on Natalia  LL, Warsaw. Andrzej Koziara, “Między ustami a brzegiem banana” (Between Lips and Banana Peels), Gazeta Współczesna, Magazyn (Modern Periodical, Magazine), Białystok, Apr. 14, 1977, n.p., source: Dokumentacja Plastyki Współczesnej IS PAN (Documentation of Contemporary Visual Art, Art-Historical Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences), file on Natalia  LL, Warsaw, Sapija, “Post-Consumer Art (1976)” (see note 19). The poster and the invitation card by contrast name both artists, cf. exhibition poster Natalia  LL, VALIE EXPORT, source: Dokumentacja Plastyki Współczesnej IS PAN (Documentation of Contemporary Visual Art, Art-Historical Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences), file on Natalia  LL, Warsaw. Andrzej Sapija, “Post-Consumer Art (1976)” (see note 19), 314. Natalia  LL, “Transformative Attitude (1972),” (see note 19), 179–280. Published in German as “Statement” in Heute Kunst (see note 11), 10. (trans. KennedyUnglaub). Natalia  LL, “Visual Language” (see note 19), 284. Ibid. Natalia  LL, “Hypothesis, Permafo 1977” (see note 19), 328–330, here: 329. Jakubowska, “Lips wide shut” (see note 8), 26. Ibid.

1–9: Lokal_30 Gallery, Warsaw; Natalia LL; 10: Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Archiv der Avantgarden - Egidio Marzone, Akte 6/ Polen © Andreas Diesend

Emily Watlington Dialectics of Desire and Disgust. Adrian Piper’s Catalysis

Introduction: Abjection Abjection became a key term for artists, critics, and curators in the 1990s to describe recent and contemporaneous art. The term, prominently theorized by philosopher Julia Kristeva in her 1980 book Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, refers to the state of being cast off, and is a descriptor used in a range of contexts from material to social.1 Hair, for instance, is conventionally seen as beautiful when on women’s heads, but repulsive when cast off the head and found anywhere else. Abject is also a term regularly used to describe the marginalized—those whom society has cast off. The term refers to the disgusting as well, in the sense that it signals that which we vomit, or otherwise expel—but ultimately, it is less polluting than disturbing. As Kristeva describes it, the abject is “not lack of cleanliness or health … but what disturbs identity, system, order. What does not respect borders, positions, rules. The in-between, the ambiguous, the composite.”2 In the 1990s, abjection gained currency largely among art historians who applied it, retroactively, to a number of artists working with their bodies, especially feminist artists working in the 1960s and 1970s. Such work was labelled abject feminist performance art, or “body art.” These artists set out to reclaim the tired trope of man as artist and woman as nude muse. Using their own bodies in their work, they presented themselves as both subject and object. Rendering their bodies deliberately disgusting—often by incorporating or referencing bodily secretions, especially female ones such as menstrual blood— they explicitly challenged easy consumption by the male gaze, seeking to upend women’s long-held cultural position as attractive objects by presenting themselves instead as aversive subjects.3 The efficacy of abject works of body art as feminist critique has, since their inception, been both praised and questioned.4 One key example is Vagina Painting (1965) by Shigeko Kubota: a performance in which Kubota tied a brush dipped in red paint to her underwear and painted by squatting and moving her hips.5 Art historian Kristine Stiles described Vagina Painting in 1993 as an “historically daring rejection of the female as muse.”6 Another is Carolee Schneemann’s Scroll (1975), in

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which the artist, naked and with paint on her body, pulled a paper scroll from her vagina while reading it aloud.7 Critic Lucy Lippard astutely questioned whether works of body art actually pleased the male gaze, or, as film theorist Laura Mulvey would have put it, reinforced women’s “to-be-looked-at-ness.”8 Writing in 1975, Lippard wondered: If most of these performances are documented and experienced through photographs by men, and performed by conventionally attractive women who are often nude, are they actually subverting the male gaze, or pleasing it?9 Indeed, both Interior Scroll and Vagina Painting were photographed by male artists: Schneemann’s by her then-lover, installation artist Anthony McCall; and Kubota’s by Fluxus artist George Maciunas. Were these images not actually disgusting, but rather, seductive? And if so, were they still critical and feminist?10

Dialectics of Desire and Disgust Theorists of disgust, however, have long considered seduction not as its opposite, but as inextricable from disgust. Julia Kristeva described the abject as “a vortex of summons and repulsions.”11 Georges Bataille speculated that “extreme seductiveness is probably at the boundary of horror.”12 And Kant proposed that perhaps the most disgusting thing about the disgusting object is its simultaneous desirability.13 Abject feminist body art was, then—like disgust itself—always desirable, too. And perhaps, by extension, it has always been both critical of and complacent with the male gaze.14 Shortly before Lippard articulated a feminist discomfort with body art as a question of desire or disgust, Adrian Piper completed her Catalysis series, which might retroactively fit into this category of body art. Catalysis critically interrogated the inextricability, rather than neat opposition, of desire and disgust: not necessarily for the explicit purpose of positing feminist criticism, but in order to interrogate societal norms of behavior more generally. While Lippard saw disgust’s desirability as abject feminist art’s downfall, Piper instead explored this dialectic strategically, having discovered those who witnessed her actions to be both disgusted and aroused during Catalysis I (1970): a performance during which the artist performed abjection in public places, wearing clothes she had soaked in vinegar, eggs, milk, and cod liver oil in a bookstore and on the subway during rush hour.15 For Catalysis VII (c. 1970), she reversed this configuration, starting with the desirable though ultimately provoking disgust.16 At the Metropolitan Museum, she exaggerated conventionally-desirable, feminine modes of presentation (high heels, teased hair, a tight skirt), to what some might consider the point of grotesquerie. All the while, she was chewing large wads of sweet bubble gum and blowing bubbles while standing close to museumgoers.17

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The Abject and Self-Constitution Piper was testing the boundaries between herself and others, and this series has largely been read as a means of exaggerating her position as a black woman, as already abject within society. Though such actions would, no doubt, have been considered disgusting no matter who performed them, they have been read as revealing her status as always already abject because of her race and gender. For instance, Maurice Berger interprets the series, performed in public space and not the museum, as “her declaration of independence from a fundamentally racist, sexist, and, to a surprising degree, conformist avant-garde,” characterizing her self-abjection as a form of liberation.18 Indeed, Piper describes this decision to perform in public, rather than the white-male-dominated art world, as an effort to “[keep] the art world at a distance so as to avoid contamination.”19 Her use of the word “contamination” reads as provocative: It is unlikely that any individual would have admitted to defending their maintenance of the status quo using the language of racial purity.20 Notions of contamination and purity persisted throughout her oeuvre even as she moved away from what we might call “body art.” Take Cornered (1988): an installation comprising a video of the artist on a monitor in a corner, behind an upturned table, and chairs arranged in a triangle facing the screen. In her monologue, Piper unpacks a number of conventions for racial classification, including the “one-drop rule,” which claimed that if a person had one drop of African American blood, they were to be considered black.21 By this logic, she suggests that her viewers are probably black, complicating any conception of racial purity. Exploring the notion that, in the words of feminist cultural scholar Sara Ahmed, “disgust is crucial to power relations,” Piper’s Catalysis explored how the act of expulsion or abjection always works to constitute the self.22 Ahmed writes further that the speech act, “‘That’s disgusting!’ can work as a form of vomiting, as an attempt to expel something whose proximity is felt to be threatening and contaminating… The act generates … a subject and object,” but Ahmed reminds us that we can only vomit that which has already been “digested, and hence incorporated into the body of one who feels disgust.”23 Accordingly, art historian Kobena Mercer interpreted the Catalysis interventions as a process of “self-discovery measured by the responses of disgust and aversion elicited from strangers.”24 They were Piper’s means of emphasizing her position as separate from, but entangled with, those who witnessed her actions, whom she had the capacity to affect. Mercer applied the term abjection to Piper’s work in 1999, which he writes “prefigured many contemporary concerns.”25 Indeed, to Mercer’s point, Piper wrote of the series that, “Your fear of my otherness is a fear of violation of the boundaries of your self.” 26 This observation prefigured Kristeva’s argument—published in French in 1980 and English in 1982—that, “The abject … [is] opposed to I.”27 The notion of the abject as that which opposes the self undergirds Piper’s philosophical writing on discrimination. In her philosophical work—particularly her

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1993 article “Two Kinds of Discrimination”—Piper claims that discomfort with the other, or the uneasiness experienced when trying to assimilate something unfamiliar into extant cognitive categories, threatens the coherence of the self. Accordingly, she defines her use of the term xenophobia as “a fear of individuals who look or behave differently from those one is accustomed to. It is a fear of what is experientially unfamiliar, of individuals who do not conform to one’s empirical assumptions about what other people are like, how they behave, or how they look. Ultimately it is a fear of individuals who violate one’s empirical conception of persons and so one’s self-conception. So xenophobia is an alarm reaction to a threat to the rational coherence of the self, a threat in the form of an anomalous other who transgresses one’s preconceptions about people.”28 Or, in Kristeva’s terms, attempting to assimilate an anomalous person into a mental schema disrupts cognitive, “borders, positions, rules.”29 In Piper’s written work, she does not engage the term abjection nor speak to the concept explicitly, but instead discusses the term xenophobia—which she uses in an analogous sense to refer to a fear of otherness which threatens cognitive categories and thereby selfconstitution.

Strong Sensations Catalysis I employed the strong sensation of disgust produced by encounters with unfamiliar or atypical persons or experiences to elicit embodied responses, and was later read as an effort to shock people into an awareness of their often-subconscious xenophobia.30 As Berger put it, “By creating visual and sensual experiences that were more or less fresh and unexpected, Piper reasoned that she could create a temporal situation that might jolt the viewer into new levels of consciousness and self-awareness.”31 Catalysis might be read to have the effect of provoking disgust that others might have felt toward her, often subconsciously, as an African American woman, by setting out to make the experience of disgust stronger and, therefore, more conscious.32 “The stronger the work, the stronger its impact and the more total (physiological, psychological, intellectual, etc.) the reaction of the viewer,” Piper wrote, reasoning that strongly affecting viewers could disrupt the status quo—a view later interpreted as prompting viewers to critically reflect on their own xenophobia, which she believed everyone was socialized into and had to work to unlearn.33 Hence her choice of title, Catalysis, which refers to the resulting change of a chemical agent.

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Attraction and Aversion While Piper’s work, like that of many contemporaneous abject feminist performance artists, repulsed those around her, she found, while sitting malodorously on the subway for Catalysis I, that she simultaneously attracted them. She recalled in her text documenting the piece, “I got this very strange reaction from some businessmen on the subway, which I didn’t understand at the time, but my friend explained it to me later on. I’d been wearing all this putrid-smelling stuff; I’d coated my arms with cod liver oil. I was very passive (just standing there), and they would look at me like they really wanted to fuck me. This friend said that by walking around that way, it seemed that I didn’t have any respect for my body, so why should anybody else? … That was something I just hadn’t counted on at all, that somehow there could be sexuality in that really revolting make-up.”34 Piper had not expected to experience the inextricability of seduction and disgust in this way, though these interlinked phenomena became more overt later in the series.

Catalysis VII Catalysis VII, a performance for which no photographic documentation has been preserved, is an illuminating example of the relationship between seduction and disgust, directly or indirectly after her discovery during Catalysis I. In the fall of 1970, she “dress[ed] up very super-femininely;” she teased her hair and wore a tight skirt and high heels to the Before Cortés: Sculpture of Middle America exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum. At the Met, she chewed large wads of bubble gum that would pop and stick to her face. She wrote, “I got this bubble gum, and I just started making bubbles that got bigger and broke all over my face, all over my clothes, and I kept on putting in more bubble gum and making bigger and bigger bubbles… . I could choose whether or not to blow a bubble in someone’s face. They’d duck because the bubble would be coming out, and I got very good at it. I had this hair and earrings and everything and bubble gum all over my face. It looked very strange, and I seemed to be a threat, because if people got entangled in that stuff, then they would be involved, and I’d have to have some kind of interaction with them, and obviously they were very much avoiding that.”35

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She also filled her purse with ketchup and placed in it her wallet, keys, and comb, which she rifled through while paying to ride the bus. Piper exaggerated “pretty” characteristics, such as feminine dress, bubble gum, and purses, to such a degree that they bordered on excessive and therefore disgusting. While, for Lippard, the desire latent in disgust hindered its feminist critical capacities, Piper’s gesture can serve as a model for tooling this strategically. For Catalysis I she began with the conventionally abject (putrid smells) and found herself to be, on occasion, surprisingly seductive. Later, in Catalysis VII, she began with conventionally seductive materials, but, through using them to excess, ultimately repulsed museumgoers.

Pretty Gross The term “pretty”—which Piper does not herself use but which easily describes her normative feminine dress—is often intended as a compliment (if, at times, a patronizing one) when used to describe a person. Its connotations in both fine art and cinema, however, are often less positive. Notably, “pretty” is not included in the grand aesthetic category of beauty, but is rather a delicate and minor—as well as feminized—descriptor. Cinema scholar Rosalind Galt argues that her study of the term in her book titled Pretty: Film and the Decorative Image “is a polemical move because pretty so immediately brings to mind a negative, even repugnant, version of aesthetic value for many listeners.”36 Notice that Galt is addressing the term “pretty” but ends up using the adjective “repugnant,” in the same way that Piper began with pretty attributes but eventually repulsed museumgoers. Galt continues to describe how the term is aversive in critical theory, noting that “feminists hear in the term its diminutive implications; a pretty girl is one who accedes to patriarchal standards of behavior and self-presentation. Marxists think of prettiness as a quality of the commodity fetish, a central function of ideology’s ability to veil real relations.”37 This cyclical relationship, which can begin with the pretty and end with the gross, or vice versa, affirms Kristeva’s characterization of the abject’s simultaneous summons and repulsions as a “vortex.”38 Immanuel Kant has argued for beauty as disgust’s opposite, but turning to Piper’s Catalysis, as well as to the more modest synonyms “pretty” and “gross,” complicates this neat opposition.39 “Gross” also precisely describes the affects often produced by Catalysis, which likely solicited discomfort or uneasiness rather than an urgent need to vomit or otherwise have the offending object (Piper) removed. Indeed, “glaringly noticeable” begins Merriam-Webster’s definition of “gross,” aptly capturing the elicitation of stares that distinguishes the gross from the disgusting. The term “pretty,” rather than “beautiful,” is particularly operative for its feminized connotation. “Beauty is a proper form of image to admire, whereas prettiness is … a lesser, feminine form,” argues Galt.40 Prettiness is also associated with delicacy, whereas beauty is ascribed grandiosity. Piper, however, can be read as

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disturbing the notion of prettiness as delicate, retooling it instead to provocative ends through exaggeration. Just as Galt describes her choice of the term in her study as “polemical,” Piper’s textual recount of Catalysis VII describes the performance as “aggressive.”41 This shift from delicacy to aggression is achieved through the artist’s use of exaggeration. It is not the bubble gum itself that is disgusting, but the size of the wad she chews and the bubbles she blows, which threaten to stick to those around her. Disgust, as many have noted, is often produced by surfeit, excess, or overindulgence. Eve Sedgwick and Adam Frank extended this idea of overindulgence to argue, along the lines of Kristeva’s claim that disgust is related to a sort of suppressed wanting, that one can only be disgusted by something previously thought to delight or satisfy.42 Alcohol, for instance, is not itself disgusting to many people, but when consumed in excess it can cause vomiting. The same is true of sweetness in excess, which is often nauseating. “Gross” in English refers to disgustingness, but the German “groß” denotes largeness. Piper’s gesture can be read as an extension of this logic: pinkness and sweetness characterize bubble gum, but are also caricatures of femininity, both of which Piper exaggerates to the point of disgust in Catalysis VII. The dialectical relationship between desire and disgust was thoroughly articulated by Kristeva in 1980, but it is also mentioned at least as far back as Kant’s Critique of Judgment published in 1790. Kant succinctly captured the paradox when he wrote of the disgusting that “the object is presented as if it were obtruding itself for our enjoyment, while we strive against it with all our might.”43 Literary critic Sianne Ngai understands this passage to mean that, “what makes the object abhorrent is precisely its outrageous claim for desirability. The disgusting seems to say, ‘You want me,’ imposing itself on the subject as something to be mingled with and perhaps even enjoyed.”44 Piper—who remains a prominent Kantian scholar, and who was the first African American woman to receive tenure in philosophy in the United States—would no doubt have known this passage from Kant. I cannot, however, claim for certain she would have known it in 1970.45 It is actually Kantian rationalism that Piper was critiquing in her 1992 definition of xenophobia quoted earlier in this essay. She feared that his insistence on cognitive categories as immutable might work to naturalize inequalities on the basis of race and gender, by disallowing the possibility of the assimilation of the unfamiliar. Whether Piper invokes Kant deliberately or not during Catalysis, she certainly locates his thoughts in a specific body through performance, and affirms his claim about disgust’s desirability when she writes that her actions in Catalysis “trigger your desire and your anxiety together.”46 While the desire inherent to disgust was not considered in the creation and reception of most body art of the 1960s and 1970s, this theory has a rich history in philosophy. Piper, an artist and philosopher, can be interpreted as mingling these discourses and disciplines, which, I argue, serves as an important critical intervention to feminist body art by locating abjection within a longer intellectual history, and by strategically employing the dialectic of desire

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and disgust. This is not to reduce the Catalysis series to a work about race or gender alone, but rather to locate it amongst contemporaneous conversations about disgust and women’s bodies, as well as within longer conversations about desire and disgust in philosophy. Piper actually described her original intentions for the work as apolitical; little was written of the performances at the time, and they were likely read through the lens of her later work which addressed racism and sexism more explicitly. Piper only began performing in 1970, responding directly to the events of 1968; until then, she worked largely with minimalist painting and sculpture, where many critics and curators assumed her to be a white male based on her name and work alone. Largely in response to subsequent reductive readings of her work based on her identity, Piper issued a statement in 2012 which reads, “Adrian Piper has decided to retire from being black. In the future, for professional utility, you may wish to refer to her as The Artist Formerly Known as African-American.” My reading here is meant to locate Catalysis both within a discourse surrounding disgust in general, and amongst contemporaneous works known as feminist body art, arguing that Piper’s engagement with the former adds richness to our understanding of the latter. As with many performances of the time, we know the works through their photographic documentation: recall that, for Lippard, it was a problem that the surviving documentary photographs and films of body art performances were taken by men. This was not the case for Catalysis: the photographs were taken by American feminist artist Rosemary Mayer. Now, much of the work Lippard was critiquing involved nude women’s bodies, which were not present in Piper’s public performances. And actually, no visual documentation could be found for the two works I discussed here (Catalysis I and VII), which are documented through Piper’s own writing.47 In fact, several operate primarily through smell or sound, making photography unsuited to reproducing their effects: Catalysis I involved putrid smells, and Catalysis VIII featured hypnotic sounds apparently so effective that the work was subsequently censored. Catalysis II involved whistling a complex Bach tune in its entirety in socially inappropriate contexts (there is an audio recording of a similar gesture titled Bach Whistled).48 Catalysis V entailed playing recordings of burps at a high volume at five-minute intervals in the library. Accordingly, many of the works are documented through Piper’s own writing which, more so than photography can, clearly depicts the artist not as image or object, but as a thinking subject. This, of course, was the aim of much feminist body art, though much of what they were fighting was the reduction of woman to image, and in many ways, their very performances have been reduced to images. Still, photographs of Catalysis III and IV have come to emblematize the series; while they comprise only a small portion, they are furnished by visual evidence that readily communicates the performance, and are easily collectible by and displayed in art institutions. Witnesses of Piper’s action would not have known that she was performing, or that she was to be interpreted as, in her words, an “art object.”49 Without an institutional framing, her

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actions were likely read as pranks or simply insanity rather than art or critical intervention. While Berger pointed out that Piper’s choice of medium was a declaration of independence from a racist, sexist, and conformist art world, it is important to note that it was also a kind of resistance to the notion of a discrete, commodifiable, and collectible art object.50 Yet while the works I have referenced by Piper, Kubota, and Schneemann were often irreverent toward the art world proper, today, they survive and are circulated as photographs in museum and/or private collections.51 And though photography’s (like performance’s) status as fine art was and remains a subject of debate, it is of course no coincidence that all three used black-andwhite photography. Color photography would have been available to artists during the 1960s and 1970s, though it was more expensive and, moreover, a medium strongly associated with advertisements and mass media—at least, as several historians of photography have argued, until William Eggleston’s landmark solo exhibition of color photographs at the Museum of Modern Art in 1976.52 While the photographs focus on Piper’s actions, they also document a portion of her audiences’ reactions, which were crucial to the piece. In the photographs for Catalysis III, you can see people turning their heads and craning their necks to get a better look at the absurd scene. In the photographs for Catalysis IV, we are shown fellow bus riders both appearing to stare and avoiding eye contact. Historian and law scholar William Ian Miller writes in his anatomy of the bad affect that disgusting things, “are further unsettling because they are disordering; they undo the complacency that comes with disattendability; they force us to look and notice, or to suffer self-consciousness about not looking or not not looking.”53 His observation is evidenced by the twinned reactions of Piper’s audience to her abject performances, captured by Mayer’s photographs. Kobena Mercer interpreted this at once hypervisibility and invisibility by turning to Ralph Ellison’s 1962 novel Invisible Man, a book whose 1982 introduction asserts that the African American experience often involves a twinning of invisibility in the form of underrepresentation, and high visibility in the form of hyper-surveillance. “It was the paradoxical interplay of this antinomal pas de deux, between the hypervisible and the unvisible, between otherness and going unseen, that Piper went on to explore in her mid-1970s performances,” Mercer asserts. This twinning can be applied to objects deemed disgusting more broadly, thereby again bolstering the connections made through Piper’s Catalysis between the social construction of taste/disgust and race.54 My aim has been to rethink Catalysis as a crucial intervention that frames debates surrounding the dialectic of desire and disgust as it pervaded the critical reception of feminist body art of the 1960s and 1970s. While Catalysis was in dialogue with these contemporaneous performances, Piper’s original intentions were neither overtly political nor feminist, and yet she found that her audience’s reactions to her were informed by her race and gender, which is why she then experimented with exaggerating feminine attributes for Catalysis VII.55 Historically contextualizing

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the piece as body art works to ground debates about desirability and disgustingness as they pertain to the female body within a longer philosophical and intellectual history. Piper wisely utilized the simultaneously repulsive and alluring qualities that always underpin the abject, providing a model for strategically employing the dialectic of desire and disgust by at once attracting and repulsing her viewers, which I argue frames abject art’s seductive qualities not as the work’s pitfall, but as inevitable and ripe for critical use. I am thankful to Caroline A. Jones, Eugenie Brinkema, Kristel Smentek, Gabriel Cira, Claire Lehmann, and the Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin. Research for this project was generously supported by the Louis C. Rosenberg (1913) Travel Fellowship, awarded by the Department of Architecture at the Masachusetts Institute of Technology.

Notes

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Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, trans. Leon S. Roudiez (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), 11–12. Ibid., 4. Moreover, these artists—at the height of second-wave feminism—regularly did so by referencing female anatomy before the critical vocabulary distinguishing sex and gender gained significant currency. For more on this history, see Amelia Jones, Body Art/Performing the Subject (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998). I am currently at work on a project tentatively titled “‘Video Is Vengeance for Vagina’: Reassessing Shigeko Kubota’s Vagina Painting,” which unpacks the implications of the fact—not discussed by feminist critics who praised the piece—that Kubota was “begged” to do the performance by male artists Nam June Paik and George Maciunas, and also looks toward Kubota’s often ignored video sculptures, which have nothing to do with vaginas. Kristine Stiles, “Between Water and Stone,” in In The Spirit of Fluxus, ed.  Elizabeth Armstrong, Joan Rothfuss, and Simon Anderson (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1993), 82. The text on the scroll was from her video Kitch’s Last Meal (1973–76), which depicted a couple’s lives from the view-

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point of their cat. The work is typically distributed in books and exhibitions as a photograph which does not capture the oral component. Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Screen 16, no. 3 (October 1975): 9. Lucy Lippard, “The Pains and Pleasures of Rebirth: Women’s Body Art,” Art in America, May/June 1976, 131–39. For a complete history, see Amelia Jones Body Art: Performing the Subject (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998). Kristeva, Powers of Horror (see note 1), 11-12. Georges Bataille, Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1982–1939, trans. Allan Stoekl (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985), 17. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, trans. J. H. Bernard (New York: Hafner, 1951), 155. I am currently working on a project called Pretty Gross: Aestheticized Abjection and the Feminist Image that tackles this history. Adrian Piper, “Talking to Myself: The Ongoing Autobiography of An Art Object (1970–1973),” in Out of Order, Out of Sight Volume I: Selected Writings in Meta-Art 1967–1992 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996), 42. Originally written in 1970–73 and first published as an English-French edition (Brussels: Fernand Spillemaeckers, 1974).

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Catalysis VII is often dated to 1973, yet the Before Cortes: Sculpture of Middle America exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum, which she visited, ran from September 30, 1970 through January 3, 1971. Lippard certainly knew of Piper’s Catalysis series; she included Catalysis VIII in her exhibition 26 Women Artists at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Ridgefield, Connecticut, April 18–June 13, 1971. It did not figure into her critique of body art, however, likely because Piper was not nude for the performances. Maurice Berger, “Styles of Radical Will: Adrian Piper and the Indexical Present,” in Adrian Piper: A Retrospective, ed.  Maurice Berger (Baltimore, MD: Fine Arts Gallery, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 1999), 17. Piper, “Ways of Averting One’s Gaze,” in Out of Order, Out of Sight, 221. Originally written in 1988 and previously unpublished. Piper specifically confronts the myth of racial purity in and beyond the art world in her video installation Out of the Corner (1990). I wrote about this work in Before Projection, Video Sculpture 1974–1995, ed.  Henriette Huldisch (Cambridge, MA: MIT List Visual Arts Center), 94–96. See: F. James Davis, Who is Black? One Nation’s Definition, (University Park, Penn: Penn State University Press, 2001). Sara Ahmed, “The Performativity of Disgust,” in The Cultural Politics of Emotion (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004), 88. Ibid., 94. Kobena Mercer, “Decentering and Recentering: Adrian Piper’s Spheres of Influence,” in Adrian Piper: A Retrospective, 51–52. Ibid., 50. Piper in “Ways of Averting One’s Gaze,” in Out of Order, Out of Sight Volume II: Selected Writings in Meta-Art 1967–1992 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996), 132. Originally published in 1988. Kristeva, Powers of Horror (see note 1), 1. Piper, “Two Kinds of Discrimination,” in Race and Racism, ed. Bernard Boxill

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(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 193–237. Charles Darwin’s theory of disgust likewise relates the disgusting to the unfamiliar. See Charles Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (London: J. Murray, 1904), 269. Kristeva, Powers of Horror (see note 1), 4. Piper, “Talking to Myself,” 32. Berger, “Styles of Radical Will” (see note 18), 25. Though this language is not used by Piper or Berger, consciousness is typically used to distinguish “affect” from “emotion.” In practice, however, the terms are often used interchangeably. Piper, “Talking to Myself” (see note 15), 32. John P. Bowles, Adrian Piper: Race, Gender, and Embodiment (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011), 179. Effie Serlis, “Interview between Adrian Piper and Effie Serlis,” in Interviews with Women in the Arts, Part 2 (Cleveland, OH: Tower Press, 1976), 26. Galt, Pretty: Film and the Decorative Image, 6. Ibid., 6. Kristeva, Powers of Horror (see note 1), 11–12. Arthur C. Danto, The Abuse of Beauty: Aesthetics and the Concept of Art (Chicago: Open Court, 2003), 56. Quote from Immanuel Kant’s Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime, 1764. Galt, Pretty: Film and the Decorative Image (see note 36), 7. Serlis, “Interview between Adrian Piper and Effie Serlis” (see note 35), 26. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Adam Frank, “Shame in the Cybernetic Fold: Reading Silvan Tomkins,” Critical Inquiry 21, no. 2 (Winter 1995): 520. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, trans. J. H. Bernard (New York: Hafner, 1951 [1781]), 155. Sianne Ngai, Ugly Feelings (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), 335. Her acclaimed Food for the Spirit, wherein she documents her experience of reading Critique of Pure Reason while fasting, so as to remind herself of her bodily existence

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while consumed in abstract thought and bordering on disassociation, was completed in 1971. 46 Piper, “Ways of Averting One’s Gaze” (see note 19), 132. 47 It is likely that Rosemary Mayer did not document these works, though it is possible passersby took photos (though I have not located any such photos). 48 Adrian Piper, “Bach Whistled (1970; 00:44:07),” www.adrianpiper.com, accessed April 2019. See: John P. Bowles, Adrian Piper: Race, Gender, and Embodiment (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011), 179, 287, footnote 109. 49 This is how she referred to herself in Catalysis throughout. The title of her text documenting the piece is “Talking to Myself: The Ongoing Autobiography of an Art Object (1970–1973),” in Out of Order, Out of Sight Volume I: Selected Writings in Meta-Art 1967–1992 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996). 50 Berger, “Styles of Radical Will” (see note 18), 17.

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See Piper’s “Talking to Myself” (see note 15). 52 While this narrative is a bit too neat, it is certainly widespread. See, for instance, Augusten Burroughs, “William Eggleston, the Pioneer of Color Photography,” T: The New York Times Style Magazine, October 17, 2016. For a more nuanced take, see Pamela Glasson Roberts, “Color Photography,” in Photography: The Whole Story, ed. Juliet Hacking (New York: Prestel, 2012), 399. 53 William Ian Miller, The Anatomy of Disgust (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 82. 54 Adrian Piper, Cornelia H. Butler, and David Platzker (eds.), Adrian Piper: A Reader (New York: The Museum of Modern Art): 118 55 Effie Serlis, “Interview between Adrian Piper and Effie Serlis,” in Interviews with Women in the Arts, Part 2 (Cleveland, OH: Tower Press, 1976), 26.

Till Cremer BERLIN ARTISTS. Photographic Field Research 2009–2014

Between 2009 and 2014, I completed the portrait series Berlin Artists, for which I photographed more than five hundred visual artists who lived and worked in Berlin at the time. The photographic work is based on conversations with the artists and, in stagings that were adapted to the individual person and the situation, explores their artistic practices and themes. My goal was to show the motivations and modes of expression of a wide range of artists through portraiture. I wanted to make visible their aesthetic and ideational explorations, while also highlighting the richness and internationality of contemporary art in Berlin. In the following, I will elaborate on my own artistic approach, on the genesis of Berlin Artists, its underlying processes, the backgrounds of selected portraits as well as their relation to one another.

My Own Artistic Approach and Background Through my artistic work, I aim to gain a better understanding of the world and myself. I work systematically, analytically, intuitively, and am unbiased as to the result. My works—photographic series, films, interactive installations—are experiments that take place in settings of my choosing which are meant to give access to the subject I am exploring. Experiencing my artworks will ideally engender epistemological processes. To illustrate my artistic approach and to facilitate the understanding of the visual language of my portraits, I would like to mention four staged still lifes from my early series Da ist (There is, 1997). The first photograph (fig. 1.1) shows a brick that appears to be both immobile and falling; the second photograph (fig. 1.2) shows a liquid being poured and assuming the shape of a wine glass; the third photograph (fig. 1.3) is of the cast shadow of a bottle without showing the bottle; the fourth photograph (fig. 1.4) shows an unlit candle that nevertheless produces a glow. These images investigate the interrelationship between outside and inside, between perception and interpretation. The experimental series served to evoke images in the mind of the

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1.1: Till Cremer, Ohne Titel [Untitled], from the series Da ist [There is], 1997/2019, monochrome negative, digitally remastered, 24 × 36 mm. 1.2: Till Cremer, Ohne Titel [Untitled], Da ist [There is], 1997/2019, monochrome negative, digitally remastered, 24 × 36 mm. 1.3: Till Cremer, Ohne Titel [Untitled], Da ist [There is], 1997/2019, monochrome negative, digitally remastered, 24 × 36 mm. 1.4: Till Cremer, Ohne Titel [Untitled], Da ist [There is], 1997/2019, monochrome negative, digitally remastered, 24 × 36 mm.

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viewer that would complement or question the pictures based on the viewer’s subjective experience. The photographs provide a frame for personal experience that is meant to enable insight by disrupting viewing habits while simultaneously causing visual associations. Berlin Artists includes documentary, staged, and allegorical pictorial information which, in subtle or direct ways, tells us something about the art and the personality of the portrayed artists. Elements of the compositions were deliberately chosen and staged in order to convey visual information.

Genesis of the Series Berlin Artists When, in the summer of 2009, I arrived at the idea of a portrait series about artists in Berlin, I had lived in the city only for a short time and did not possess in-depth knowledge of the contemporary art being created here. So how did it happen that I visited and photographed such a vast number of artists over the course of five years? In answering this question, I will describe the personal circumstances that were the artistic driving force behind this photographic field research. My older brother and I were inseparable growing up. From early childhood on, we drew and painted together, created comics, figures, and fantasy worlds, all in an atmosphere of mutual inspiration. As a young adult, my brother developed a mental illness. My first photographic portraits are from that time: a sequence in black and white that shows him reading and drawing, his two main occupations. Prompted by me, he looks directly into the camera in one of the photos (fig. 2). In the subsequent years, my brother was caught in a spiral of suffering and painted many expressive paintings before he took his life in 2005, aged thirty-two. I lost the person who I had felt deeply, wordlessly connected to, who had understood me and whom I had understood. Late in 2008, a teaching position brought me from the Rhineland to Berlin. The metropolis breathed informality and dormant potential. I sensed that in Berlin there was time and room for me to develop my own, free ideas. The distance to home allowed me to take a step back from the tragic event and to regain a sense of self. Also, after having worked in film production and as a freelance graphic designer for several years, I seemed to have instinctively found my way back to fine art in Berlin. Here, it seemed possible to live unconventionally and to have an artistic practice. The city’s free-spirited atmosphere and its affordable rents attracted and continue to attract countless artists, especially of Anglo-American and Western European backgrounds. It felt like in no other place were there quite as many artists, that nowhere else was so much art being made and exhibited as in Berlin. Both then and now, shows open nearly every day. The exhibition calendar INDEX Berlin, or the handwritten lists by the French performance artist Turbo Jambon (fig. 3)—“omnipresent at art openings and other art events in Berlin”—give an

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2: Till Cremer, Wolf Tankred Roger Cremer, ca. 1993/2019, monochrome negative, digitally remastered, 24 × 36 mm.

idea of the established Berlin art world as well as of the countless independent initiatives and project spaces.1, 2 This unique environment helped me pursue my desire for artistic expression; it inspired me to portray artists in Berlin, to explore and record their work in photography. The loss I suffered paradoxically gave me the courage and the perseverance necessary for this long-term project.

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3: Turbo Jambon, handwritten list of art events in Berlin, June 2019, ball pen on paper, detail, 29,7 × 21 cm.

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Photographic Approach and Equipment An aesthetic question posed itself at the beginning of my endeavor: How and with what camera did I want to take my pictures? I did not have a production budget. Professional DSLR cameras were expensive and their resolution limited. Analogue SLRs, however, were affordable. Also, using film offered painterly aesthetics, a physical project archive, and practically limitless resolution. I decided to work with analog photography. On the recommendation of the head of the photography workshop at the Braunschweig University of Art, where I had studied, I acquired a Mamiya 645 with a special 4:3 aspect ratio.3 Using this medium format camera, an additional smallformat camera, and a number of different lenses, I started out by taking black-andwhite and color test photographs of artist acquaintances. This pilot study led to several fundamental decisions that significantly influence the aesthetics of my photographs: I decided to work exclusively with lightsensitive standard lenses, reversal film, continuous light, and to shoot solely handheld in the portrait format. For what I had in mind, using color film seemed indispensable as an information medium. To illuminate the artists and to be able to take pictures without a tripod, working more responsively, I required an extra light source, a 1000‑watt halogen spotlight with 3400 Kelvin. It was only by interacting and working intuitively that I was able to create intimate moments, capturing an open, at times self-forgetful expression in the artists’ eyes. I reduced motion blurring by keeping my exposure time to a maximum of one two-hundred-andfiftieth of a second. My need to move freely and to act immediately led me to working with a technologically scaled-down concept. This, however, put high requirements on the film material: To compensate for the dim light often found in the spaces in which I photographed, I exposed ISO  400 films at ISO  1600, ISO  200 films at ISO  800. This in turn required a maximum push processing of the films by two stops.4 The resulting photographs have more grain, a steeper gradation curve, and therefore less detail in shadow and light. As a result of this method, areas that in the originals would be black sometimes appear dark brown or dark blue. Additionally, the different color temperatures of the local lighting—blue, green or yellow— mix with the warm white of my lamp. The images’ resulting analog and experimental aesthetics is characterized by precisely the soft, painterly quality I sought. Since I realized my portrait series exclusively with my own resources, I needed to work economically and use only one roll of film per person, whenever possible. This quantitative limitation imposed by the use of film meant that I could take fifteen concentrated shots of each person, usually trying out two or three different angles and motifs.

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Choosing the Artists Having answered the technical questions, I was faced with the next challenge: How would I arrive at a compelling range of artists for my project? My intention was not to simply follow the mechanisms of the art market or to portray only established artists, whose names I could have easily researched by looking at pertinent events, institutions and publications. Rather, I was interested in a broader spectrum of professional visual artists: people who—against all odds—dedicate themselves to artistic searching. I was going to work on creating a comprehensive picture of this group of people, one that paid no heed to their age, origins, personal background, practice, or position in the art market. Therefore, my core strategy for selecting artists was to ask those already photographed to recommend further artists. To get started, I researched several people who ideally would differ in terms of their age, origin, and practice. Karin Sander’s group exhibition Zeigen: Eine Audiotour durch Berlin (Showing. An Audio Tour through Berlin) at Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin (2009) was one of my sources.5 The exhibition project comprised 566 contributions by artists living and working in Berlin, from which I chose around thirty. Furthermore, the cultural center Künstlerhaus Bethanien, at my request, kindly sent me the contacts of their current artists-in-residence in their international studio program.6 Connections from the circle of the Braunschweig University of Art complemented my list. Among the people I photographed in December 2009 were both emerging and established artists, including Roland Stratmann, Christian Hoischen, Guy Zagursky, and, starting in January 2010, Käthe Kruse, Alicja Kwade, Ulrike Mohr, Annika ­Hippler, John Bock, Nezaket Ekici, Hans Hemmert, EVA & ADELE, Thomas Eller, ­Isabell Heimerdinger, Alexej Meschtschanow, Jonathan Monk, Anselm Reyle, Joep van Liefland, Damien Deroubaix, Via Lewandowsky, Gunna Schmidt, Matthias Bitzer, Ingo Gerken, Tatjana Doll, Frank Nitsche, Patrycja German, and Howard McCalebb. Many of the artists recommended friends with whom they had gone to art school as well as colleagues with whom they shared a gallery, a studio, or an artistic orientation, who were from the same generation, the same country or city, or whose work they appreciated especially. As an example, figure 4 shows the recommendations of EVA & ADELE, Thomas Rentmeister, and Thomas Scheibitz. Figure 5 shows two paths of recommendations that began with Thomas Eller. Eller recommended, among others, Tatjana Doll, who in turn recommended, among others, Isa Melsheimer. Melsheimer referred me to one single artist—Martin Städeli—saying that the Swiss-born artist had an exceptional studio full of papier-mâché figures. On the recommendation of Eberhard Havekost, I photographed Heidi Specker, who also referred me to only one artist: Wawrzyniec Tokarski, her studio neighbor. A number of artists were referred multiple times. Figure 7 shows, for example, that Lisa Junghanß was recommended four times: by EVA & ADELE, Klaus Jörres, Cornelia

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Renz, and Thomas Scheibitz. These examples go to show how I entered different circles through a few people and how I was able to explore the ramified, overlapping, and coinciding networks of these professional and social interrelations. I continued to add names of people I researched myself to my rapidly growing list. My most important sources in this respect were the art fairs Art Forum Berlin (1996–2010), art berlin contemporary (2008–2016), Gallery Weekend Berlin,7 Künstlerhaus Bethanien, the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program,8 Autocenter – Contemporary

4: Recommendations by EVA & ADELE, Thomas Rentmeister, and Thomas Scheibitz. 5: Recommendation[s] by Thomas Eller, Tatjana Doll, and Isa Melsheimer as well as Eberhard Havekost, and Heidi Specker. Both strands end with artists who did not recommend any further artists. 6: Recommendation[s] by Annika Hippler, Gregor Hildebrandt, Matthias Bitzer and Corinne Wasmuht. Hannu Prinz did not recommend any further artists.

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Art Berlin (2001–2018),9 and the final project at Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin (2010), curated by John Bock.10 Between 2009 and 2014, I compiled more than eight hundred names—an image of the Berlin art scene at the time that had largely drawn itself.

7: Multiple recommendations of the same artist at the example of Lisa Junghanß. 8: Multiple recommendations of the same artist at the example of Katharina Grosse.

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It was never my intention to depict the full spectrum of artists living and working in Berlin, which back then already counted at least five thousand individuals.11 Rather, my series aimed to give an inspiring and communicative insight into contemporary art in Berlin and to document some of the social, aesthetic, ethical, and ideological aspects of the time and the culture.

Background Information on Selected Portraits To get in touch and to set up a meeting, I contacted the artists by e-mail. I explained that I was working on a series about Berlin artists and that I wished to create portraits that would convey some of the aesthetic or thematic aspects of their artistic personalities. In order to do so, I explained, I would like to meet them in places connected to their work. In the majority of cases, I received a reply and it was seldom that I was turned down. If I did not get any answer at all, I would try again later (my serial e-mails may occasionally have ended up in spam folders.) Usually, I met the artists in their studios, where we would talk about their current projects, I would look around and ask questions about their working method, about existing works or works in progress and their backgrounds. I tried to create a visual connection between the information obtained from these conversations and striking elements or features found in the studios. The chosen angles aimed to help the respective artistic approaches, themes, or processes enter the picture as compellingly as possible and focused on the artists’ expressions, aiming to show them in natural, uncontrived poses. Examples of shots for which nothing about the site-specific situations was changed are the portraits of Lothar Hempel, Ulrike Ottinger, Hans Hemmert, Boris Mikhailov, Reynold Reynolds, and Bettina Krieg. Ulrike Ottinger (fig. 12) stands in front of a shelf holding labeled boxes of slides and packaged photographic paper, attached to which is a rolled-up projecting screen. This archive makes reference to her media: photography and film. Boris Mikhailov (fig. 14.1) sits in a black leather armchair in front of a black background. The shot appears like a classic portrait. In fact, a black molleton was affixed to one of the living room walls, in front of which Mikhailov presumably took self-portraits, a circumstance which I used for my composition. With an aura created by backlighting, Reynold Reynolds (fig. 14.2) stands, slightly off-center, in front of a plant in a room that seems antiquated. In the background one can make out wooden furniture, a cage, framed pictures, cables, tools as well as a somewhat inauthentic-looking stone wall. This apparent basement room was a set for his piece The Lost, which he was working on at the time.12 Bettina Krieg (fig. 15.2) sits in a three-dimensional drawing, its appearance as a sphere the result of the viewing angle of the photograph. She is in the midst of her artistic cosmos, surrounded by black-and-white drawings and image objects. In this photograph, the aesthetics and technique of her art as well as the symbolism

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of the portrait are immediate and palpable. Hans Hemmert (fig. 13) stands in the middle of his studio. In the foreground, one sees a desk with everyday objects: a water bottle, stacked papers, books. In the background, there are two sculptural objects, contrasting strongly with the white wall with photos, a drawing, and a rounded, white shape behind them. One of the sculptural objects consists of a branch over which a bright yellow bag-like shape is draped loosely. The other construction has a sawhorse as its base, to which a thin wooden beam is attached vertically with two screw clamps, hanging over the end of which is another yellow bag shape, which in turn is protected by an open black umbrella. This construction and Hemmert’s physical posture oddly correspond. To me, this mysterious parallel between artist and work makes this portrait one of the most fascinating in the series. In certain cases, I would suggest gestures and poses as a means of generating or intensifying a visual message. Examples here would be the portraits of Frank Nitsche, Ingo Gerken, and Alexej Meschtschanow. Ingo Gerken (fig. 10.1) leans against a wall onto which he has taped the outline of a house. The roll of tape encloses his left wrist like a massive bracelet and connects him to his wall drawing in a spatial and temporal sense. Gerken’s serious expression emphasizes here the delicate irony that often accompanies his minimalist formal language. Alexej Meschtschanow (fig. 10.4) stands, his arms crossed behind his back, in front of a hulking metal sculpture that seems to be a substitute for his own concealed arms. The image makes reference to sculptural works in which Meschtschanow combines photographs, objects and pieces of furniture with prosthesis-like metal constructions. The head of Frank Nitsche (fig. 9) rests on a pedestal made of beverage cans and stickers—things he has collected on his many international journeys (“The only luxury he grants himself [my translation].”).13 In order to underline features and characteristics or to evoke certain associations in the viewer’s mind, I occasionally asked artists for personal items to be integrated into the image. A photograph of EVA & ADELE, for example, shows them both holding an old teddy bear, which they got from their bedroom after I had asked them if they had any personal object around that could be included in the picture. Also, spontaneous suggestions made by the artists often inspired me to create playful, performative scenes. Examples here would be the portraits of Patrycja German, Nezaket Ekici, and Jonathan Meese, all of them working, among others, in the medium of performance. Patryjca German (fig. 10.2) wanted to be in the nude for the portrait, as she is in her performances. I asked her if she would pose in her sunny bedroom like Sandro Botticelli’s Venus (1485/1486) so as to underline her self-expression. I carefully arranged her shoes and clothes at her feet. Nezaket Ekici (fig. 15.1), for her portrait, put on a dress covered with long quills. At my request, she stood on her desk, backlit by the open window. Her hands, which she moved slowly over her body during the shot, are prevented from touching it by the quills. Jonathan Meese, without batting an eyelash, tied on a Snoopy apron, donned

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9: Till Cremer, Frank Nitsche, Berlin-Kreuzberg, 15  September 2010 #allegory #inspiration, from the series Berlin Artists, 2010/2019, color reversal film, digitally remastered, 4.5 × 6 cm.

a sun helmet, and picked up and held in his arms one of several wooden horses that were standing around. I photographed him wearing this outfit, standing among several paintings. Multiple exposures were used when, as in the case of Mattias Härenstam (fig. 10.3), there was a lack of expressive visual reference points in the location or when it was required for other reasons related to the artists’ themes and processes. Härenstam’s working space, for example, was set up with a shelf and a desk, where he was editing a film, the dark and surreal atmosphere of which I tried to express with an equally unreal portrait. Some artists had very specific ideas for their image. In those cases, I put my own ideas aside and respectfully realized theirs. Examples here are the portraits of Astali/Peirce (fig. 16.1) and Cécile B. Evans (fig. 16.2). Most of the photo sessions lasted one or two hours, sometimes several. The shortest encounter was the one with Ólafur Elíasson. After a tour through his multi-story studio by one of his assistants, I was given a fifteen-minute slot to shoot. Anselm Reyle, too, showed me his studio first and then gave me exactly half an hour to stage him in his “production line.” When I worked with Käthe Kruse, by contrast, we spent several hours together. For one of the shots, we hung a Japaneseinspired fabric print of hers on a living room wall we had cleared, using it as a

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10.1: Till Cremer, Ingo Gerken, Berlin-Kreuzberg, 2  September 2010 #allegory #subject, Berlin Artists, 2010/2019, color reversal film, digitally remastered, 4.5 × 6 cm. 10.2: Till Cremer, Patrycja German, Berlin-Gesundbrunnen, 28  September 2010 #allegory #subject, Berlin Artists, 2010/2019, color reversal film, digitally remastered, 4.5 × 6 cm. 10.3: Till Cremer, Mattias Härenstam, Berlin-Friedrichshain, 13 April 2011 #allegory #subject, Berlin Artists, 2011/2019, color reversal film, digitally remastered, 4.5 × 6 cm. 10.4: Till Cremer, Alexej Meschtschanow, Berlin-Weißensee, 10 August 2010 #allegory #subject, Berlin Artists, 2010/2019, color reversal film, digitally remastered, 4.5 × 6 cm.

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11: Till Cremer, Lothar Hempel, Berlin-Kreuzberg, 13 December 2011 #material, Berlin Artists, 2011/2019, color reversal film, digitally remastered, 4.5 × 6 cm. 12: Till Cremer, Ulrike Ottinger, Berlin-Kreuzberg, 22  March 2013 #medium, Berlin Artists, 2013/2019, color reversal film, digitally remastered, 4.5 × 6 cm.

background, while she dressed in an outfit to match, complete with a Japanese handbag. For the portrait of Annika Hippler, who uses laser beams as an artistic medium, I worked with multiple exposures. In a dark room, I successively photographed different patterns she cast on the wall with a laser before I took a picture of her lying on the floor. The level of engagement with the artists depended on how much time they had, how open they were towards me and on the material available in their studios. My goal was always to grasp the essence of the respective artistic personality in a manner that was both analytical and empathetic, and to playfully bring this to life in the photograph. After five years and more than five hundred encounters, I took my last shots for Berlin Artists in the fall of 2014. On October 13th, I portrayed the painters Isa Schmidlehner and Jin Lie with their newborn child. That same year, production of the photographic film I was working with ceased altogether.14

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13: Till Cremer, Hans Hemmert, Berlin-Wedding, 25 March 2010 #process, Berlin Artists, 2010/2019, color reversal film, digitally remastered, 4.5 × 6 cm. 14.1: Till Cremer, Boris Mikhailov, Berlin-Wilmersdorf, 8 July 2014 #setting, Berlin Artists, 2014/2019, color reversal film, digitally remastered, 4.5 × 6 cm. 14.2: Till Cremer, Reynold Reynolds, Berlin-Pankow, 4 July 2012 #setting, Berlin Artists, 2012/2019, color reversal film, digitally remastered, 4.5 × 6 cm.

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15.1: Till Cremer, Nezaket Ekici, Berlin-Mitte, 25  February 2010 #subject, Berlin Artists, 2010/2019, color reversal film, digitally remastered, 4.5 × 6 cm. 15.2: Till Cremer, Bettina Krieg, BerlinKreuzberg, 29 June 2012 #subject, Berlin Artists, 2012/2019, color reversal film, digitally remastered, 4.5 × 6 cm. 16.1: Till Cremer, Astali/Peirce, Berlin-Mitte, 27 April 2012 #suggestion, Berlin Artists, 2012/2019, color reversal film, digitally remastered, 4.5 × 6 cm. 16.2: Till Cremer, Cécile B. Evans, Berlin-Mitte, 1 April 2011 #suggestion, Berlin Artists, 2011/2019, color reversal film, digitally remastered, 4.5 × 6 cm.

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Links and Relationships Between the Portraits In the meantime, I analyzed and grouped the images of the series according to subjects and formal attributes. Similar to using social media hashtags, I tagged the portraits with one or several keywords to identify unconscious or conscious intentions along with external commonalities. In doing so, I realized that the complex work was becoming more accessible to me. The nearly unmanageable abundance of portraits was becoming workable and articulated; the portraits’ statements were becoming more pronounced and their connections to one another more visible. The portrait of Frank Nitsche (fig. 9), for example, was tagged with the terms “allegory” and “inspiration” to designate the allegory of traveling (his source of inspiration) which the picture expressed for me. The word “allegory” also describes my intuitive intervention, a suggestive visual symbolism that was meant to amplify what was already there, intensifying it ironically or even making it visible in the first place. In the case of Ulrike Ottinger (fig. 12), I used the term “medium,” as this aspect of her artistic work is the one that is most prominently conveyed by the photograph. The portrait of Lothar Hempel (fig. 11) foregrounds the material with which he works and is consequently tagged with “material.” The image of Hans Hemmert (fig. 13) may best be described with the word “process.” This term spans a variety of images that document a given state of production, and which thus convey very diverse information. Boris Mikhailov (fig. 14.1) and Reynold Reynolds (fig. 14.2) are each shown in the “setting” of their own artistic production, which is the tag I used for them. The portraits of Nezaket Ekici (fig. 15.1) and Bettina Krieg (fig. 15.2) make reference to the theme or the subject of each of their artistic practices and are therefore tagged with “subject.” The photographs of Ingo Gerken (fig. 10.1), Patrycja German (fig. 10.2), Matthias Härenstam (fig. 10.3), and Alexej Meschtschanow (fig. 10.4) likewise make reference to the themes or subjects of these artists’ practices but at the same time they are allegories. My system allows me to tag these stagings with “allegory” and “subject,” and they are linked to the portraits of Ekici and Krieg as well as to that of Nitsche. Astali/Peirce (fig. 16.1) and Cécile B. Evans (fig. 16.2) had very particular scenes for their portraits in mind. The artist duo wished to be photographed with a screen and a Styrofoam ball, crouching in a built-in wardrobe, while Evans in her portrait lies in bed with a cigarette. Portraits that are the result of concrete suggestions such as these were grouped under the term “suggestion.” Quite a few artists used their art objects to conceal their faces. This formal commonality led me to label this group of images with the simple term “mask.” Assigning keywords to the portraits allowed me to access the pictures through a level of comparability; it created subject-related connections and opened the images for a studium (in the sense used by Roland Barthes) regarding their messages.15

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Empirical Data From the beginning, I listed the names of all artists—both those whose names I had researched and those who had been recommended to me—on my website, which also showed a selection of portraits while the project was still ongoing. After one year, the list of names and photographed people had become so extensive that I chose to develop a database-supported system to keep track. The website (no longer public today, instead serving me as a tool and an archive) included the names of all artists—those already photographed, those recommended to me, and those whose names I had researched myself—some portraits, as well as the city districts and dates of those photographs, and the photographed artists’ date and place of birth. For a limited time, the portrayed artists could access their data to make additions or corrections. Several images from the series, including the production data and information about the artists, as well as an ever-growing list of photographed artists were consistently accessible to the public. For my lecture at the symposium Artist Complex. Images of Artists in Photography, I analyzed the collected data about the artists. The oldest artist is Bob Rutman (b. 1931), the youngest is Kato Six (b. 1986). In the most strongly represented age groups (1966–1978), women make up 42 percent, in the older ones (1965–1931) 31 percent, and in the younger ones (1979–1986) 43 percent. The average percentage of women is 40 percent. More than 270 of the photographed artists were born in Germany, more than twenty in the United States, more than fifteen in France, Italy, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom respectively, more than ten in Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden respectively, six in Australia, Canada, and Spain respectively, and three in Russia and Turkey respectively. Artists born in Eastern Europe are represented only marginally. Except for a small number of individuals from Israel, Japan, South Africa, and South Korea, artists from African and Asian countries as well as from South America figure only occasionally in my project. Twenty-four percent of the artists were located in the Kreuzberg district, 14 percent in Gesundbrunnen (many in the Uferhallen, a studio complex threatened today by gentrification),16 12 percent each in Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg, and 9 percent in Neukölln. In the districts of Französisch Buchholz, Lichterfelde, Tegel and Wilmersdorf, I photographed one person in each case, and in the periphery of Berlin, in places such as Finsterwalde, Gerswalde, and Neuendorf im Sande, I also photographed one person in each case.17

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An Attempt at Contextualizing Berlin Artists Berlin Artists is an anthropological and photographic field research, an artistic experimental system that builds on three process levels.18 I see the selection of the artists as the first level, in which the threads of recommendations spread out horizontally, ramified, and developed connections. The path that unfolded as a result of my chosen methodology was unknown to me at the beginning of the project. The empirical data that resulted convey a sense of the social composition of Berlin’s art scene. The meetings with the artists are the second level, in which the work grew vertically and, creating time capsules of its own, produced specific, individual content. The artistic outcome of each encounter could not be predicted and required an open, mindful approach on my part. Whether or not a compelling image was created depended very much on how open-minded the artists were. My photographic approach—the third level—was a creative, productive experiment, the results of which, unlike in digital photography, were not instantly accessible and often surprised me. This element of unpredictability and artistic experimentation, to me, is precisely what lends analog photography its appeal. While every portrait can be considered in its own right, it is only in their entirety and systematic juxtaposition that the individual pictures of my organically grown, long-term project manifest their full force and significance. Translated by Elfi Seidel

Notes

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https://www.indexberlin.com. Accessed on January 22, 2021. Cf. “Turbo Jambon @turbojambon,” https://www.instagram.com/turbojambon. Accessed on March 19, 2019. Medium format cameras with the rectangular format of 6 × 4.5 cm are often smaller and lighter and allow for images in portrait and landscape format. The most common format in medium-format photography is 6 × 6 cm. Push processing in analog photography refers to a film developing technique that increases the effective sensitivity of the film being processed. Cf. “Push processing,” https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Push_processing. Accessed on March 5, 2020. Cf. Karin Sander: Zeigen: Eine Audiotour durch Berlin von Karin Sander, exh. cat., Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin (Cologne: Walther König, 2009).

6 https://www.bethanien.de. Accessed on March 25, 2019. 7 https://www.gallery-weekend-berlin.de. Accessed on April 16, 2019. 8 Cf. DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program, ed., 50 Jahre Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD. Die Jahre 1988–2013 (Berlin: DAAD, 2013). 9 Cf. Maik Schierloh, Joep van Liefland, eds., Autocenter – Space for Contemporary Art Berlin (Berlin: Distanz, 2014). 10 Cf. John Bock: FischGrätenMelkStand, exh. cat., Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin (Cologne: Walther König, 2010). 11 Cf. Hergen Wöbken, Studio Berlin II (Berlin: Institut für Strategieentwicklung, 2011). 12 Reynold Reynolds, The Lost, 1933/2013, HD  video, 110 min/7-channel HD  video installation, loop. 13 Bernhard Schilz, “Exklusiver Hausbesuch bei einem Superstar: Dresdens

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(un)bekannter Meister Frank Nitsche,” Bild (September 15, 2011): https://www. bild.de/regional/dresden/kuenstler/ exklusiver-hausbesuch-bei-dresdensweltweit-erfolgreichen-kuenstler-franknitsche- 19969972.bild.html. Accessed on April 22, 2019. 14 Fujifilm FujiChrome Provia 400X and Kodak Ektachrome E 200 color reversal films 120. 15 Roland Barthes, Die helle Kammer: Bemerkungen zur Fotografie, trans. Dietrich Leube (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1989), 33–37.

CREDITS

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Cf. Helke Ellersiek, “Gentrifizierung in Berlin: Uferhallen-Künstler fürchten Verdrängung durch Investoren,” Der Tagesspiegel, no. 23216 (August 25, 2017), 7. Cf. Patrick Wagner, Wo Berlins Künstler leben (Hamburg: Statista, 2018): https:// de.statista.com/infografik/15168/verteilung-der-berliner-kuenstler-nach-stadtteilen. Accessed on April 17, 2019. Cf. Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, “Experimentelle Serialität in Wissenschaft und Kunst,” in Olaf Knellessen, Giaco ­Schiesser, Daniel Strassberg, eds., Serialität: Wissenschaften, Künste, Medien (Vienna: Turia + Kant, 2015), 68–77.

1, 2, 4–16: © Till Cremer/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2019; 3: © Turbo Jambon, 2019.

List of contributors

Ulrike Blumenthal studied art history, media studies, and German linguistics and literature at the University of Leipzig and the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Her PhD project focuses on Brassaï’s photographic representations of artists of the École de Paris in their studios. Between 2013 and 2016 she was an associated PhD student in the doctoral program The photographic dispositive at Braunschweig University of Art. After research fellowships at the Hungarian Museum of Photography (Kecskemét) and the Hungarian National Museum (Budapest) in July and August 2014 she completed a one-year fellowship at the German Center for Art History in Paris, where she is currently working as a research assistant. Her research interests include the image of the modern artist, art and cultural history of the studio and the history and theory of photography. Till Cremer is a Berlin-based visual artist. He studied fine-art photography, experimental film, and new media art at Braunschweig University of Art. In his photographs, short films, and interactive installations, Cremer explores human consciousness and the role of the individual as a part of social structures. His portrait series Berlin Artists (2009–2014) depicts more than 500 visual artists who lived and worked in Berlin at the time. An eponymous book was published by Kerber Verlag in 2015 and nominated for the German Photo Book Prize in 2016. The book and selected portraits have been exhibited at bautzner69, Dada Post, Der Greif, Kunstpunkt Berlin, Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst, Athens Photo Festival, and at art book fairs in Argentina, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Iran, Norway, Singapore, and the Netherlands. Photographs from the series have been published by art berlin contemporary, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Berlinale, Der Tagesspiegel, KUNSTFORUM International, Lettre International, M-Museum Leuven, Monopol, Ruhr­ triennale, and Zeit Online. Selected portraits are held in the Art Collection of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin.

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Victoria Fleury is a doctoral candidate in the PhD program Media History of Arts at the University of Zurich. After completing her master of arts in art history and history with a thesis on Claude Monet’s sketchbooks, she is now working on a dissertation focusing on the role of graphic reproductions in the reception of Monet’s paintings. She specializes in drawings and photography of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as in the topics of memory, archival practices, and challenges brought on by new technologies. In addition to her studies, she has worked as teaching and research assistant in the History of Fine Arts department at the University of Zurich and curated exhibitions as collection assistant for the contemporary art museum Kunst(Zeug)Haus in Switzerland. She is currently a visiting researcher at The Huntington Library and the Getty  Research Institute in California. Jadwiga Kamola is an art historian and independent curator focusing on the history of collections, science, of photography. She studied art history and English at the universities in Freiburg, Berlin, and Dublin. In 2015, she received her PhD from the Heidelberg Excellence Cluster “Asia and Europe in a Global Context” for her work on Portraits of Patients in the Nineteenth Century: Between Art, Medicine and Physiognomy. Most recently, Jadwiga Kamola has worked at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz where she realized and curated exhibitions like Alchemy. The Great Art, and Artist Complex. Photographic Portraits of Artists from Baselitz to Warhol. Platen Collection. She hosted the symposium Artist Complex. Images of Artists in TwentiethCentury Photography, which laid the foundation for the present volume. Jadwiga Kamola writes, curates, and lectures on, among others, socially engaged strategies of curating. Weronika Kobylińska-Bunsch is an art historian who works at the Institute of Art History at the University of Warsaw. She is the deputy editor-in-chief of the international journal Daguerreotype: Studies in the History and Theory of Photography. Her doctoral research was devoted to the problem of defining the term “avant-garde” in the context of Central European photography. She also holds a diploma from the Association of Polish Art Photographers. Recently, the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw published her book about Polish National Photography Exhibitions (1952–1962). She was the recipient of scholarships financed by the Humboldt University of Berlin, the Foundation for Polish Science (“START”), the De Brzezie Lanckoronski Foundation, and the Polish Minister of Culture and National Heritage.

List of contributors

Constance Krüger studied art history and gender studies at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Jagiellonian University in Cracow. Her master’s thesis addressed self-portraits of the Polish artist Zofia Kulik. After her studies she worked as a curatorial assistant for the exhibition project Side by Side: Poland – Germany; A 1000 Years of Art and History (2011–2012), Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin. From October 2018 to April 2020 Constance worked as a research associate at the Chair of Art History of Eastern Europe at Humboldt University. Currently she is a member of the research group Gender Politics and the Art of European Socialist States (2019–2020), a project supported by the Getty Foundation. Constance has been a PhD candidate in the DFG Research Training Group Knowledge in the Arts at Berlin University of the Arts with a project on Polish women artists of the 1970s. Her research focuses on Eastern and Central European modern and contemporary art, in particular on gender issues. Nadja Köffler is an editor and professor for arts education at the University College for Education Edith Stein (Stams) who has worked on media ethics, gender, and photography as well as visual education. She is currently teaching in the field of visual studies and gaze theory at the Faculty of Human Sciences at the University of Innsbruck and was a guest lecturer at the Faculty of Arts at Beit Berl College (Israel). She holds an MA in media studies and cultural studies and a PhD in educational studies from the University of Innsbruck and was a student at the Ostkreuz School for Photography in Berlin. Köffler has served as a visiting scholar at Hebrew University (Israel), Beit Berl College (Israel), KU University (South-Korea) and Concordia University (Canada). Her research has been supported and awarded by various institutions and foundations such as the Austria-Israel-Academic Network, the Förderkreis 1669, the Gerda-Weiler-Stiftung, and the European Educational Research Association. In 2018 Köffler was awarded the Emerging Scholar Award at the Hong Kong Baptist University (China) by The Image Research Network. Wilma Scheschonk studied art history and media studies at the universities of Oldenburg, Santiago de Chile, and Hamburg. As an award recipient of the City of Hamburg she carried out research at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich on the topic of Force in Artists. Limitations and Transgressions in their Economics of Artistry since the Early Modern Age. From September 2018 this project evolved into her doctoral thesis, supervised by Prof. Dr. Frank Fehrenbach, and was continued at the SFB Helden – Heroisierungen – Heroismen at the University of Freiburg and the DFG-Kolleg-For­ schungsgruppe Imaginaries of Force at the University of Hamburg. Wilma Scheschonk’s master’s thesis titled “Intermedialität im Fotobuch Los últimos Dias de Franco vistos en TVE, 1975” was awarded first prize in 2017 by the board of the friends and patrons of the Art History Institute in Hamburg.

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Emily Watlington is assistant editor at Art in America. Previously, she has held positions as Fulbright Scholar and curatorial research assistant at the MIT List Visual Arts Center. She has also taught in the Department of Architecture at MIT. Her work as a critic and curator of contemporary art focuses primarily on video and media art, often through the lenses of affect theory, feminist theory, and disability studies. She holds a SMArchS in the history, theory, and criticism of architecture and art from MIT and has given talks at a number of institutions including the University of California, Berkeley; Rhode Island School of Design; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; and Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid. Her art criticism has appeared in numerous publications including Artforum, Mousse, Frieze, Another Gaze, and The Journal of Curatorial Studies. Her essays have been translated into German, French, and Croatian. Recently, she contributed to the exhibition catalogues Before Projection: Video Sculpture 1974–1995, Sheida Soleimani: Medium of Exchange, and An Inventory of Shimmers: Objects of Intimacy in Contemporary Art. In 2018, she received the Vera List Writing Prize in the Visual Arts. Gerd Zillner is an art historian and works as head archivist, curator, and senior researcher at the Austrian Frederick and Lillian Kiesler Private Foundation in Vienna. His research focuses on architectural history, biography studies, artistic networks, and the role of artists’ estates. He has (co)curated several exhibitions including Frederick Kiesler: Architect, Artist, Visionary at the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin (2017). He has also (co)edited several books on Kiesler, including Frederick Kiesler: Face to Face with the Avant-Garde, Essays on Network and Impact (Basle: Birkhäuser, 2019). Together with Spyros Papapetros, Princeton University, he is currently working on the edition of Frederick Kiesler’s unpublished book manuscript Magic Architecture: The Story of Human Housing, for which they received a Graham Foundation Grant.