America and the Tintype
September 19, 2008 - January 4, 2009
International Center of Photography
" One of the most intriguing and little studied forms of nineteenth-century photography is the tintype. Introduced in 1856 as a low-cost alternative to the daguerreotype and the albumen print, the tintype was widely marketed from the 1860s through the first decades of the twentieth century as the cheapest and most popular photographic medium. Because of its ubiquity, the tintype provides a startlingly candid record of the political upheavals that occurred during the four decades following the American Civil War, and the personal anxieties they induced. The tintype studio became a kind of performance space where sitters could act out their personal identities, displaying the tools of their trade, masks and costumes, toys and dolls, stuffed animals, and props of all sorts. This uniquely American medium provides extraordinary insights into the development of national attitudes and characteristics in the formative years of the early modern era. The exhibition, organized by ICP Chief Curator Brian Wallis and guest curator Steven Kasher, includes over 150 remarkable examples of tintypes drawn from the Permanent Collection at ICP."
*I selected this image because of the way it provides a visual example of people, here the photographer and four subjects, having fun with photography, specifically the tintype. This image seemed like a good example of how the "studio became a kind of performance space." Overall, I chose this particular exhibit because of its link to Chapter 3, 'Sweet it is to scan...': personal photographs and popular photographphy by Patricia Holland in Photography: A Critical Introduction by Liz Wells. From the above description, I get the impression that tintypes were a kind of photographic phenomenon in the United States, but nowhere did Holland make a note of them in her account of the history of personal and popular photography.
TWO**
On the Road:
Dave Anderson: Rough Beauty;
Farm Security Administration; Dorthea Lange
September 5, 2008 - November 1, 2008
Museum of Contemporary Photography
"This exhibition is part of a year-long Columbia College-wide celebration of Beat culture and the 50th anniversary of the publication of Jack Kerouac’s novel, On the Road. The centerpiece of this larger project is the display of the original manuscript of On the Road, a 120-foot scroll that Kerouac continuously fed through his typewriter, on view at the College’s Book and Paper Center, 1104 S. Wabash, from October 3 through November 30, 2008. Check the Columbia College Chicago website for program details."
"We have chosen to focus on the philosophical and personal results of travel: learning the difference between the real edges and the ideal, mostly fictional, center of America; discovering the possibility of reinventing the self in transit to and from anywhere; and learning how big this country really is in physical expanse and how very small it can be in individual cultural awareness. These are the central themes of Kerouac’s novel."
"Between 2003 and 2006 David Anderson made over fifty trips to Vidor, Texas, and photographed the town and its residents. This resulted in the book Rough Beauty. Vidor is a small community struggling with issues of extreme poverty and isolation in southeastern Texas. The town is reminiscent of an America unknown to them that unfolded in front of Kerouac, Neil Cassidy, Allan Ginsberg, William Borroughs and the rest of the people in On the Road as they drove and hitch hiked back and forth across it."
**I've chosen this photograph mostly for how, when seen out of context, it seems so unrelated to the work of Dorthea Lange under the Farm Security Administration. I like how this particular exhibit provides a visual pretext of connection between the work of David Anderson and Dorthea Lange. To me, they seem like very different bodies of work, but seen and presented together they are united under the blanket of Jack Kerouac's work in On the Road.
THREE***
Josef Koudelka
Invasion 68 Prague
September 4, 2008 - October 11, 2009
Pace/MacGill Gallery
***I have selected this image simply because of the inclusion of a wristwatch within the frame of the image. I appears to be Kouselka's watch, and it's as if he's making a "Kouselka was here" mark on the photograph. The watch may have been set for whatever time, but within the context of the photograph, it reads as true. To me, it says, this recorded event, or lack of event, occurred exactly at this particular moment in time.
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