ENGLISH VERSION

ISBN 978-2-84940-054-8

rhinoceros jr

no3

rhinocéro

s jr n°3

tout vo

ir (en

glish

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tout voir

Rhino 3 Couverture English_CARNET Venti 03/03/10 12:32 Page1

this notebook can be found at :librairie serge plantureux 4, galerie vivienne (5, rue de la banque)75002 paris, france33 1 53 29 92 00

r h ino j r 3 1

ISBN 978-2-84940-054-8

Rhino 3 Gardes ENGLISH_CARNET Venti 03/03/10 12:34 Page1

rhinoceros jr no3

tout voir - view all

RHINOCÉROS jr

tout voirc’est tout conquérir

Librairie Serge Plantureux4 Galerie Vivienne

March 2009

Prelude: Night at the Museum

Total Recall

Synoptic Table

Framing a Century

Ekphrasis

CSI / the Experts

“Enneameron” or the Great Inventory

“Voir, c'est avoir, allons courir, Vie errante Est chose enivrante.Voir, c'est avoir, allons courir, Car tout voir c'est tout conquérir”

(To view is to have, let us runLife on the move isAn exhilarating thing.To view is to have, let us runFor to view everything is victory)

(Pierre-Jean de Béranger, Les Bohémiens, 1812)

Cov. : Louis Neurdein (1846-1915). Chimera, Notre Dame, ca. 1889The Stryge (Strix gargoyle) installed by Viollet-le-Duc was photographed byCharles Nègre (1820-1880) and etched by Charles Meryon (1821-1868),the Chimera, by Neurdein and Marie Danse (1866-1842), respectively.

Half title : H. Blancart, Portrait, trial platinum print, 1890

Jean-Baptiste Gros (1793-1870), Salon of the Baron Gros, ca. 1854

French calotypist, The Photographer’s Dog, ca. 1855

6 7

Night at the Museum

Béranger’s contemporaries were quite taken by the ideathat the Gypsies could find satisfaction in the simplepossession by sight of places and things. To the contrary, the erapreferred the refrain “grow richer”, based on the idea thatproperty equals happiness. All of this took place nearly 200years ago during a period of dramatic historical evolution: oneworld was giving up its place to a new system.

Tout voir, c’est tout conquérir (To view everything is victory).Another meaning appeals to memory. Complete amnesia is asort of blindness, a lack of control, for an individual or for asociety. Partial memory, revised memory, constrained memory– these correspond with as many imperfect situations.

Since a group of inventions that began withphotography, mankind has had at its disposal new possibilitiesfor recording stories, real or fictional. One by one, societiesadopted the still or moving images of photography and cinema,invented by scientists and artists, as their preferred method ofrepresentation. The presence of science aroused the seeminglyage old debate: is photography an art?

The crisis worsened in 1857. Alfred-Emilien, the Earlof Nieuwerkerke, refused to allow the work of photographers inthe Salon des Beaux-Arts. His decision was soon followed, andfor a long time, by the majority of such institutions.

One had to wait 151 years before seeing, in 2008, twoexhibits appease and close the debate – one, organized by theLouvre, was devoted to the question of Delacroix confrontedwith the invention of photography, the other, by theMetropolitan Museum of Art, presented the work of 13 artistswhose ability and tenacity in producing visual masterpiecesdemand admiration. Following the example of the Londonexhibit Printing and the Mind of Man, which celebrated fivecenturies of printed books right at the moment when thetypographic tradition was fading away, the New York exhibitFraming a Century coincided with the disappearance ofphotography on paper and the very notion of a negative.

In a tentative retrospective analysis of the long nightthat the study and exhibition of photographic images endured,we observe two major reoccurring setbacks: the difficulty ofclassifying collections whose themes extend beyond localhistory, and the difficulty of choosing and describing a originalprints among the intimidating quantity that exists.

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Total Recall

Censorship of words, as old as writing itself, has beenused to justify many burnings at the stake and auto-da-fés, butthe censorship of images has even provoked famous wars.The most authoritarian regimes are the most attentive inmaintaining amnesia and prohibiting the circulation of certainimages, but no regimes restrictions on visual matter matchedthose of theocracies.

In the Oriental Empire and in the Occident, thecomplete destruction and disavowal of all images lasted only ahundred years, until the Iconodules conquered the Iconoclastsin 787, but the codes governing representation would remainstrict until the Italian Renaissance.

Federico Zeri explains the phenomenon in a singlesentence: “During the ten centuries that followed the fall of theOccidental Roman Empire … the social upheaval, the wars of thethird century and the religions based on mystery and eschatology thathad be imported from the Orient provoked a reorientation of figurativeart-making towards styles that were more and more symbolic,[eventually] abandoning objective description of the reality based uponsight and touch.” (Zeri, Le Mythe visuel de l’Italie, p. 7)

Artists experiment with new techniques. Wood block printing doesnot really allow for corrections. Around 1550, Titien asked hisprintmaker, Niccoló Boldrini, to improve the face of SaintSebastian.

1110

In the mid-1980s, the librarians of the New YorkPublic Library were divided as whether to integrate books ofphotographs in the main stacks or to confine them to a separatedepartment. Could the author of a series of photographicimages be given the same status of “author” in the catalog asthe writer of the preface? Twenty years later, while librarianssend their surplus books to the shredder in the name ofdigitizing, the NYPL serves as the backdrop of a catastrophemovie (The Day After Tomorrow, 2005), in which the survivorsof a sudden change of climate chose, after bitter discussion, notto burn a copy of the Gutenberg Bible.

But alphabetic cataloging of photographers who havepublished books does not suffice for organizing the enormousvisual heritage left by two centuries of trials and photographicpractice any more than the naturally egocentric chronologicalclassifications of studios (by numbering negatives) or agencies(by date of publication).

More general models are tobe found in the history of collectionsof books and prints, such as postagestamps.

The repercussion of the advances and inventions ofItalian artists during the Trecento and Quattrocento periodsinspired the pride of all Italians. They would adopt and retainthis style of representation of their world and landscape for overfive centuries.

“The fact is that the cycle that had been inaugurated at theend of the 14th century and prolonged by the discovery of linearperspective reached its close only after the Second World War … Thedescription of Italy and Italians according to objective criteria had notdisappeared however; its form of expression was no longer painting butthe cinema. The transition from one to the other followed a processwhose steps are not easy to identify … the essential aspects of neorealismare defined in Ossessione by Luchino Visconti” (Ibid., p. 142).

Should we see, in this pride of the Italians for their styleof representation born with the Renaissance, their reticence toconsider photography? Today, images both still and animated,photographic and cinematographic, have invaded our universalcultural space.

This adoption of the language of photography forrepresenting individuals’ internal landscapes and fantasies hasaccompanied a brutal divorce with their printed books.

Justin Lallier, Album-contemporain, 1866

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anonymous artists; vii, portraits; viii, sculpture andarchitecture; ix, antiquities; x, ceremonies; xi, the arts ingeneral; xii, drawings.

Heinecken’s system is still, today, the basis of theorganization of the rich collection of the Department of Printsand Photographs in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

12

In an effort to improve upon the tradition of the monkcopyists, Conrad Gessner (1516-1565) suggested a newmethod for the organization of books in his Catalogus omniumScriptorum of 1545, proposing alphabetical classification byauthor combined with an organization by format and theme(theology and philosophy).

One had to wait more than two centuries, until the year1771, before that the first mortal risked proposing a generalclassification plan for prints.

Born into a family of polyglot savants and artists, CarlHeinrich von Heinecken (1706-1791) had spent many yearsputting in order the collections of the Count of Brühl, whosepassion for paintings eclipsed his attention for his role as PrimeMinister of Saxony to the point of provoking the invasion andpartial destruction of the city of Dresden, including some of hisfamous collection.

Heinecken keeps the alphabetical classification (whenone has the artist’s name at his disposal), but proposes 12categories for the general organization of the prints: i,collections with multiple authors; ii, the Italian School; iii, theFrench School; iv, the Dutch and Flemish Schools; v, Englishprints; vi, the German School, with a subsection for

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Charles Nègre.Entrance of theLouvre ImperialLibrary, 1855.The libraryand its contentswould burnduring thebloody week, the night ofMay 23rd,1871 (01.2)

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Under the Second Empire, the Emperor’s albums werekept along side the prints, paintings and sculptures at theBibliothèque Impériale, housed at the time in the Palais deLouvre. It was therefore in this symbolic place that SylvieAubenas, director of the department of prints and photography,inaugurated the first colloquium by the museum devoted tophotographs: Les peintres à l’épreuve de l’invention, 1840-1860.(Painters confronted with invention, 1840-1860). One thenrealized that the greatest artists of the time had well studied,understood and perceived what was to come: “Thursday,November 24th 1853. Walk in the Galerie Vivienne in the evening,where I saw photographs in a bookshop. What caught my eye wasRubens’ Raising of the Cross, and it particularly interested me : theimperfections, now that they are no longer hidden by the technique orthe color, are more visible. The sight, or rather the memory of myemotion in front of that masterpiece have kept me occupied the rest of theevening, in a charming way.” (Eugène Delacroix, Journal, ed.Corti, page 714). It is the imperfections, the differences, andtherefore the possibilities of the new medium that interest theartist, who would explore them with the help of his friendDurieu in a remarkable series of sketches of nudes. The historyof photography finds its natural starting point.

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The chronological classification does not have a greaterimportance than the geographic one, and vice versa. Mostimportantly, one must keep in mind the simplest two-dimensional mnemonic reference.

The model is composed of 9 large periods (1 to 9) andof 18 large regions (01 to 18). This gives us a systematic ofperiodic table of 162 cells for the organization of all prints,even those by anonymous or yet unidentified photographers.

This system favors the establishment of whateconomists call instantaneous or synchronic cuts for thecomparison of what is happening at a given moment indifferent parts of the world. Following the other axis,longitudinal or dynamic cuts give time-based series that describethe succession of “schools” in a given territory.

A region is defined as a place of creation rather than anadministrative territory described by a passport. The work ofone photographer may belong to multiple regions, providingthat he or she spent significant time in each. Raoul Haussmannmade photographs in Germany (region 06) until 1933, then inSpain (07), Prague (04) and, finally, in France (01). He wasborn with an Austrian passport, but remained country-lessafter 1946 until obtaining German citizenship in 1968.

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Synoptic Table

The general idea for the organization of a collection ofphotographic prints that we suggest here is the fruit of manyhours of empirical study divided among the exchange ofmaterial evidence, discussion of interpretations and comparisonof prints. Ignoring the subjects of the images, this model wasbuilt upon authors, identified by their name or simply by theircondition (e.g., Street photographers in Bogotá, Belgiansoldiers during WWI, Freetown Doctors), and proposes tosituate them in a general, two-dimensional classification byplace and time. The axes of such a model must be elasticbecause, depending on the countries, photographic practicesfound their public at slightly different moments, althoughalways close to and locatable in a general historical chronology,one that is less rigid that that of local histories. For example,nations enter into wars at different moments. Likewise, therange a nation’s territory may vary from one era to another, asone observes in the case of Poland or the Ottoman Empire.What historian Stefan Zweig calls history’s “decisive moments”,such as the discovery of gold in California (1848) or the arrivalof Lenin’s leaded train car in Petrograd (1917), have informedthe definition of the periods.

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1st period: 1789-1848, The Age of Revolution and Invention,Niépce, Talbot, Daguerre, Bayard, Morse, Petzval, Girault,Gros, Goupil-Fesquest and the proto-photographers.2nd: 1848-1870, The Age of Capital, and the “Golden Age ofPhotography”, Le Gray, Fenton, Marville, Nadar, Cameron,Watkins, daguerreotypes, calotypes, collodion process.3rd: 1865-1875, The Crisis of Capitalism, invasion of Mexico,Civil War, unification of Italy, Siege and Commune of Paris.4th: 1875-1914, The Age of Empires, Bulla, De Meyer, Coburn,Stieglitz, Steichen, Atget, Kodak and pictorialist schools.5th: 1914-1918(-22), WWI, Russian and Mexican revolutions,military use of photography, Steichen.6th: 1920s and 30s, The Age of the Avant-Gardes, film,photomontage, Man Ray, Evans, Cartier-Bresson, Hausmann.7th: (1933-)1939-1945, WWII, preceded by the terror inGermany and the USSR and by the Spanish Civil War, RobertCapa, Lee Miller, Cartier-Bresson, Lisette Model.8th: 1945-1991, reconstructions, decolonizations, people’sdemocracies, Robert Frank, Robert Doisneau, photo clubs.9th: since 1991, The Age of Digital Photography. The materialphotography that had been part of all of the fundamentalinventions of the 19th and 20th centuries becomes obsolete.

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Likewise, the time periods correspond with creativeperiods, as for schools of painting, which always end abruptly.The crises preceding wars and revolutions profoundlytransform cultural expression and representation, as well asindustrial production and exchange. The dire crisis ofEuropean capitalism in 1865 paved the way for the closing ofmany Parisian photography studios, which was accelerated bythe Siege and the Commune of Paris, and closed with thedisappearance of millions of daguerreotypes (a source of metal).Since the beginning of the 19th century, several countries haveknown synchronous periods of development (black and evennumbers) that alternated with violent and destructive crises (redand odd). To clarify the nine periods, we will borrow severaltitles (in italics) from the Egyptian–born British historian EricJohn Hobsbawn, inventor of the concept of the “Long NinetiethCentury, 1789-1914” and the “Short Twentieth Century, 1914-1991”. A photographer’s work many span several periods fromthe table. The aerial views that Edward Steichen produced forthe Allied Forces during WWI (.4) are very different from hisphotogravures that had been published shortly before (.3) inCamera Work. Passionate students of the work of Cartier-Bresson instantly recognize its period of origin (.5, .6 or .7).

2120

Marc Chagall teaches his new art to the younger generations,Vitebsk, Belarus, summer of 1918 (08.5)

08, European and Asian Russia, immense territories,photography beginning in 1839 (Hamel, 08.1), Bulla, pioneersof soviet photography, Rodtchenko, Shaïkhet, Smelov.09, North America, USA, Canada, the region of the worldmost attached to photography’s developments, beginning inthe 1st period with Samuel Morse (09.1).

The idea of dividing our planet into 18 “photographic”regions was clarified over the course of travels and collectionvisits, and with an intuition for the photographs to bediscovered, more numerous and varied than those that arealready reproduced in textbooks. The photographs of a Finnishexplorer unable to leave the Kamchatka because of the OctoberRevolution will be classed in the region 06.01, 1st region: French collection, Niépce and Daguerre (01.1),and the masters of the 2nd and 6th periods.02, British Collection, WHF Talbot, many calotypes followingthe expiration of his patent, Fenton, Cameron.03, Italy, whose sunlit landscape was so attractive tophotographers such as McPherson, Anderson, Flacheron,Normand ; Caneva, Alinari, Bragaglia, Giacomelli, Secchiaroli.04, Spain and Portugal, both with periods singularly out ofsync with the others because of he isolation and politicalhistory of the peninsula, Clifford, Capa.05, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Petzval inVienna (03.1), particularly long periods of crisis (.3, .5, .7).06, Eastern part of Europe, Hungary, Poland, Baltic countries,Bułhak, Moï Ver, Sudek, Drtikol, Tmej, Reichmann (06.8)07, Northern Europe, Scandinavia.

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15, China, Tonkin, J. Thomson, Saunders, Gsell, Bérenger.16, Japan and the Koreas, school of Yokohama.17, Africa and the Pacific, circumnavigators, Houzé (17.2),colonial administrators, Cardoso, Thomann (.4), Sidibé (.8).18, the extreme zones, the Poles, Iceland and Greenland.Finally, photographs of the infinitesimally small or the cosmoscan be grouped in a category 19, and those still beingidentified and, thus, in uncertain territory, under the code 00.

Angel Paganelli (1832-1928),Fachada de la casa donde se

declaró la Independencia. Housewhere the Argentinean declaration

of independence was signed,Tucuman, 1872 (the building wasdestroyed two years later) (11.2)

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10, Mexico, whose photographic chronology is remarkablysimilar to that of Russia, Aubert, Casasola, Modotti, Bravo.11, South America, Cuba, Panama, Colombia, Argentina,Baron Gros trained young daguerreotypists in the Andes.12, Brazil, which claims Hercule Florence (12.1)13, The Orient, from the Mediterranean to Persia, from Greeceand Cyprus to Egypt, where Frédéric Goupil-Fesquet “took thefirst photograph in the presence of the Sultan the 7th of November,1839, at 10.30 in the morning”, Gros, Girault, Greene.14, India, where quite early British officers were encouragedpractice the calotype, Linneaus Tripe.

Eustachio Montoya.Entrada triunfalen la Ciudad deMéxico. TropaZapatista en elfamoso Sanborns.Zapata lieutenantsdiscover the ways ofa restaurant, 1914(10.5)

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The synoptic table allows us to situate each project inthe spectrum of possibilities. In the scope of a thematicexhibition, the sequence of images corresponds to a particularform, made by linking otherwise isolated points.

On the following page is an example of howphotographs may be placed in the table. It is constructed usinginformation for the works of the 13 photographers in theMetropolitan Museum of Art’s show Framing a Century, whichinclude 5 periods and 6 regions. Placed in the proposed model,the exhibit spans periods 2 to 6 and includes works principallyfrom zones 01, 07, and 09. World War II erupts in 05.7 witha striking photograph by Cartier-Bresson. The Orient isrepresented in 13.2 with a composition by Gustave Le Gray.

“Although the history of photography is often recounted as aseries of scientific and technological advancements, this exhibition tellsthe story of photography’s first century through the work of thirteenartists who helped shape the aesthetic and expressive course of themedium. They made their mark not only by mastering the chemistryand optics of photography but also by bringing to their work a sense ofpoetry, formal complexity, visual experimentation, or innovative subjectmatter” (Curators’ preface to the exhibition).

Program for publicationsOne of the first applications of our synoptic table will

be the organization of small-format publications, published asthe “Carnets de Rhinocéros jr”, or the “Rhinocéros jrNotebooks”, which present the work of a single professional oramateur photographer, famous or unknown, but a unity of timeand space in the table. More than 50 titles have already beenpublished, many with the collaboration with schools,universities, museums and private collections.

Wright Morris (09.8)

Mrs Knox (13.4)

Ludvik Soucek (16.7)

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Malcolm Daniel, Curator in charge, Department ofPhotographs, has authorized us to reproduce the complete listof works that were exposed in Framing a Century, MastersPhotographers for which no printed trace currently exists.

William Henry Fox Talbot, 1800–1877 (02.1)

Botanical Specimen, ca. 1835The Oriel Window, South Gallery, Lacock Abbey, probably 1835Bookcase at Lacock Abbey, 1839Winter Trees, Reflected in a Pond, 1841–42The Open Door, April 1844Articles of Glass, 1841–44Bust of Patroclus, August 9, 1843The Boulevards at Paris, May–June 1843Cathedral at Orléans, June 21, 1843The Tomb of Sir Walter Scott, in Dryburgh Abbey, 1844Loch Katrine Pier, Scene of the Lady of the Lake, October 1844Plymouth from Mt. Edgcumbe, September 1845Fruit Sellers, ca. 1845Dandelion Seeds, 1858 or later; photogravureThe Pencil of Nature, 1844–46A Scene in a Library, 1841–44

01.2

le graynadar

marvillebaldus

02.1

talbot

01.6

hcbman raybrassaï

05.7

hcb

09.2

watkins

01.4

atget

02.2

fentoncameron

09.6

evans

13.2

le gray

08.2

fenton

04.6

hcb

10.6

hcb

time

space

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Nadar, 1820–1910 (01.2)

Seated Model, Partially Draped, 1856–59Standing Female Nude, ca. 1855Théophile Gautier; Jules Janin, both, ca. 1856Eugène Pelletan, 1855–59Gioacchino Rossini, March 1856Pierre-Luc-Charles Cicéri, 1855–60Catacombs, Paris, April 1862Nadar with His Wife, Ernestine, in a Balloon, ca. 1865Self-Portrait in American Indian Costume, 1863Alexandre Dumas, November 1855Pierrot Laughing, 1855 (with his brother Adrien Tournachon)Pierrot Running, 1854–55 (with his brother Adrien Tournachon)

Julia Margaret Cameron, 1815–1879 (02.2)

Kate Keown; Philip Stanhope Worsley, both, 1866Sir John Herschel, April 1867Christabel, 1866Zoe, Maid of Athens, 1866Sappho, 1865The Mountain Nymph Sweet Liberty, 1866After Perugino. The Annunciation, 1865–66Déjatch Alámayou, King Theodore’s Son, July 1868Alfred, Lord Tennyson, July 4, 1866The Parting of Lancelot and Guinevere, 1874Mrs. Herbert Duckworth, 1867

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Roger Fenton, 1819–1869 (02.2/08.2)

South Front of the Kremlin from the Old Bridge, 1852Wharfe and Pool, below the Strid, 1854Landing Place, Railway Stores, Balaklava, 1855Roslin Chapel, South Porch, 1856Falls of the Llugwy, at Pont-y-Pair, 1857Salisbury Cathedral—The Nave, from the South Transept, 1858Still Life with Fruit, 1860Landscape with Clouds, probably 1856Reclining Odalisque, 1858Self-Portrait, February 1852Rievaulx Abbey, the High Altar, 1854

Carleton Watkins, 1829–1916 (09.2)

“Grizzly Giant,” Mariposa Grove, California, 1861The Town on the Hill, New Almaden, 1863Sweat House, 1863Cape Horn near Celilo, 1867View on the Columbia, Cascades, 1867Multnomah Falls, Oregon, 1867San Francisco, from California and Powell Streets, 1864Looking Up Among the Sugar Pines—Calaveras Grove, 1878Devil’s Canyon, Geysers, Looking Down, 1868–70Strait of Carquennes, from South Vallejo, 1868–69

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Édouard Baldus, 1813–1889 (01.2)

Château of Princess Mathilde, Enghien, 1854–55Entrance to the Port of Boulogne, 1855Group at the Château de la Faloise, 1857Imperial Library of the Louvre, 1856–57Lyon during the Floods of 1856, June 1856Pont en Royans, ca. 1859Tunnel, Vienne, ca. 1861“The Monk,” La Ciotat, ca. 1861Cloister of Saint-Trophîme, Arles, ca. 1861“Eagle’s Beak,” La Ciotat, ca. 1861

Eugène Atget, 1857–1927 (01.4/01.6)

Organ-grinder, 1898–99Versailles, The Orangerie Staircase, 1901Water Lilies, 1910 or earlier15, rue Maître-Albert, 1912Ville d’Avray, 1923–25Saint-Cloud, July 1921Versailles, 1923Versailles, 1923Rue Asselin, 1924–25Avenue des Gobelins, 1925Avenue des Gobelins, 1927Rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Geneviève, 1924

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Gustave Le Gray, 1820–1884 (01.2/13.2)

Oak Tree and Rocks, Forest of Fontainebleau, 1849–52Mission héliographique, Remparts, Carcassonne, 1851Forest of Fontainbleau, ca. 1856Tree Study, Forest of Fontainebleau, ca. 1856Brig on the Water, 1856Cavalry Maneuvers, Camp de Châlons, 1857Imperial Yacht of Reine Hortense, Le Havre, 1856Temple of Edfu, Égypte 1867The Great Wave, Sète, 1857Nude, ca. 1856Portrait of Gustave Le Gray, 1854 (with Alphonse de Launay)Mediterrannean Sea at Sète, 1857

Charles Marville, 1816–1879 (01.2)

Man Lying beneath a Chestnut Tree, 1850–53Allegorical Sculpture of Industry, Pont du Carrousel, 1852South Portal, Chartres Cathedral, 1854Cloud Study with the Dome of the Invalides, 1855–56The Mummified Cat (Found in the Excavations ofRue de Constantine - Impasse Briare, 1860sRue Estienne, from the rue Boucher, 1862–65Cour Saint-Guillaume, ca. 1865Arts et Métiers (Ancien Modèle), 1877The Bièvre River near the Gobelins, ca. 1865

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Man Ray, 1890–1976 (01.6)

Woman, 1918Marcel Duchamp, ca. 1920Jean Cocteau; Kiki Drinking, both, 1922Barbette Dressing, ca. 1926Marcel Proust on His Death Bed, 1922Frames from Emak Bakia, 1927Rayograph, 1923–28Jacqueline Goddard; Male Torso, both, 1930Arm, ca. 1935The Model, ca. 1933

Brassaï, 1899–1984 (01.6)

Pont Marie, Île Saint-Louis, 1930–32A Pillar of the Corvisard Metro, 1945Rainy Day on the Champs Elysées, 1931; Rain in Paris, ca. 1931Morris Column in the Fog; Lesbian Couple at the Monocle, both, 1932Big Albert’s Gang, Place d’Italie, 1931–32Introductions at Suzy’s, 1932-1933Street Fair, Boulevard St. Jacques, Paris, 1931Kiki and Her Accompanist, Cabaret des Fleurs, ca. 1932A Vagrant Sleeping in Marseille, 1935Nude, 1931–34Involuntary Sculpture (from a Retarded Person), 1932Graffiti, Paris, 1944–45 ; Plane Tree, Paris, 1945La rue Quincampoix and its hôtels de passe, 1933

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Walker Evans, 1903–1975 (09.6)

East River, New York City, 1929Torn Movie Poster, 1931Votive Candles, New York City, 1929–30Bedford Village, Westchester County, New York, 1931Coal Dock Worker, 1933Room at Louisiana Plantation House, March 1935Negro Church, South Carolina, 1936Alabama Tenant Farmer, 1936Kitchen Corner, Tenant Farmhouse, Hale County, Alabama, 1936Billboard, Birmingham, Alabama, 1936Subway Passenger, New York, 1938–41Penny Picture Display, Savannah, 1936

Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1908–2004 (01.6/04.6/05.7/10.6)

Allée du Prado, Marseilles, 1932Hyères, France, 1932Quai St. Bernard, Paris, 1932Valencia, Spain, 1933Barrio Chino, Barcelona, 1933Andalusia, Spain, 1933Santa Clara, Mexico, 1934Seville, 1933Sunday on the Banks of the Marne, 1936–38Dessau, Germany, 1945Calle Cuauhtemoctzin, Mexico City, 1934

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The dangerous ambiguity of the use of the word‘photography’ remains to be addressed : it is not a question ofimages, but of prints. When describing books, no one confusesa first edition Rimbaud with the latest paperback version.Photography is at once so fascinating and so unsettling thatmany – alas ! often experts and historians – still lose their waysomewhere between the image and its support.

When organizing the famous and singular MissionPhotographique de la DATAR, 1982, modern echo of the MissionHéliographique, 1851, Bernard Latargé negotiated an agreementwith the twelve artists: the proofs and the mock ups of thecatalogue and the exhibition, as well as the first edition of thecatalog and the works exhibited, would be deposited at theBNF ; the negatives would remain in the hands of the artistsand their families who would be able to negotiate theirprinting rights with art publishers during the legal period.

The national collection contains the project’s materialelements and the original prints, meaning the sketch andoriginal elements of the work. Successive editions have beendeveloped commercially. On one hand, one finds that whichpreceded and represented the project, on the other, that whichfollowed it.

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Ekphrasis

Ekphrasis, the detailed description of inanimate works,was elevated to the level of an art by the Greeks Theon,Hermogenes and Aphthonius (Paula Hershkowicz, 2009), andto that of a science by the Moderns, studied by the tree ordersof collection guardians: librarians, collectors and antiquarianbooksellers (La Fontaine-Verwey, 1966).

Describing every print has no more sense than thedesperate quest of the keepers of the little-understood books ofthe library of Babel (Borges, 1941). A simple code with thename or the station of the author will avoid reproducing theirdiscouragement.

The sustained concentration of ekphrasis is reserved forprints destined for exhibitions, or for the three other vitalfunctions of a collection: education, research and publication(if access is permitted to students, researchers and publishers).Keeping the company of the originals in the silence of a studycarries the spirit of youth “beyond the tumult of all existing things”(Potocki, 1788); the confrontation of two prints by the samephotographer is the base of all research that merits this name;a large diffusion was the wish from the very beginning of theinventors themselves.

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CSIOnly recently, researchers armed with strange machines

have entered the doors of museums and foundations. Theypropose procedures for material analysis that allow to seeeverything, even beyond the visible. Dusan Stulik and ArtKaplan explore what can be observed at the two extremities ofthe electromagnetic band: infrared waves are used to describethe plant-derived components of the glues and varnishes of aprint’s surface, and x-rays, to identify the metal ions that arefundamental to the photographic process. Without overridinggood sense, Nil sapientiae odiosius acumine nimio (Poe, ThePurloined Letter), the measures allow for the detection andprevention of deterioration of photographic chemistry andsupport material. This research is the basis for a new manner ofresolving the emotionalconflicts that surround thequalification and appraisalof photographic prints ofgreat commercial value.

Court artist. Searching thepond on the Landru property,April 29th, 1909 (01.4)

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Portrait of Sergeant Gabriel, parisian hospital, April 29th, 1909 (01.4)

catalog nine (2007) catalog eight (2008)38

“Enneameron” or the Great Inventory The great pleasure of a collection lies in its choices, inits absences, in its juxtapositions. We will publish 3 series of 3catalogs, each presenting a potential exhibition organizedaround 9 subjects, the first 3 being classic, even academic,followed by the “Braudelian” evocation of “The Wheels ofCommerce (les jeux de l’échange)” and, a final group withsubjects relating to the nature of representation.

nine, portraitseight, landscapesseven, still lifes

six, the exchange of material goodsfive, the commerce of illusionsfour, the discrete charm of finance

three, the “reality” of photojournaliststwo, the “truth” of artistsone, images born of pure light

Does photography posses grace?

Each matrix-based catalog is itself organized into ninedays. The works correspond to various zones on the synoptictable and are organized according to their resonances. Theyplot an underlying form that one can trace in this model oftime and place.

This description emphasizes their raison d’être: personalresearch, private use, publication, social control, propaganda,or exhibition. Opportunistic reproductions and “art prints”,while not being totally absent from the catalogs, are presentonly as examples of some of the many functions thatphotography serves.

For, to respond to Minister Nieuwerkerke, photographyis much more than an art.

qui

who

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where

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what

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how much

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why

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how

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when

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which

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sixseven, for publication in 2009

Boris Alexandrovitch Koudryakov(1946-2005). Burning Still Life,Leningrad Underground, 1972 (08.8)

Being identified.Advertisement for a

magazine, prior to “BlackTuesday”, United States,

1929 (09.6)

four

Nadar (1820-1910)Caricature of thebanker Lafitte.Original drawing inhis Panthéon style.Nadar made it for hisown banker, Mr.Millaud, ca. 1854.In 1818, JacquesLafitte (1767-1844)saved Paris fromfinancial crisis bybuying a large amountof stock. (01.2)

five

Proposed cover for catalog five on desires, “Why?”Luis Buñuel (1900-1983). Still from “Un Chien andalou”(An Andalusian Dog), Paris, 1929 (01.6)

45three ...

Karl Karlovitch Bulla(1855-1929)Lenin descends from thediplomatically-sealed trainno. 293 to the sounds ofthe “Marseillaise”,Petrograd, April 3rd (16th)1917 (unpublished, 08.5)

A year of power later:Lenin would remaindiminished after an

assassination attempt byFanny Kaplan on August30th, 1918. This vintageprint from a Chicago newsagency has the penciledcropping instructions forthe photoengraver: cut out

the wheelchair.(08.5)

one

Ludwig Böhm, Flux of Electrons, Prague, 1913 (05.4)

two

Camille Corot (1796-1875). Original cliché-verre, Barbizon, 1860Acting directly upon the negative, the artist’s hand replaces the role of thelight in its creation. (01.2)

The text of this 3rd edition of Rhinocéros jr. was completedon the 20th of January, 2009, a day memorable forthe Inauguration of the American President

Barack Hussein Obama.

In Europe, this notebook can be found atLibrairie Serge Plantureux4, Galerie Vivienne75002 Paris

Eugene Bullard, first black pilot, Verdun, October 1917 (01.5)

r h ino j r -3 2

Sources:

Béranger, Pierre-Jean (de), “Les Bohémiens”, 1812.Borges, Jorge Luis, El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan,Buenos Aires: Sur, 1942 (1941).Delacroix, Journal, ed. Michelle Hannousch, Corti, 2009.Fontaine Verwey, H. (de la) and S. van der Woude, Studiabibliographica in honorem Herman de la Fontaine Verwey,Amsterdam: Menno Hertzberger, 1968 (1966).Heinecken, Carl Heinrich von, Idée générale d'une collectioncomplette d'estampes, avec une dissertation sur l'origine de lagravure et sur les premiers livres d'images, Leipsic et Vienne:J. P. Kraus, 1771.Hobsbawm, E. J., The Age of Revolution. Europe 1789-1848, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1962.-- The Age of Capital, 1848-1875, London: Weidenfeld &Nicolson, 1975.-- The Age of Empire, 1875-1914, London: Weidenfeld &Nicolson, 1987.-- Age of Extremes: the short twentieth century, 1914-1991, London: Michael Joseph, 1994.Potocki, Jan, Voyage en Turquie et en Égypte, fait en l'année1784, Paris: Royez, 1788.Zeri, Federico, Le Mythe visuel de l'Italie; trans. fromItalian by Christian Paoloni; Paris: Rivages, 1986.Translation of: La percezione visiva dell'Italia e degliItaliani nella storia della pittura in storia d'Italia (Storiad'Italia, Torino, VI, 1976).Zweig, Stefan, Les Très riches heures de l'humanité; trans.from German by Alzin Hella and Hélène Denis; Paris: P.Belfond, 1989. Translation of: Sternstunden der Menschheit(Leipzig: Insel Verlag, 1927).

Jan Svoboda (1934-1990). First Personal Exhibit,Prague, 1960 (04-8)

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