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All four exhibits currently at the International Center of Photography are well worth your attention, beginning with the superb oversize chromogenic prints of Atta Kim. These extended exposures on display—ranging from Midtown Manhattan to Buddhist poses in his Mandala series—appear both lush and tantalizing, challenging the visitor to consider various aspects of a scene over time. The endless stream of headlights and taillights on cars racing through the city's avenues as well as the ever-illuminated walk and don't walk signs give rise to the notion that the city's fixed structures remain a steadfast bulwark despite our constant rush in every direction. Meanwhile, the charged sexual energy of various tantric poses in the Mandala series underscore various aspects (and mudras) often misunderstood and mischaracterized in the West. Seeing a couple in certain poses atop a lotus throne rather nicely captures this evanescent notion of what the Tibetans call yab yum. Our fleeting connection with this concept as depicted by Kim perhaps reminds us that everything is transitory. Certainly his "Ice Mao" pictures remind us of that, depicting Mao's head, melting. Also don't miss the many portraits of Tibetan men and women, yet another facet of Kim's multitalented photographic abilities. But it is Kim's superb chromogenic portraits of the Last Supper that seem to get the most visitors' attention in this show, and rightfully so.
Moving downstairs, we pass by the stunning Weegee show for a brief look at Eugène Atget's historic photographs of Paris, augmented with some more recent shots by Christopher Rauschenberg. This show was curated by the George Eastman House, which has many superb Atget prints in its collection. Just as John Stow's Survey of London was an extraordinary encomium of late 16th-century London, so too was Atget's Paris a phenomenal visual account of Paris 300 years after Stow surveyed London. Rauschenberg has brilliantly followed in Atget's footsteps, rephotographing some of Atget's most well-known scenes, documenting how the city of light has certain ageless qualities—in addition to the obvious technological advances.
In the next room, Marianne Brandt's Bauhaus photomontages curated in a show called "Tempo, Tempo" provide a stunning surprise, a great look back at the creative edginess of the Weimar Republic. It's especially interesting to view her work in conjunction with the Dada show at MoMA. (Hot tip: cool off with Il Laboratorio's gelato in MoMA's sculpture garden after you have struggled past all the tourists circling the Dada exhibit vulture-like.)
Finally we come to the Unknown Weegee show, although for those who know his work, some of these prints seem quite familiar. Although ICP has 20,000 Weegee prints in its archive, the great Arthur Fellig was a master photographer of low life, a great depicter of drunks, crooks, B-starlets and the seamier side of life in general. Particularly noteworthy and haunting are images such as "DRUNKS arrested M-20 on Bowery": in his own handwriting written hastily below the image, the child-like scrawl and cross-outs underscore what a marvelous chronicler of human life Weegee was. So busy shooting and cataloguing his images of urban life and its underpinnings, writing this caption perhaps was an afterthought, or at least something for which there was little time or consideration.
"Slumber-time in a mission...it's Christmas" (circa 1942) also brilliantly captures the essence of Weegee's oeuvre: A disheveled man asleep on the floor, hat and shoes aside his head. The man sleeps on the New York World Telegram newspaper, the headline of which screams "YANK FLIERS BLAST REICH," a sharp contrast to the astounding crispness of the tinsel on the Christmas tree in the background. And the casual observer, filled with pity for the man, must also wonder: was this somehow posed? Several prints in the series "Three Women Trampled to Death in Excursion-Ship Stampede" (1941) capture the horrific scene, the grief, the grisliness of the event, as does the infamous event at Luna Park in Coney Island “Fire Destroys the ‘World’s Largest Railway’ at Coney Island,” (1944). Seeing this show—a psycho here, a dead body there, men sleeping in doorways, assorted accidents, and a framed check from Time Inc. for "TWO MURDERS - $35"—one is constantly reminded that the beat photographer's footsteps are quite enormous and impossible to follow in. Perhaps only Berenice Abbott and Helen Levitt came anywhere close to chronicling New York life of decades ago as did Weegee.
(photo: Marianne Brandt, Circus [Zirkus], 1926, © 2005 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn)
Tags:
arthur fellig, atta kim, bauhaus, christopher rauschenberg, dada, eugene atget, icp, international center of photography, marianne brandt, weegee
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Posted on 7/25/2006
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