ROM N째I avril 2010. Rome : 1 euro - Kolomyaghi : 40 roubles - San Juan de Arama & La Gorgona : 3500 pesos
1 euro
editorial
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editorial
rom: a new review “Le 8 novembre 1784, en mer. Enfin, nous sommes devant Venise, les matelots poussent des cris de joie, je partage leurs transports, et comme eux peutêtre je regretterai bientôt le vaisseau que j’aime à quitter aujourd’hui ; car l’attrait que j’ai pour la mer va au delà de tout ce qu’on imagine. Je puis en faire l’aveu, et non pas en assigner les causes, car enfin s’il est vrai que la vue de cet élément me rappelle aux premières années de ma jeunesse, il ne l’est pas moins que cette époque de la vie doit offrir aux souvenirs des repos plus agréables ; ou plutôt ce qui est vrai pour d’autres, ne l’est pas pour moi. En effet, si je regarde en arrière sur quelques années passées entre la poussière des in-folio, le tourbillon du monde et les bourrasques de la mer, ce n’est pas sur des instants de dissipation, d’illusion même, que je me plais à arrêter ma vue ; je leur préfère encore ces longues nuits consacrées à l’étude dans le silence du cabinet. Mais qu’avec bien plus de délices ma pensée se rapporte au temps où étonnée de la force naissante, elle m’était jamais plus active que lorsqu’elle ne s’occupait d’aucun objet en particulier, et que facile à
s’égarer, d’un élan elle se portait au delà de toute les choses existantes ; c’est alors que j’habitais des vaisseaux» (Jean Potocki Voyage en Turquie et en Egypte, José Corti, Col. romantique n°71). The Association des Amis de Clémentine proposes a gazette for readers who hesitate between the whirlwind of the world and the dust of books; for those who prefer furtive contact with the real to the mirage of virtual encounters, sensitive to the attitude of gypsies and travelers who prefer to enjoy without accumulating rather than to possess without truly seeing.
The choice of period prints Recognizing that since their invention, photographs have found their place among the most faithful material witnesses to our cultural history, the review supports initiatives that increase access to original documents and favor study of their material qualities. ROM describes photographic prints, including those that have escaped destruction or been found after long periods in the shadows.
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editorial
While agencies manage large banks of negatives, whose commercial value is based on their associated printing and reproduction rights, ROM gives notice to expositions and publications that privilege the study and description of period prints rather than negatives. The three-number coordinates preceding certain articles and captions reference the general photograph classification system using 19 zones and 9 large periods, which will be explained in detail in ROM II. Clémentine’s collection of period photographs is organized and cataloged using this method. Selected works from each class (corresponding to one period
and one geographic zone) will be published. Our review receives contributions in the form of columns and articles from its correspondents and readers around the world.
1989, a turning point
05.8. Peter Bock-Schroeder, Berlin, final moments before construction of the wall
This first issue honors a series of dazzling portraits made by Rossella Bellusci en 1989. At the beginning of this project, the strong lighting that the portraits demanded led several models to renounce their particpation. A young, West-Indian woman eventually met the challege, agreeing to be flooded with light until the camera would record only the subtle outline of her neck. In 1991, the Bibliothèque nationale de France presented these Lignesportraits, a final spectacle of material photography. Rossella is the guest of honor for the version “Grand Papier” of our review. That same year, the Berlin Wall fell. GPS became operational with a new series of satellites. Photoshop 1.0 received its finishing touches and was marketed beginning in February 1990. All of these reasons encourage us to propose the year 1989 as a turning point for the history of photography, and to propose Rossella’s portraits as possible representations of this key moment ◾ Serge Plantureux
contents - n°i
metadata
- Editorial n° I, and webmaster’s corner - The Life of Clémentine, page 4 - Gypsy news, 5 - Photographic Evidence, thoughts on methods for showing original documents, 6-7 - Guest of Honnor, 8-9 - The World Around Us, correspondence, 10-11 - Clémentine’s Journal, 12-13 - Big and Little Annoucements, calendar of sales, expos and fairs, 14 - Europe, Year One, series, 15
In the beginning was the word, then the letter, the line, the photograph, the digital image, and, now, lastly, the metadata. The language of Google is composed of roots linking knowledge and images, but these information structures describe resources without regard to visible text. Have we returned to the terror of the invisible? Are we ready to think in metadata? Is it time to train ourselves to recognize and utilize these resources? ROM is committed to trying to tame and make clear the metadata used for its on-line publications.
The French edition of ROM is distributed in two printed versions by the Association des Amis de Clémentitne and is available for consultation on our web site:
www.clementine.org
Etienne de Fontainieu et Bruno Flaven Follow this debate at : http://3wdoc.com/fr
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clémentine
clémentine Clémentine de Talleyrand-Périgord (1841-1881) is the meta element that marks all of our projects. Her life situated her in the right place at the right time to allow us, a century and a half later, a portal to 19th century European cultural history, not unlike Ursula Hirschmann of the 20th century or Jean Potocki for the 18th. A happy coincidence had it that we discovered the accompanying portrait of Clémentine at the moment of the Association’s creation. Clémentine’s grandmother was Dorothée, duchess of Courland (an independent duchy until annexation by the Russian Empire in 1795, today Latvia). In 1809, she married the nephew of Talleyrand. This alliance is considered to have been the compensation for the support Talleyrand gave to the Tsar against Napoleon at Erfurt in October of 1808, a “treason” calculated in the name of European equilibrium. Several years later, Dorothée and Talleyrand would participate in the Congress of Vienna to ensure a 50year period of prosperity for Europe. Clémentine was raised by her grandmother at Zagan in Lower Silesia (today Poland), where Dorothée had purchased a severe, 130 room château from her cousins in 1843. At 18, she made her debut in society at the home of Ludmille de Beauvau-Craon. There, she met Alexandre Orlowski (18161893), an elegant polish widower; they were married in February of 1860.
The climate of Malejowce in Transcarpathian Ukraine, where her husband’s château was located was not favorable for her health, and would prove fatal, despite a long convalescence in Tuscany. Clémentine is buried in Florence. She spoke German since childhood, Polish with her husband, French in society, English avec her children’s’ governess, and Italian in the sun ◾ Consuelo de Fontainieu
01.3. Clémentine photographed with her sons Xavier et Micislas. Portrait rediscovered in the album of the Princess of Sagan, 1870
russian voyage In the spirit of the year France-Russia, the Amis de Clémentine will participate in a week of workshops and conferences relating to the earliest years of photography at the ROSPHOTO center in St. Petersburg, July 2529. Alexandre Pozin will open his sculpture studio to the public with an exhibit of bronze potatoes dedicated to Peter the Great. Additional information will be made available on our website ◾
Twelve models for twelve potatoes in bronze
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5 gypsies’ friend at the académie des beaux-arts gypsy news
01.8 Lucien Clergue. Women on the pilgrimage
01.8 L. Clergue. Portrait of the gypsy Lalaou period prints on single weight paper
The Amis de Clémentine are preparing a publication that will bring together early photographs by Lucien Clergue and the poems of Alexandre Romanès, director of the eponymous circus, whose acrobats and musicians will perform at the first ball hosted by Clémentine on April 16th. Lucien Clergue (elected in 2006) began his career with several dazzling photo-documentaries, such as that following the pilgrimage of the Gypsy community to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer the 24th and 25th of May, 1955. These were quickly followed by other visits with the gypsies in the region of Arles, at the Pont-de-Crau aqueduct ◾ Arnold Chassagnon
la valeur des choses Each edition of ROM contains a poem or story about the perceptions that the gypsies have about things’ worth and the handing down of their heritage. “A huit ans, je suis resté quelques mois dans une école religieuse. Le curé : “Les enfants, demain il y a confession. Écrivez tous vos péchés
sur une feuille.” J’entre dans le confessionnal. Ma feuille est blanche.“Mon garçon, il n’y a rien sur ta feuille, tu n’as donc rien fait de mal ? Si mon père, j’ai volé de la confiture. Alors, pourquoi ne pas l’avoir écrit sur ta feuille ? Parce que Dieu ne s’intéresse pas au vol de confitures.” ◾ Alexandre Romanès
gypsy news
01.8 L. Clergue. Gypsy feeding a bird
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photographic observations
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photographic observations
who’s afraid of the light?
01.2 Gustave Le Gray. Brick au clair de lune. Print in its original mount and frame
01.2 Le Gray. Brick au clair de lune, verso, lable of the establishment Aux Deux Créoles, MM. Delarue et Hyvert
Security worries have radically changed the priorities and logic of exhibiting original documents. Under pressure from insurers, questionnaires sent by museums interrogate lenders about, among other details, the amount of light that the works in question have already received. This print by Le Gray dating from 1856-8 had, until its recent ‘discovery’, hung in the dim corridor of a medieval castle in its original frame for over 150 years. It appears that this long and unchanging exposure to light had little effect on the print, but perhaps it had been particularly well prepared. A friend of Clémentine, Mme Roxane Debuisson, confirmed, with the help of her archive of receipts from the period, that the framer, Delarue and Hivert, had changed its name and label near the end of 1863 ◾
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photographic observations
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luminous effects 01.2. March 2010, Aipad, New York. Appearance of an interesting photographic study from the now famous wooden crates of John C. Bancroft (cf. Sotheby’s N08308) at the stand of William Schaeffer. The crates contained a collection of photographs, including prints by Cuvelier and Le Gray that the painter probably brought back to New England from Barbizon in the 1860s. The study is in fact a band of albumen paper seemingly cut from a print of the view of the Mediterranean sea at Cap d’Agde, near Sète, that one sometimes recognizes with different skies, but here is reduced to a simple wave study, happily with its original mount.
01.2 Le Gray. Effet d’onde, original mount
01.2 Le Gray. Cap d’Agde, circa 1859
In this collection, only one other Le Gray had an uncommon presentation: a view of “La Plage de Sainte Adresse” with very little sky (cf. plate 120 of the catalogue raisonné) ◾ Jean-Mathieu Martini
the shadow’s edge 01.2. During this time, at the TEFAF in
Maastricht, where several galleries were presenting early photographs, Sylvie Aubenas explained a useful connoisseurs’ secret for distinguishing between a print made using a paper negative and one made using a glass negative: check particularly the sharpness of the vertical shadows ◾
Vertical shodow lines can be read as clues left by the light: softened by paper fibers or sharp when printed through glass (details).
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guest
carte blanche Rossella Bellusci’s work as a photographer spans thirty years. Born in Calabria, where she passed her childhood, then living in Milan, she settled in Paris in 1981, following a stay in the United States. Life brought us together – that’s an understatement – shortly after, and being myself, modestly but for some time, well-versed in photography’s alchemy, I followed her work with the eye of an amateur – and a little more. Invited to write about Rossella, and given carte blanche, how could I refuse, but how could I do it? Let’s take it literally this carte blanche, but in Italian: carta bianca, white paper. A great many of Rossella’s works offer, at first glance, only white. One saw in 1991, during the exhibition organized by Jean-Claude Lemagny (author of the preface to the luminous catalog edited by Alain Macaire), prospective visitors enter the gallery Colbert and turn back around, thinking that the show had yet to be hung. People in a hurry, stay your course, there is nothing for you to see. These images reveal themselves little by little, like in the dark room, under the red light, silver salts in the developer.
Behind each photograph, there is time and reflection, a great deal of it: each one demands of its observer a bit of time, silence and attention in order to begin to “feel” the work. The solitary road followed by Rossella is rigorous and unwavering: it is the path of the light, from its source to the eye that, in no way passively, constructs the image. This blinding light – for it is most often frontal (“Frontale” was the title of a 1991 series) – creates a visual chock. From the first works with the body – self-portraits and male nudes that were exposed in 1981 and 1983 at the gallery Texbraun – to Fluorescenze of 2009, now on display at the Pompidou Center (elles@centrepompidou), the light shapes, cuts, erases and dissolves a form, whether it be human or object, leaving only its essential traces. The rare portraits that mark this journey confront the challenge of recognition a minima, giving them a presence all the more intense. With the Lignes-portraits (“Line portraits” or “Portrait lines”) contained in this new review, one finds oneself at the limit between form constructed by light and blindness: all begins from and leads to this place. It is a real female model who offered the pure oval of her face and the tender curves of her neck: the light kept just enough of them to allow the eye to see and be filled. A loving eye ◾ Sylvain Laveissière * Rossella Bellusci is represented by the gallery Grossetti Arte Contemporanea in Milan, directed by Bruno Grossetti, since 2005.
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guest
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Rossella Bellusci
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the world over
R.O.M. april 2010
the world over
chronicles of the new world
Clémentine is currenly preparing a series of publications concerning the work of masters of ethnographic photography. Following the debates raised by the film Avatar, a research project, publication and possible exhibition concerning the Koguis and Nukak-Makú peoples will be proposed to the students in the Master program in 2010-11. The Luis Angel Arango library is partnering with Clémentine in this endeavor, with a conference planned for the spring of 2011. The first book to broach the subject of south American peoples living removed from the dominant civilization was the Llanto sagrado de la América meridional, written by an Augustinian friar, Francisco Romero, and published in Milan in 1693. In it, Romero describes “nègres marrons reconstituant des communautés, des palenque”, “des indiens Koguis retrouvant leurs divinités”, “des créatures velues à forme humaine vivant silencieuses et nues dans des arbres”. In 1974, a German researcher working in the storerooms of the Vatican identified the idols that Romero brought back to the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide. The fruits of Romero’s trip to Columbia permit us to link the Pre-Columbian Tairona civilization and today’s Arhuacos and Koguis ◾ Jaime Rueda
12.6. Henri Lehmann (1901-1991). Young Kokonukos with the camera. Popayan, 1941
12.0 Romero. Idolatria de los Indios de Naçion Aruacos, que habita en las Sierras de S. Martha Illustration from Llanto Sacrado, 1693
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the world over
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bitumen-blackened papers
Clémentine has just received a gift of a collection of papers blackened not by the sun but by censure: February 1846, Russian authorities exert their power on the only copy Parisian newspaper La Presse in Warsaw, blacking out articles relating to the recent Kraków Uprising. Led by Dembowski and Tyssowski, 300 bold Kraków inhabitants drove 2800 Austrian mounted- and foot soldiers from the city, then emancipated the Jews and freed
the serfs. Beginning March 3rd, however, the movement was repressed by an army coalition of the three occupying forces: Prussia, Russia and Austria. The last independent city in Poland was annexed by Austria ◾ Nicolas Provoyeur
caravaggio in rome: unexpected competition In direct competition with the beautiful exhibit “Caravage du Quirinale”, and also with president Berlusconi’s sponsorship, a selection of life-size transparent color reproductions of Caravaggio’s works are hung in Trajan’s Market and presented as a flattering and populist alternative to the conventional reality of museums: “LE MOSTRE IMPOSSIBILI, un progetto di Renato Parascandolo. Premessa : L’idea di allestire un insieme di ‘mostre impossibili’ nasce da un’attenta riflessione sulla crisi strutturale che investe i musei di tutto il mondo e dalla considerazione che, nell’epoca della riproducibilità digitale dell’opera d’arte, la riproduzione dev’essere tutelata e valorizzata quanto l’originale, non solo per motivi economici ma, prima di tutto, perché una diffusione veramente capillare e di massa delle opere d'arte può essere garantita soltanto dalle riproduzioni: un’istanza di democrazia culturale che ha in Walter Benjamin e André Malraux i suoi precursori. L’idea
nasce, inoltre, dalla banale constatazione che con il passare del tempo è sempre più diffuso il rifiuto dei direttori dei musei, pubblici e privati, di cedere ad altri musei, sebbene temporaneamente, le loro opere, anche per i costi sempre più proibitivi delle assicurazioni.” The full text can be found at : www.caravaggio.rai.it ◾
The anonymous entry pass and simple prospectus of this catalogue-less show
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publications
clémentine’s notebooks
17.4. Portrait of a porter, Rohan-Chabot mission
10.2. Lost?, american daguerreotype, circa 1860
The Amis de Clémentine have taken over the publication of the series of books published since 2003 under the names Rhinocéros jr, Venti or United Pirates. Collection Clémentine will further develop the ideas and methods of its predecessors. Upcoming projects include: - 17.4. Jacques de Rohan-Chabot’s mission to Angola, 1913: ethnographic portraits presented by Mamady Touré. - 05.7. Werner Moesle (1886-1953), an emigrant to Argentina returns to Europe in 1938 and 1945, presentation by Diran Sinirian. - 06.6. Portraits by Max Brod (including unpublished images of his friend Kafka that he chose not to destroy). - 01.1. The architect Eugène Hubert and the invention of photography, by Russell Lord.
06.6. Portrait of Max Brod, Kafka’s disobediant friend
- 01.6 & 10.2. Lost? Photographes jaloux, couples
déchirés, by François Cheval and Jean-Mathieu Martini. - 01.1. Articles 3 and 4 of the contract NièpceDaguerre: chronology by J. Roquencourt. - 13.1. Goupil-Fesquet or the first photograph from the Orient, November 1839. - 05.8. Peter Bock-Schroeder, a German photoreporter after the war. - 10.4. Voyage en Kodak, by the finalists from the Master’s program 2008. - Cyanotypes, Master’s program 2008. - 01.2. Fortuné Petiot Groffier, calotypist, Master’s program 2009. - 06.8. Drahotin Sulla, Slovak photographer, Master’s program 2009. Further information can be found on our site ◾
Now Available! Several collections of 55 of our experimentations, from the story of Ultimo Libro to that of Herbarius, can be purchased through the Association des Amis de Clémentine for 250 euros.
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13 salon du livre ancien at the grand palais: clémentine’s journal
This year the exposition that has, for three years now, brought together autograph, rare book and print dealers at the Grand Palais, opens its doors to dealers in two related fields that also take an interest in the cultural heritage of paper-based expression, its analysis and its transmission: rare drawing dealers and period photography dealers gathered around a photography pavilion.
In conjunction with the conference organized by the INHA on April 11, “Patrimoine photographié - Patrimoine photographique ?” and the release of the 3rd, augmented edition of the reference book Man Ray Stamps by Steven Manford, the Salon Clémentine is hosting an exhibition of photographs seen from the back from April 15 through May 15, 4 galerie Vivienne ◾
Alain Nicolas, President, Syndicat de la librairie ancienne et moderne
Les amis de Clémentine ont le plaisir de vous inviter au premier bal de Clémentine Vendredi 16 avril 2010 à 19 h Orchestre tzigane, jongleurs et acrobates Jambon, vin des Corbières et fruits de circonstance Salons Clémentine 4 Galerie Vivienne, Paris 2e Métro Palais-Royal invitation for all your friends inquiries : www.clementine.org
Covers of the two volumes of Man Ray Stamps
signature :
Cover of the new catalog edited by Francesca Bonetti
Francesca Bonnetti wil present her catalog of the first Italian and French photographers in Persia: Antonio Giannuzzi (1819-1876), Alberto Pasini (1826-1899, Luigi Pesce (1827-1864), Luigi Montabone (1827 ca.1877), Prosper Bourée (18551856)... Conceived as a veritable catalogue raisonné, it contains all of their known and prints. The catalog is published in conjunction with the exhibit La Persia Qajar at the Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica in Rome, by Peliti editore. 40 euros ◾
Clémentine’s journal
exposition au salon :
ROM belongs to the same field of study as the printed book and benefits from the tradition of study and description of the material bibliography maintanined by five centuries of passion for books. It is, therefore, a happy coincidence that the launch of this new review occur during our Salon ◾
big and little announcements
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announcements
ROM I April 2010 (issn en cours) Material history of photography Publication director: Association des Amis de Clementine Administration: 4 galerie Vivienne, 75002 Paris English edition: Magdalena Zopf French edition: Nicolas Provoyeur Annoncements: Chourouk Soummer The review is available on-line on the site: www.clementine.org Suggested contribution for the regular edition: 1 euro 6 numbers sent by mail: 30 euros 55 numbered copies were printed “en grand papier”, with two original signed silver prints from the series Lignes-portraits by Rossella Bellusci Correspondents : Russia: Alexandre Pozin, Timur Gaïnoutdinov USA: Flo Lunn, Leonard Helicher Italy: David Secchiaroli, Piero Casacchia Colombia: John-Jairo Martinez, Jaime Rueda Cover photo: Mack Sennett’s Bathing Beauty with camera
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calendrier des ventes Ventes à venir auxquelles participent les Amis de Clémentine, dont le catalogue décrit les épreuves positives et non des images par négatif : 20 avril 2010 Tajan : Photographie de voyage 23 juin 2010 Binoche Renaud Giquello : Photographie 20 novembre 2010 Binoche Renaud Giquello : Russie
foires et salons 8-11 avril 2010 Vieux Papiers 15-18 avril 2010 Salon du livre ancien, de l’autographe, de l’estampe, du dessin au Grand Palais 5-6 juin 2010 Foire de Bièvres Recherche des boîtes de daguerréotypes s’adresser au journal sous le n°7458
A Bogotá, Colombie un jeune éditeur distribue ROM dans une ruelle pavée : Carrera 3 No.8-62 La Candelaria + 571-3411114 John Jairo Martinez www.antiquus.org Recherche épreuves albuminées de Caravage s’adresser au journal sous le n°7457
L’agence Magnum de NYC, qui commercialise aux USA des droits de tirage, a vendu en bloc des épreuves anciennes, — correspondant souvent aux premiers tirages de lecture des nombreuses œuvres devenues célèbres des cinq fondateurs, Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, David (Chim) Seymour, George Rodger et William Vandivert, et des photographes les ayant rejoints — à un prix unitaire de 80 euros, relativement modeste en regard des droits perçus pour n’importe quel usage numérique.
Sudoku irrégulier symétrique (débutant)
Les œuvres récentes de Rossella sont exposées au Centre Pompidou jusqu’en septembre 2010, salle 26, section des immatérielles.
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serial
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1943 : europe year zero Ventotene, April 1943. It is on this island, transformed into a fascist penal colony, that Altiero Spinello, overcome with love for Ursula Hirshmann, a beautiful German prisoner, wrote his Manifeste de Ventotene. In it, he established the political and cultural foundation for a Europe free from nationalisms. 1943, year zero for Europe, was also marked by the Battle of Stalingrad. Paul Huf took a moving portrait of his newly liberated friend Ton Raateland (below). Travelling to Germany, an STO volunteer, composed the journal that we will publish serially. Part One: “20 juillet 1943 - 14 heures. Nous avons déjeuné près de la gare de l’Est (déjeuner ? poireaux pharmaceutiques qui nous laisseront un arrière goût jusqu’à Stuttgart). Sommes dans le hall – peur de manquer le train. Rien à dire. Très calme. Grande foule plus fleurs et grincements de dents. Atmosphère départ multipliée par cent, par mille. Ai admiré, examiné une ancienne locomotive 1830 exposée dans le hall – bu des bocks à la buvette, rien à dire. Je suis presque joyeux. Je sens l’odieux de ma conduite et je voudrais parler, être affectueux. Je le voudrais par raison. Rien ne vient. Sincèrement je voudrais voir l’heure avancer. Rien en moi si ce n’est une immense curiosité de connaître l’Allemagne. Je me sens effroyablement calme. Guy parle avec volubilité. Le trac ? 20 juillet 1943 - 15 heures. Je viens de passer sur le quai. Donné au guichet mes papiers et reçu un numéro qui doit m’envoyer jusqu’à Münich. Je parcours le train et remonte en tête pour trouver une place. Dernières illusions perdues. Partout vinasseries, saucissons, filles, sinistres gueules, les sales petites gueules pâles de l’ouvrier parisien, rasées de près, blafardes, des têtes de condamnés à mort avec leur cheveux longs coupés ras dans le cou et leurs yeux sombres enfoncés et cernés. Enfoncés par quatre années de privation et par des générations d’alcooliques, cernés par le vice. Autour du cou le foulard de couleur plié avec soins. La casquette bien droite. Partout ces sales petites têtes d’apache que je devrais voir si fier durant des mois. Mais alors je ne veux pas voir, je veux croire, je crois que ce sont des exceptions, des souteneurs, des maquereaux quelconques... (to be continued)
05.7. Portrait of the anonymous STO volunteer who would recodrd his experiences in 1943 in a journal that we will publish serially.
05.7. Portrait of the painter Ton Raateland taken in 1943 by his friend Paul Huf following his return from the Amersfoort camp (Leusden). (prov. Mattie Boom)
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