Magnum Contact Sheets: An Interview with Kristen Lubben

International Center of Photography Curator Kristen Lubben discusses her recent book and exhibition Magnum Contact Sheets.

Russet Lederman: How did the idea for the Magnum Contact Sheets book develop?

Kristen Lubben: The idea of archives was on everyone’s mind, partly as a result of the New York Magnum office having just sent their “working prints” archive to the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas.

Thames & Hudson and Magnum approached me as editor and curator of the project, which they had conceived together. They came to me because I had recently completed a book with Susan Meiselas (In History), which had been very heavily archival based. Also my earlier book Amelia Earhart: Image and Icon focused on the process of editing and circulation of images; I was also at the same time engaged in working with the recently recovered negatives in the Mexican Suitcase. These projects cast a wider net in terms of the kind of materials one can consider when looking at photographs, and Thames & Hudson thought I’d be a good fit in terms of my approach and interest in working process.
RL: Who else was involved in shaping the book’s focus?

Kristen Lubben: Martin Parr was the photographer representative on the project and was a guiding force throughout.  He was the person who really identified that the contact sheet would make a good subject now because of the transition to digital.  We were meeting in Paris to do the first edit and he just sort of tossed out the comment that the book would function as an epitaph to the contact sheet. His words really stuck with me and gave me a lens through which to see the project and its timeliness. None of us think that any of these things are going to end, but of course they are. The design of the book mirrors the look of the Kodak paper box, and it was a little eerie that the Kodak bankruptcy was announced on the same day as the opening for the show that is associated with the book.

RL: You decided to sequence the book in chronological order. Why?

Kristen Lubben: It was crucial for distinguishing this book. We wanted it to be about Magnum, the agency and its photographers, as well as about the development of the medium over time–the larger arc of history. The book is an homage to a way of working.

RL: Can you discuss why you decided to include a variety of analog film formats: 35 mm, slide, large format and panoramic?

Kristen Lubben: It was important to show the range of material, since Magnum (and contact sheets) are probably most associated with black and white 35mm. Nothing in the book was shot on digital; everything is film or analog. There are a few instances where we blur the edges: Mikhail Subotzky digitally edited his project, but it was shot on film. We also included color slide sequences, which, while not technically contact sheets, are similar to film in that both are about the process of editing. Everything shifted when color positive came in. It was a different way of working, because the photographer would do an initial edit of their slides with an “A” box, a “B” box, a “C” box, and only give over a certain cut of the images to the agency. This is the first loss of not seeing absolutely everything, since the agency editor no longer made the first cuts—it’s a precursor to what happened with digital.

RL: How did you select the contact sheets used to represent each Magnum photographer?

Kristen Lubben: We began by inviting all the photographers to send us 3 suggestions, which could either be their key image or a surprising lesser-known image that had an interesting story behind it. Most of the time the selections were spot-on and were absolutely what we want to use. Sometimes they were a surprise — a great image didn’t necessarily have a great contact sheet. There were also cases where maybe an image wouldn’t pop out of somebody’s top 5 most famous photographs, but had an especially interesting contact sheet. That was the case with the two Chris Anderson examples in the book — particularly the Afghanistan one. Contact sheets are not just about zeroing in on that key image, but also about revealing a way of working and how our understanding of an image can change over time.  
RL: If the contact sheet can also be seen as a teaching tool, then what will young photographers now use to learn about the working process of older and more established photographers?

Kristen Lubben: I think they are missing out on that opportunity. Hopefully the book will be used as a teaching tool. I think one of its really strong benefits is that opportunity to see how someone else works. A huge question with digital material is what happens to all of this overwhelmingly massive volume of digital material that isn’t perceived to be the top tier or the final edit? There is so much digital detritus, and nobody knows at this point what is going to happen to all of it. In the past, you used to have a packet of letters with a ribbon around them in your dresser, and now it is all email and so ephemeral. I think there are so many questions here.

Contacts are more than just a teaching tool for working process. They are also a reminder of the value of history and the need to preserve archives. Hopefully when people look at the book they will realize what’s happening today and what we are losing? I hope it will make people mindful of the importance of preserving history.

RL: You curated a show at ICP based on the book. What were some of the issues you had to consider in translating the book format to the walls of a museum?

Kristen Lubben: I view the book and the show as separate entities. I think because of the small physical scale of the exhibition, I had to see it as something that would be a portal to the book. The biggest challenge was scale: both the scale of the room, as well as the scale of the contact sheets. I’m very glad that I chose to blow the contact sheets up. I want to encourage the viewer to get up close and personal in the same way as with a real contact sheet. With a book, you can get as close as you need to, but you can’t do that in an exhibition—the enlarged scale of the prints bridges that distance. I wanted to do something that wasn’t just imitating the book, but added a different dimension to the viewing experience.RL: In the show you don’t emphasize the chronology, while you do in the book. Can you speak to that curatorial decision?

Kristen Lubben: Because the show is so compact, it is hard to sketch out something that is a real history of the medium. Instead I decided to pick really interesting examples –contact sheets that are either visually engaging or have a good story behind them. In the book, we are pretty religious in every case about showing the contact sheet and its key image. I didn’t do that in the show because I felt like it would eat up too much space and give the prints too much importance.   Where I did include prints in the show it was more about trying to add something different to the story, rather than just show what the key image was. For example, Robert Capa’s “D-Day,” an image not on the contact sheet, is included because it highlights the story about a negative that is missing.  With the René Burri, it’s the verso of one of the contact sheets, where you see all those stamps and get a sense of how these were real working objects. The Jim Goldberg is a unique collage.

RL: Are you going to continue to work with Magnum?

Kristen Lubben: Absolutely, for somebody who is interested in photojournalism, documentary and socially engaged photography, there’s no better group to work with. They are some of the most important photographers, working in ways that perfectly align with my interests. I think Magnum is just an amazing and unique organization and it has a close and intertwined history with ICP.

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Kristen Lubben, ed. Magnum Contact Sheets (2011)
TR820 .M34 2011

LIBBY PRATT MFA THESIS SHOW

LIBBY PRATT

MFA THESIS SHOW   23 – 25 FEBRUARY 2012

ICP-BARD MFA STUDIOS

24–20 JACKSON AVENUE, 3RD FLOOR, LONG ISLAND CITY, QUEENS

G, E, M TRAINS TO COURT SQUARE

OPENING:

THURSDAY / 23 FEBRUARY / 6 – 9 PM

ON VIEW: 

FRIDAY – SATURDAY / 24 – 25 FEBRUARY / 12 – 5 PM

 

dfghfhg / Daniel Temkin

dfghfhg / Daniel Temkin
solo speed show / thesis show
Monday, Feb 13
7 – 10 pm
90 Bowery Internet Cafe
90 Bowery @ Hester St

 http://speedshow.net/dfghfhg-soloshow-daniel-temkin/

All are welcome unless you’re one of these people:

Daniel’s books in the ICP library include:

Yeep! Eep! Eep! For the commodore 64 / Daniel Temkin.
R TR179.5.T452 .Y44 2010

Sector / Daniel Temkin.
TR179.5.T452 .S43 2010

Mutator 1 / Daniel Temkin
TR179.5.T452 .M88 2011

Machiel Botman & the Library Committee

Machiel Botman at the Gitterman Gallery
Library Committee Meeting,
January 31 | Tuesday | 6:30 – 8:00pm

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The evening of January 31st saw the ICP Library Committee visit the Gitterman Gallery for an evening discussion with the celebrated Dutch artist Machiel Botman. Evan Mirapaul, Buzz Hartshorn and Deirdre Donohue introduced the evening as the audience sat and listened to the erudite and brilliant artist, curator, and photobook maker Machiel speak about his influences and practices. Botman was accompanied by his long-time friend and graphic designer as he charmed this exclusive audience with tales of his early days hanging with the Beach Boys in Holland and LA and also a thorough and thoughtful exploration of his creative process.  On display this evening along with the best of Botman’s books and photographs were some truly gorgeous book dummies that he has made over the past 30 years or so.

The ICP library and archives would like to thank the Gitterman Gallery and Machiel Botman for their donation of Machiel Botman books and for providing such a warm venue and enchanting reception.

Heartbeat / Machiel Botman.
R TR140 .B684 1994

Rainchild / Machiel Botman.
R TR140 .B684 2004

One tree / Machiel Botman.
R TR140.B684 2011

http://gittermangallery.com/html/ArtistResults.asp?artist=1581

Photographs courtesy of Jeff Gutterman, Phil Block and me.

Remembering Absent Meaning

Opening Reception: February 2 | Thursday | 6:00–9:00 pm
On View: February 3-4 | Friday–Saturday | 12:00–5:00 pm

ICP-Bard MFA Studios, 24–20 Jackson Avenue, 3rd Floor, Long Island City, New York

“Remembering Absent Meaning. . .

Moving to the US in 2008 created distance from my familiar landscape, activating experiences that had been retained in the past 28 years. I remembered a lot of events and instants that had accumulated unconsciously. Last summer, I visited Banaras and asked my grandfather if he remembered his childhood home, his room and how it had changed over the years. He went from an objective description of the room to remembering people and events located in and around the house. The course of these accounts changed when the question was repeated another day. New associations were made, characters were introduced and fresh emotions were attached to the old narrative. The digressions too made their appearance at different instances in his story, deviating from their prior progression. This made me curious about how memory functions, its relationship to objective reality and time.”  – Nandita Raman

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“Memory and thought can only exist in time. A mirror, on the other hand is not subject to duration. It has nothing of the past, the reflection is in the now, nothing is retained. Here, in the no-place of the mirror, the present as the fleeting instant, the past invoked by this moment and the future memory of this reflection might simultaneously come together. What would be the relevance of memory if there were no past, no future; in timelessness?” – Nandita Raman

Nandita is a brilliant young artist who also has an extraordinary artists’ book in the ICP library.
Book by Chance / Nandita Raman
R  TR179.5.R355 .B66 2011
10 dice contained in a box with a map which shall then enable you to find a book to read in the ICP library entirely by the act of chance.

Kohei Sugiura: The Japanese Photobook as Object

The brown boxes that arrive on my doormat usually seem quite ordinary and non-descript to my neighbors and mail carrier — standard-issue parcel posts that shrewdly hide incredible treasures that lay dormant within. As I carefully use my matte knife to cut along the taped seams, my anticipation of the first look is only heightened. This is the secret ritual of a confirmed book addict. If the box happens to be from Japan (and in my case, it usually is), then I know that I will soon be holding an object that is not just a simple collection of photographs, but rather an expertly conceived tiny universe — one that is carefully considered and executed with design, image sequencing and the text to image relationship in perfect balance (or imbalance). I will catch a whiff of the slightly musty smell of an old book, acknowledge small traces of foxing and sunning, and most importantly, enjoy the “objectness” of the book as I remove it from its protective wrapping. This objectness makes the photobook the antithesis and antidote to the digital overload of my daily existence. This objectness asks to be touched, handled, and admired for its sequencing and design. This is the objectness that is nurtured in the amicable collision of a photographer and designer joining forces.

And, this objectness is what sets photobooks apart from the small paperback novels that are now easily adapted to the Kindle and Nook. It is the tangible and the tactile that give the photobook its elevated status as an object to hold (and behold). In postwar Japanese photobooks, this objectness, with its highly attuned attention to every design, image and typographic detail, is the result of a well-regarded collaborative process between photographer and designer. During the 1960s, with the emergence of a distinctive Japanese visual style in design, theater, photography and film, collaborations with inventive designers such as Kohei Sugiura flourished. In both Martin Parr and Gerry Badger’s The Photobook: A History (Vol. I) and Ryuchi Kaneko and Ivan Vartanian’s Japanese Photobooks of the 1960s and ‘70s, significant space is allocated to discussions on the important role of the photographer / designer collaboration.

Japan has and continues to be a print culture. Whether the famed woodcuts of the 18^th/19^th century or the current deluge of manga that has kids all over the world consuming books like candy, Japan has a rich history of the printed page. Despite a smart phone centric digital culture, Japan still values the tangible and physicality of the book — with contemporary Japanese photographers continuing to see the book as one of the primary vehicles for presenting their work.  For Japanese photographers, a book is an entity that must have that “considered” balance of all its elements – one that achieves a “rightness” of design that is appropriate to a book’s concept (Parr and Badger 269). During the Provoke Era (late 1960s – ‘70s), many of Sugiura’s designs were responsible for creating this “rightness” as they simultaneously challenged previous notions of photography and the intrinsic nature of what constituted a book. Whether an image placement that pushed the boundaries of the page in a frenzy of movement or covers imbedded with silver discs, books designed by Sugiura are part of what makes touching, reading and looking at a Japanese photobook so special. Fortunately, the International Center of Photography Library has several strong examples of these seminal collaborations in its collection, which affords the opportunity for an in-depth view of all the elements that contribute to the unique objectness of the Japanese photobook.

An early example of Japanese photobook experimentation in which “design meets photography meets text” on the highest level can be seen in Vivo group member Kikuji Kawada’s Chizu / The Map (1965, reprint 2005). Designed by Kohei Sugirua, Chizu is simultaneously a documentary and a multi-tiered conceptual object that takes the subject of the Hiroshima bombing and Japan’s complex relationship with the United States beyond a simple recounting of events. Packaged in a cardboard slipcase and interior foldout black wrapper inscribed with phrases related to the bombing, Sugiura’s design perfectly marries all the elements of the printed page with the Japanese tradition of package design. The cover image on the jacket shows a close-up shot of a flame with a typographic overlay of a poem. Within are gritty high contrast gravures on gate-folded full-bleed pages, which require the reader/viewer to peel away layers in a slow, deliberate process of discovery that reveals fragmentary views of the Hiroshima blast and American postwar “occupation” juxtaposed with abstracted close-ups. The overall visual sensation is visceral – merging the archival, scientific and emotional into an intricate portrayal of a historical event.

Jun Morinaga’s Kawa, Ruiei / River: Its Shadow of Shadows (1978) is another brilliant example of Sugiura’s fine-tuned attention to the “rightness” of the photobook object. Again, through the use of gate-folded pages, Sugiura’s design purposely slows down the reader to give the book the contemplative focus necessary for Morinaga’s brooding images of the dark depths within Tokyo’s rivers from the early ‘60s. Rather than images of translucent light inflected waters, Morinaga’s water is muddy, intense and foreboding. Bits of surface debris and rotting garbage are framed close-up, as air bubbles take on an abstract patterning. As Kaneko and Vartanian point out in their text (220), River: Its Shadow of Shadows is important not only for its design, but for the support it received from its highly respected publisher Kazuhiko Motomura, who is also responsible for the publication of Robert Frank’s The Lines of My Hand (1972) and Flower Is (1987). Morinaga met Motomura through the American photographer W. Eugene Smith, who Morinaga had worked for as an assistant during the 1970s. Smith also wrote the preface to River: Its Shadow of Shadows.

Touching, handling and reading a book designed by Kohei Sugiura is a distinctive experience that delivers the sublime pleasure associated with “objectness.” One immediately senses that the object within one’s hands is not just a simple book, but an art object with a completeness that successfully achieves that precarious (and often missed) synergy between design and concept. With the reader’s experience in mind, Sugirua is continuously concerned with how the merger of text and image will offer an unexpected and new sensation. In a 2006 interview, he stated, “The most important thing is the ability to be surprised. That means to be very sensitive to something new and unusual, and then the surprise comes, the five senses become one. Some big surprise can make you jump. The breath and heartbeat, hearing and singing…The whole body becomes one, and then the jumping…Being surprised is very important for human beings” (Conversation with Kohei Sugiura: Keep the Ability to Be Surprised)

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Other Photobooks Designed by Kohei Sugiura:

Eikoh Hosoe. Barakei / Killed by Roses (1963)
TR654 .H67 1985 (1985 reprint)
Ikko Narahara. Europe: Where Time Has Stopped (1967)
Robert Frank. The Lines of My Hand (1972)
Yutaka Takanashi. Toshi-e / Towards the City (1974)
TR145 . T351 2010 (2010 reprint – Books on Book 6)
Robert Frank. Flower Is (1987)
TR654 .F73 1972

Books Mentioned in the ICP Library

Kikuji Kawada. Chizu / The Map (1965; reprint 2005)
TR655 .K38 2005 (The ICP Library has the 2005 reprint which does not have the original slipcase and wrapper described above.)

Jun Morinaga. Kawa, Rui’ei / River: Its Shadow of Shadows (1978)
TR670 .M67 1978

Further Reading on Kohei Sugiura and other Japanese Photobook designers can be found in the following two books:

Martin Parr and Gerry Badger. The Photobook: A History, Volume I (2004), page 269.

Ryuichi Kaneko and Ivan Vartanian. Japanese Photobooks of the 1960s and ‘70s (2009), pages 19, 88.

Kodak Moments

“You press the button, we do the rest”

In 1879 George Eastman went to London to obtain a patent for his plate-coating machine. In 1880 he obtained an American patent for the machine, rented a third floor loft in Rochester and began to manufacture dry plates commercially.  The Eastman Dry Plate & Film company was formally established in 1881. George began a lifetime of devotion to photographic research and innovation. Continually creative in his approach of mixing the best business concepts with the latest and greatest technological ideas George Eastman’s Kodak Company made photography available to everyone. Kodak dominated the world of photography for over 100 years.

The Basic Business Principles of Kodak*

• Mass production at a low cost
• International distribution
• Extensive advertising
• Find and meet the needs of customers

Research and the development of new products were key concepts for Kodak and they grew into a huge company.

Some Decisive Kodak Moments:

1884 – announced the production of film in rolls which was to be the basis of motion picture film used by the early filmmakers.
1891 – George Eastman began to produce the Ordinary range of cameras.
1900 – the first Brownie camera announced.
1913 –Kodak announce the first prepackaged dental x-ray film.
1930 – To celebrate the 50th year of Kodak the George Eastman Company offered a special edition camera FREE to any 12 year-old child in the United States or Canada.
Amazingly 557,000 FREE cameras were claimed.
1935 – Kodak introduced Kodachrome, a color reversal stock for movie and slide film.
1963 – Kodak introduce the Instamatic camera.
1966-68 – Kodak film and equipment journeyed aboard Lunar Orbiter spacecraft to map the moon’s surface.
1969 – In July, Apollo 11 astronauts used the lunar stereo close-up camera to photograph the lunar soil. The film was brought back to earth: the camera, designed and built by Kodak, remains on the moon.
1975 –Steven Sasson, an electrical engineer at Kodak, invents the digital camera.
1980 – In the centenary year the Eastman chemicals division announced annual sales of over $1 billion.
1986 – Kodak create the world first megapixel sensor.
2003 – the Kodak EasyShare LS633 Digital Camera enters the scene.

Some indecisive Kodak moments

January, 2004 – Kodak announced that it would stop selling traditional film cameras in Europe and North America.
April 8, 2004 –Kodak was delisted from the Dow Jones Index.
January 2009 – Kodak posted a $137 million fourth-quarter loss and announced plans to cut up to 4,500 jobs.
June 22, 2009 – Kodak announced that it would cease selling Kodachrome colour film after 74 years of production (please see the beautiful work of William Christenberry and his book Kodachromes (TR659 .C47 2010) and the just released William Eggleston Chromes to realize just how beautiful kodachrome was.
September 2011 – Kodak hired law firm Jones Day for restructuring advice and its stock dropped to an all-time low.
January 2012 –Kodak received a warning from the New York Stock Exchange that it could soon be de-listed.
January 19, 2012 – Kodak filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection.

*the company had been called the Eastman Kodak Company since 1892 although the name Kodak had been registered in 1888.