‘The Camera Exposed’ at the V&A

Photographer unknown, source V&A

The Victoria and Albert Museum is currently holding an exhibition of photographs – ‘The Camera Exposed’ – each of which features a camera in some way or other.  Drawn from virtually the medium’s entire history, they include snaps and professional images and show cameras both accidentally caught and deliberately foregrounded.  Portraits, including self-portraits, abound, but there are cameras in still lifes, technical documentation, reportage, fashion shots, and artistic treatments.  The camera turns up in all kinds of photography, whether casually or to the point of fetishism.

Of the 140 examples in the gallery, some are by named photographers, many by unknown amateurs.  The well-known practitioners include Eve Arnold, Richard Avedon, Margaret Bourke-White, Bill Brandt, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Lee Friedlander, André Kertész, W. Eugene Smith, Paul Strand, and last but definitely not least, Weegee (perhaps overrepresented).  The most recent works are photomontages from 2014 by Simon Moretti, in which images are combined using a scanner.

The Cameras can be on their own, isolated from their users, or en masse, as in the hands of ranks of paparazzi.  They may be used as a prop, or by artists to highlight the mechanics of the process.  You get the sense that for some photographers their cameras are barriers against the world (Bill Brandt peeping diffidently, head turned, over his large format camera); yet at the same time showing us the tools of their trade allows them to emphasise their identity as photographer.

Occasionally the camera melds with the holder until they almost become a single android being, the kit part of the personality.  The camera eye accentuates the voyeuristic power of the technology, while photographs of people taking photographs (or pretending to) inject a reflexive aspect.  But the camera itself is not always seen: sometimes it is merely the shadow, underlining the point that photographs depend on light to exist; in one picture a cable release stands in for the camera itself, stretching the exhibition brief somewhat.

Conversely it might be the photographer who is absent.  Charles Thurston Thompson was the first official photographer appointed by what was then the South Kensington Museum and in 1853 he captured a Venetian mirror at Cumberland Lodge.  The camera is prominent, detracting from the required objectivity of the record, but Thompson walked away during the long exposure and cannot be seen, thereby managing to suggest that the camera had taken it without intervention (in another example of his mirror photographs from the same year he is standing behind his equipment).  His are reluctant self-portraits, and the same is true of Eugène Atget’s photographs of shop windows, in which Atget and his camera are ghostly presences, half-hidden among the items in the display. 

‘The Camera Exposed’ is full of interest, but the emphasis is overwhelmingly western European and American, probably a drawback of having to rely on the V&A’s own collection.  A self-portrait using a mirror by Jamaican-born but London-based Armet Francis is a graphic reminder that the net has not been case wide geographically.  Surprisingly there are no smartphones – they must appear frequently in pictures simply because of their ubiquity, but here they are ignored in favour of older technology, creating a glow of nostalgia but not telling the entire story of the camera exposed.

This is then only a thin slice of a huge and fascinating theme.  There is a lot that could have been included and, rather than reduce the number of exhibits to fit the small space downstairs, using Room 100 on the first floor would have allowed the curators greater freedom to explore the topic.  It is fine as far as it goes, but leaves the viewer conscious that it is far from the last word.

The exhibition runs until Sunday, 5 March 2017.  Admission is free.

The Library Committee of the Society for Psychical Research

Part of the new SPR library

On 4 August 2016 I was elected chair of the Society for Psychical Research’s Library Committee, the previous incumbent, Guy Lyon Playfair, having stepped down (though he remains a member).  Guy had held the position for many years, and I was honoured to be asked to take his place.

I have been on the committee since 2010 though I had originally been invited to join it in the mid-1990s by the then chair, Andrew MacKenzie.  Unfortunately I had recently moved out of London and didn’t think I would be able to attend meetings regularly enough, so declined.  These days a lot of our business is done by email, though we do have occasional meetings at the SPR’s London premises.

Being chair ties in well with my role as Reviews Editor of the SPR’s Journal. which involves keeping my ear to the ground for suitable new books.  I add details of these, plus others of a more popular nature, to a section of the SPR website devoted to publications of interest.

The SPR’s collection is among the best of its kind in the world.  Its formation was one of the first acts of the new Society in 1882, and it has continued to grow.  It is split between London and Cambridge University Library, where the rare books (designated ‘Z’) are housed in secure conditions, along with the archives. 

The Library Committee’s primary responsibility is to procure new books and periodicals, either by purchase or donation, exercising quality control over what goes onto our shelves.  Its members have considerable expertise between them and are able to ensure that researchers have access to as wide a range of material as possible within psychical research and parapsychology.  Suggestions for potential purchases, and of course donations, are always welcome.

With the move from very cramped quarters at Marloes Road to our own premises at Vernon Mews earlier this year we have extra space to house acquisitions, and the reading experience is much improved.  While the Library Committee may not have the cachet of some other SPR committees, such as those devoted to spontaneous cases or survival research, it is nevertheless a vital component of the Society’s organisation, and I am pleased to be able to play a significant part in its activities.

The language barrier in psychical research

Dr Carlos Alvarado has produced a blog post which points out that a large quantity of psychical research has been published in languages other than English, aptly titled ‘All Our Past is Not in English’.  He notes that publications which rely solely on English-language sources often provide an incomplete, or even erroneous, picture because they fail to take account of what was going on elsewhere and not reported in English:

'These works tend to emphasize developments in the English-language world—such as the work of the Society for Psychical Research and of J.B. Rhine and associates—to the neglect of developments in other countries. No one would deny the importance of this work. What I decry here is that reliance on these sources produces an incomplete view of the development of the discipline. But what is worse is that some seem to have accepted these incomplete views as the whole canon, and feel no need even to qualify the obvious incompleteness of their writings.

This concern resonates with me as Reviews Editor of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research.  I am aware that a great deal is published which is not in English, and much of this remains inaccessible to the monoglot English-language reader.  Occasionally I am able to run a review, in English, of a foreign-language book (usually either German or Spanish), which I am happy to do because the Society for Psychical Research is an international organisation, but I am always conscious that the bulk people who read the review will not be able to access the original text.

The major difficulty I have, over and above hearing about and being able to evaluate such books, and the perennial one of people not having the time to write book reviews in any language, is finding reviewers who are both knowledgeable about the subject under consideration and able to write decent enough English that I at least know what they are trying to say, even if the review requires polishing to bring it to the required standard.  Those obstacles mean it is possible to cover only a small proportion of what is published in languages other than English.  There is a considerable volume that English-language readers never even get to hear about, much less read.

Alvarado is quite correct in highlighting an issue that many writers seem happy to ignore; after all, a smooth enough history can be fashioned from English-language sources and whatever happens to have been translated.  He remarks that the situation is improving to an extent, though with historians rather than psychical researchers tending to make the running.  I have to say that while this is to be applauded, there are often problems when non-specialists tackle an area in which they may possess depth in the specific topic they are examining but not breadth in the wider subject.  And English-language readers still do not have access to the sources to be able to check the validity of what is written.

What can be done about this state of affairs?  Well, certainly we could all learn additional languages, however reaching the required standard isn’t going to be feasible for most adults.  At one time the SPR was not afraid to publish reports in non-English languages on the assumption that readers would understand them; those days are sadly long gone.  Being practical, professional translations would be ideal, but translators are expensive and not always au fait with specialised terminology.

One possibility that would help to address the problem in a small way is group sourcing of translators, a kind of Wiki effort involving a number of people collaborating to produce translations with the consent of the author that could either be submitted to a publisher or appear in an online edition.  This type of project might be best aimed at journal papers rather than books and requires careful quality control.  It would make sense to focus on rendering foreign works into English as this would make them accessible to the greatest number of people.  Something that might stimulate interest in translation is to institute a book prize.  The Parapsychological Association makes a number of awards each year and one for the best translated book could easily fit into its scheme.

Those researchers who are fluent in more than one language should try wherever possible to make their results available in them all.  A number of scholars are keen to transcend linguistic boundaries to reach the widest possible audience.  Carlos Alvarado himself is one, bringing foreign-language information to English-speaking readers.  Icelandic Erlendur Haraldsson writes in English, as does German Andreas Sommer.  In the opposite direction, Francisco Cánovas Picón has a blog in which he frequently translates English-language material into Spanish (including an article of mine on the Warrens and Enfield).  Alvarado suggests recruiting colleagues who can help with the literature in various languages, as he has done in his tireless efforts to disseminate the international history of psychical research.  The key to progress is to share information, and the wider it is shared, the greater will be its contribution to enriching the field.  That entails breaking down language barriers wherever possible.

History of Russia in Photographs

Vladimir Semin: Sparrow Hills, Moscow, 1 May 1994

The Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow, has announced a website devoted to the History of Russia in Photographs, launched appropriately on 12 June, Russia’s national day.  Covering the period 1860 to 2000, it currently has almost 80,000 images, with more added daily.  The aim, according to Olga Sviblovo, the museum's director, is to bring together as many photographs as possible in a ‘visual Wikipedia’ of Russian history, or as the site itself puts it, the ‘life of the country in all its manifestations’.   To date it combines holdings from more than forty archives, museums, private collections, and the state archives.  Many of the photographs have never been published before.  As well as the project drawing from established sources, individuals can post images they own which were taken before 2000.  The resulting website will encourage research and discussion, provide a valuable educational resource, and act as a beacon for further donations of historical material.

It is possible to search chronologically or by name or keyword.  An understanding of Russian (or an online translator) is necessary to be able to read the captions but is not necessary to examine the photographs themselves as the timeline can be manipulated by means of cursors defining start and end dates.  Registered users can leave comments, and create their own ‘exhibitions’.  The former should help to expand the bald descriptions of many entries which at present cry out for elaboration.

Browsing the website shows what astonishing changes have occurred in Russia in the period it covers.  The earliest photographs were taken when serfdom still existed, and the display tracks the changes from Tsardom, the First World War, the 1917 revolution, the Communist regime in its various forms, the Great Patriotic War, Cold War, Glasnost, to the fall of the USSR.  It is a lot of history and a very big country.  In that context, 80,000 images suddenly seems a small number, but once it really gets going there is scope for the site to reflect the country – its people, places and events – in all its facets.

At the moment certain gaps are apparent.  To take an example, putting Afghanistan (or rather Афганистан) in the search box brings up only five images, all from 1980 and by a single individual.  Thousands more relating to the Russian presence in Afghanistan must be lurking in Russian government files.  One would think it odd not to see any from Vietnam on a website devoted to the History of the United States in Photographs.  Admittedly there is a tagging issue at the moment; many of the most recent photographs, from 1999, are of Russian forces in presumably Chechnya, but these are not identified as such.  What is on the website is also governed by what has survived.  Only nine images are tagged with Trotsky’s name, hardly surprising taking into account how he was airbrushed by Stalin, and it may be necessary to source material suppressed within Russia from external archives to provide comprehensive coverage.

Another notable gap is indicated by the presence of only one photograph by Boris Mikhailov, of two men sitting in a kitchen dating from 1983.  Mikhailov has produced a large documentary body, as I know because an extensive selection was shown at the Photographers’ Gallery in London in the 2014 exhibition Primrose:Early Colour Photography in Russia.  Some of these works are challenging, but represent a legitimate view of the USSR.  It cannot be said that the Multimedia Art Museum is unaware of Mikhailov because Primrose was put together in conjunction with them, and the curator was Olga Sviblova.  There may be copyright issues of course, but many of Mikhailov’s pictures have been legitimately published online, so it should not be difficult to obtain his permission to add them to the History of Russia in Photographs database.

It is early days, and I am sure that many of the omissions will be filled in in time, though I wonder if there are criteria for inclusion which have not been made public.  It is worth bearing in mind that support has been provided by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, the Moscow Department of Culture, the Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communications, and Yandex, a Russian multinational which operates the most widely-used search engine in the country.  Official support may have come with strings.  Sviblovo’s announcement contained the declaration: ‘We began thinking of such a portal in 1999 because we understood how important it would be to create a photographic history for future generations.  You cannot build the future without knowing your past.’  Let’s hope the aim is to provide a representative, not a selective, view of the past.  It would be a pity if ideological influences were allowed to affect the content.

Such concerns notwithstanding, the website is a marvellous achievement, which raises the obvious question for someone browsing it in the UK: why are we not doing something similar?  The Victoria and Albert Museum in London is an obvious body to initiate a project like this, with its existing collection soon to be complemented by some 400,000 objects which are going to be transferred to its custody from the National Media Museum in Bradford.  The V&A has stated that it plans to increase opportunities to see its extensive photography holdings, both physically and digitally, but the sceptic in me suspects that digital access will not be on the scale of the History of Russia in Photographs.  The V&A’s curators could do worse than look at the Moscow initiative for inspiration when planning their own offering.

On the trail of Mikhail Bulgakov

Leaflet from Museum M A Bulgakov

On a recent trip to Moscow my wife and I visited Mikhail Bulgakov’s flat, located in a quiet courtyard at 10 Bolshaya Sadovaya ulitsa, which has been turned into a museum to honour his achievements.  Like many others I became a fan of Bulgakov’s as a result of reading his classic novel The Master and Margarita, and I was keen to pay homage and see for myself places associated with the writer and his books.

Before we went up to the flat we called at a rival attraction just inside the courtyard entrance.  The grandly named Museum-Theatre Bulgakov House also contains a small Bulgakov museum which is free to enter.  Display cases exhibit photographs, documents and artefacts, plus a large collection of international editions of his books which demonstrate his enduring popularity.  The weirdest exhibit has to be a large model of a tram with the head of Berlioz, a character from the Master and Margarita who has an unfortunate encounter with some spilled sunflower oil and is decapitated when he falls across a rail.

 

Tram, Berlioz at bottom left

There is an old-fashioned ambience and it is am enjoyable venue for a cup of tea, though it is probably very crowded on theatre nights.  There seems to be a fascination with poor Berlioz because you can buy jars of various sizes each with a picture of a face in some liquid, mimicking a preserved head.  I was tempted to get one but didn’t think it would survive the journey, assuming it managed to negotiate airport security.  Outside the entrance is an attractive statue of Koroviev and Behemoth standing guard.  It was a pleasant visit, but little of the information provided was in English.

 

Koroviev and Behemoth in the courtyard

Bulgakov’s actual flat is at the top of a block without a lift, so a climb is necessary to reach it.  Once there, it is very different in tone to the Bulgakov House’s faded grandeur.  Apartment 50, the communal flat where he and his first wife lived from 1921-4, is now a fully-fledged curated museum (The Museum M. A. Bulgakov).  The flat becomes the temporary home of the devilish Woland and his retinue in The Master and Margarita, and amusingly the Bulgakov House Museum sign on the street corner by the courtyard entrance is numbered 302-bis, the fictional number Bulgakov gave to the block.

 

The sign for the Bulgakov House Museum, 302-bis

Recognised by the Moscow City Department of Culture, the museum is dedicated to expounding Bulgakov’s life.  While the stairwell leading to the flat is clean it is heavily graffitied with writing and paintings relating to and inspired by Bulgakov’s work.  These predate the establishment of the museum and have presumably been left intact for ‘atmosphere’, but they give the stairs a scruffy look.  Once at the top of the building it is a pleasure to find that the flat itself has been completely renovated and is welcoming and cheerful.

 

A sample of the graffiti

Unfortunately we again found that the non-Russian information was limited, yet I was happy simply to be able to examine the exhibits and soak up the atmosphere.  The staff were friendly and there was a lively feel that one does not associate with normally staid authors’ museums.  It was fairly busy, and a group was lectured, sadly in Russian, for a considerable time in the bric-a-brac filled kitchen.  Whereas the unofficial museum near the courtyard entrance has a static display, the flat has changing exhibitions.  There is quite a lot crammed in the limited space, though there is room for further acquisitions.  I thought the museum well worth the small entrance fee.

 

In the Bulgakov Museum, naturally in a suitable T-shirt

One could tell that the intent behind the enterprise is serious because the single information panel in English was headed with a quote by Michel Foucault, taken from his Les Mots et les Choses, the English-language title of which the curators have used as the label to describe their current efforts to bring order to the miscellaneous nature of the collection, identify gaps, and relate the holdings to Bulgakov’s life – ‘Words and things: Unveiling a Collection’.  It is to be hoped that this project will include translations of information, and so allow non-Russian speakers to learn more about this remarkable writer.

To complete our Bulgakov tribute we visited nearby Patriarch’s Ponds (actually a shady garden dominated by a single rectangular lake).  I like to think I sat on a bench in much the same spot Berlioz and Ponyrev were sitting when Woland appeared before them.  There were couples and families lounging around, and it felt a calm oasis in the busy city.  I was disappointed to learn that a tram line never ran close to here but it was pleasant to be in the place that that Bulgakov used to such great effect in the opening of his novel.  Unfortunately the grass had been reseeded and covered in plastic to protect it so we didn’t see it at its best.  We were there in the afternoon as well, on a sunny day, and to get the full Bulgakov effect we should have gone when dusk was falling, shadows lengthening, and the air full of the promise of night-time mystery.  Who knows, we might even have met Woland, come back to see how Moscow had altered in his absence.

 

Patriarch's Ponds, though only one remains

There are a number of fine museums in Moscow dedicated to authors, even if we did find that their limited opening hours meant it was hard to fit them all in when there was so much else to do.  We managed to visit the superb Art Nouveau Gorky house-museum, which deserves to be better known, and the Chekhov museum, which also contains a small theatre added to the original home.  Sadly, despite our best efforts, we could not get to either the Gogol or Dostoyevsky houses.  Perhaps next time we’ll manage it.  There is also a Bulgakov Museum in Kiev (his birthplace), so that has gone on my wish list as well.

Plaque commemorating Bulgakov in the street

Souvenir coin from the Museum-Theatre Bulgakov House