A Telling Portrait

A TELLING PORTRAIT The Work and Collection of Michael Mitchell

A TELLING PORTRAIT

The Work and Collection of Michael Mitchell Ryerson Image Centre April 29–May 31, 2015 www.atellingportrait.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Jessica Glasgow, Kasia Laszczuk, Carla-Jean Stokes, Lisa Yarnell

2

An Interview with Michael Mitchell

13

Framing Realities: Photography as an Editing Medium Kasia Laszczuk, Carla-Jean Stokes

23

North of the Tree Line: Michael Mitchell’s Work with Inuit Communities Ingrid Forster

29

Michael’s Cabinet: Musings on Opening Random Compartments Maia-Mari Sutnik

37

List of Works Exhibited

43

Acknowledgements and Credits

45

INTRODUCTION

Michael Mitchell Studio Seamless, 1979 chromogenic print 38 x 38 cm

Jessica Glasgow Kasia Laszczuk Carla-Jean Stokes Lisa Yarnell

“Photographers tend to be collectors. Most people travel through life experiencing the world in successive moments […]. Photographers, however, stop to concentrate, preserve and collect certain of those moments.”1 - Michael Mitchell, 2005

The exhibition A Telling Portrait: The Work and Collection of Michael Mitchell presents a selection of photographs from Michael Mitchell’s rich and varied career as a photographer, writer and filmmaker, as well as nineteenth- and twentieth-century photographs from his personal collection along with various excerpts from his prolific writings. Highlighting his education and professional background in anthropology, this project celebrates Mitchell’s complex approach to the medium of photography and his active and long-term commitment to Toronto’s photographic community.

Portraits

The exhibition seeks to reveal Mitchell’s approach to producing and collecting photographs by focusing on three key themes evident throughout his work and his collection: portraits, anthropological explorations and altered landscapes.

This section speaks to Mitchell’s interest in portraiture as a means of revealing and capturing the essence of both the sitter and the photographer. Each photograph holds something unique in its representation, whether a particular mood or aesthetic, an unusual expression, or the way in which the photograph has been executed, displayed or manipulated. The works featured here draw attention to the production of images, highlighting relationships between the photographer, their subject and their apparatus. In this sense, portraits can be understood to be just as much a picture of the photographer as they are of the subject.

As Mitchell has stated, “It’s just realizing that every time you point the camera out at the world it’s also pointing back at you.”2

2

Leslie Miller, 88, 4th Canadian Mounted Regiment in Flanders in the First World War. “We began that war with equipment left over from the Boer War. We were a cock-eyed army and suffered for it.”

Aubrey Winch, 61, 419 Squadron of the RCAF in the Second World War. He was ditched in the North Sea 70 miles from Hull, England.“I don’t know why anybody would want to talk about that time anymore.”

William Caswell, 90, army machine-gunner in France in the First World War. In 1917 he was unconscious for a month after being buried in a trench. “My rescuer took my tags so I never again got paid.”

Michael Mitchell Aubrey Winch, 61, from the series Sunnybrook Hospital: War Veterans, 1977 gelatin silver print 24 x 23.7 cm

Michael Mitchell Leslie Miller, 88, and Willliam Caswell, 90, from the series Sunnybrook Hospital: War Veterans, 1977 gelatin silver print 24 x 23.7 cm

Michael Mitchell Highland Maya Man and his Son, Chamula, Chiapas, Mexico, 1972 gelatin silver print 28 x 27.5 cm

Anthropological Explorations

Altered Landscapes

This section aims to emphasize Mitchell’s anthropological approach to exploring and documenting the world through photography.

This grouping also demonstrates that Mitchell’s relationship to the medium is not just observatory, but participatory, returning to the idea that the dialogue between photographer and subject is always embedded within an image. While taking a photograph of a young child in a doorway in Mexico in 1972, the boy’s father suddenly appeared and pointed a loaded gun at Mitchell. The photographer quickly defused the situation and got this portrait.

Mitchell’s desire to observe and capture particular cultures, places and moments in time is evident in both his own photographs as well as his collected works.

In a 1983 interview for Photo Communiqué magazine Mitchell stated: “Art is not about making beautiful things ... it’s to talk about experience. Why we’re here, and the incredible fact that we’re here. What things looked like when we were here.”3

Mitchell’s approach to landscape photography embraces the idea that the genre can also function as a form of portraiture, creating images which depict not only the scene before the camera, but reflect the photographer and his society. By photographing sites that have been transformed by humans, he emphasizes the interventions that we have made upon the landscape. Incorporating infrastructures into his photographs of the Toronto Series, Mitchell depicts the decay of dilapidated billboards in both urban and rural scenes, such as downtown Toronto or cornfields.

Mitchell has also contributed essays to three of Edward Burtynsky’s publications: Quarries (2007), Australian Minescapes (2008), and Oil (2009), each one focusing on a different aspect of the industry and its impact on the environment and highlighting how the pursuit of wealth and power has led to lasting alterations to the natural environment. The works in this section, created and collected by Mitchell, demonstrate the act of recognizing and recording signs of human intervention at particular moments in time. As he stated, “doing photography is searching for signs which you organize and record. It’s an act of recognition.”4 6

“Human beings have been in the landscape alteration business for millennia.”

Michael Mitchell, Edward Burtynsky: Quarries (Göttingen: Steidl, 2007), 12.

Michael Mitchell Black Billboard, Highway 10, 1997 gelatin silver print 21.2 x 45.4 cm

This exhibition and its accompanying catalogue aim to create a telling portrait of Michael Mitchell through his personal work and his collection. In addition to portraying Mitchell, this exhibition and publication also reveal the mediation of a group of emerging graduate students. To further this idea of a telling portrait, this catalogue offers three distinct viewpoints on Mitchell’s life and work: through his own words; an essay by his colleague and friend, curator Maia-Mari Sutnik; and the writings of a new generation of photography historians who are experiencing his work and collection for the first time. These three perspectives explore the numerous roles that Mitchell has played in the Toronto art scene, adding to his legacy of photographs, essays, books, research and films.

This exhibition, accompanying publication and website were produced by the 2015 graduating class of the Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management Masters Program at the School of Image Arts, Ryerson University, under the supervision of Sophie Hackett, associate curator of photography at the Art Gallery of Ontario, and Gaëlle Morel, exhibitions curator at the Ryerson Image Centre.

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Notes 1

Michael Mitchell and Douglas Clark, Sweet Immortality: Douglas

Clark (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2005), 3.

2

Gail Fisher-Taylor, “Staying Home: An Interview with Michael

Mitchell,” Photo Communiqué (Fall 1983), 29.

3

Ibid., 25.

4

Ibid., 21.

Michael Mitchell Black Square: Alberta Badlands, 1979 chromogenic print 76 x 101 cm

“Photographers [...] stop to concentrate, preserve and collect certain of those moments. This is how they connect to the planet, its inhabitants and the stream of time.�

Michael Mitchell, Sweet Immortality: Douglas Clark (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2005), 3.

Photographer Unknown Portrait of a Man Holding a Top Hat, c. 1855-1865 ambrotype 5.3 x 4 cm

AN INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL MITCHELL

qualities do you think make someone a good collector of photography?

MM: Curiosity. A good grasp of the medium’s history, cash, and foolishness!

FPPCM: When did you start to collect photography?

FPPCM: In Australian Minescapes (2008) you state: “deep experience of place and process is crucially important to good picture making.” How has this shaped your approach to your own photography?

MM: I began collecting photography in the early 1970s. I largely collected cased photographs such as daguerreotypes, ambrotypes and tintypes. The first large collection I bought was the Eisenmann Collection of cabinet cards and cartes de visites (about 450 vintage prints) around 1974.

MM: Although my assignment work required me to photograph in many places I had never been to before, I always concentrated on locations I knew intimately when doing my own work. I always felt the whole world was right under my nose, like the proverbial grain of sand. A lot of superficial, affectless photography is done by photographers who constantly trash the globe looking for exotica. For them, life is always more interesting somewhere else; it is “drive-by shooting.” As for experience of process, you need to really understand your tools and materials in order to be effective.

FPPCM: How did your association with other Toronto photographers and collectors affect your method of collecting?

MM: Not much, I largely worked alone and few people collected what I did in those days. I was largely interested in vernacular material. I don’t think Toronto collectors had any confidence in their taste, so they always bought predictable, vetted, blue-chip things by recognized “art” photographers.

FPPCM: You talk a lot about what makes an effective photographer, or an effective photograph. What 13

Charles Eisenmann The Elastic Skin Man, c. 1880 cabinet card 49.8 x 32.3 cm

FPPCM: Would it be accurate to say that you enjoy working on assignments that, in some way, further

our understanding of people, places, society and culture? Does your anthropological background influence that?

MM: I think that anthropology is one of the very best liberal arts educations. Once you have really understood it—especially ethnographies—it will always affect your understanding of the world and human culture. Anthropologists often become writers. It is all the more important in a global age. Anthropology, like photography, gives you a license to be curious.

FPPCM: How do you feel about trends in photography aesthetics? At any point in your career, have you aligned your work with a particular style? If so, are you able to describe it?

MM: I have trouble with a lot of so-called conceptual works. It is not that the ideas are uninteresting, but rather the photographs that accompany them often are. In many cases photography is reduced to an illustrational tool rather than a free-standing witness to how amazing existence is. Conceptual practitioners are not really visual people, and I like photographs that have considerable visual complexity, not just conceptual depth.

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FPPCM: What is your opinion on how emerging photographers are educated? Is it important to have a solid technical foundation before experimenting with the medium?

MM: Although all roles associated with photography are important—archivist, curator, conservationist, etc.—I am most interested in a schooling that produces informed practitioners. These days, one can start producing pictures with very little technical knowledge, but as one’s picture-making ambitions grow, the acquisition of more technical understanding becomes important. I prefer good, up-to-the-minute tools, but recognize at the same time that a great picture can be made with a pinhole camera.

However, it is about realizing that the kinds of subjects that can be dealt with using a pinhole are fairly limited. The great virtue of the medium is its descriptive capacity. Just think of what we know about the nineteenth century and the greater world because of photography. Then compare how much less people of the nineteenth knew about the eighteenth.

Michael Mitchell Ihor Holubizky, 1994 chromogenic print 35 x 27.8 cm

The idea that photographers will be better imagemakers if they are educated people who know their history, politics, social sciences and so on,

is an attractive one. The problem with advanced school-trained photographers is that many become, in effect, members of an academy. When I went to Ryerson University over 40 years ago, the only approved ‘school’ of photography was Nathan Lyons’s Visual Studies Workshop. At that time everyone was encouraged to make pictures like Lyons, Robert Frank or Henri Cartier-Bresson. This seems even truer now, although the models are different. I often work with contemporary classical composers and musicians, and the same thing happens to them—their music all begins to sound the same. In short, it is an academic system that would never allow the emergence of an Erik Satie or a Charles Ives.

FPPCM: If you had to select an entire body of personal work to exhibit again, or perhaps for the first time, what would it be and why?

MM: I would probably choose the close-up, large format series of faces that I made in the 1990s. They were technically challenging to make, as they involved a huge amount of light and quickly executed swings and tilts at a very close working distance. Otherwise there would have been very little depth of field. They also demanded a very intimate collaboration with the 16

Michael Mitchell Untitled, c. 1985 chromogenic print 38 x 38 cm

subject, as photographer and sitter were so physically close, usually less than two feet apart. The results still interest me. I have never exhibited the whole series, but perhaps that time is approaching.

Festival without that early groundwork. We also might not have the huge photography collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario or the various dealers who show photography.

FPPCM: You seem to have many connections to other artists and photographers, which is either reflected in their work, or your own. How have these relationships influenced your own work as a photographer, and do you feel it has been beneficial to be part of that community here in Toronto?

One of my regrets is that there were so many young photographers doing really interesting and highly original work in those days, but they received no institutional support. They would go up to see Jim Borcoman (Curator of Photography) at the National Gallery of Canada and he would send them all right back to TPW and me. Many of them finally gave up, and what was eventually supported and had some commercial success was much more traditional and less interesting. We lost a lot of interesting work and promising artists.

MM: When I began to make photographs in the early 1970s there really wasn’t a community. That is why I worked hard, along with a few others, to start the Toronto Photographers Workshop (TPW) and establish the gallery at Harbourfront. I also worked and wrote for the magazine Photo Communiqué.

TPW met monthly at my studio for its first five years, from roughly 1977 to around 1982, where we would show each other our work and do critiques. Thus, we built our own community and influenced each other through that process. Other groups such as Gallery 44 were formed and did similar work, and we probably wouldn’t have the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography

FPPCM: How would you characterize the art and photography scene in Toronto? Has it changed over the last decade? If so, how? What do you think the near future will bring for the photography scene in Toronto?

MM: I have always had friends in the medium who were a generation or so older than me, and I admired what they had created using the medium, as well 18

as their long-term commitment to it. I think of Kryn Taconis, the first Canadian member of Magnum; the San Francisco photographer John Gutmann; and Toronto artists like Michael Snow and Arnaud Maggs.

I was quite close to some of them, and their biggest influence was to encourage me to keep going. They all kept (and continue to) producing right to the end of their lives, which was often in their eighties. I hope my style is my own, I generally developed a different approach to each project. I have never worked to build a kind of visual ‘brand’ identity through my work.

In the Toronto photography scene, there is now a lot more commercial representation and career building.

I think in the old days we just wanted to explore possibilities and do good work. Since there were so few dealers, we were free to pursue projects that weren’t necessarily crowd-pleasers. Now it seems that every young photographer wants to establish a brand and be a Jeff Wall or an Edward Burtynsky. The focus is on building a career and making money, perhaps at the expense of promising artists and work.

FPPCM: Throughout the decades, there are statements you have repeatedly made in writing, such as: “photography is an editing medium.” Are 19

there any such statements on photography you made in the 1970s, 80s or 90s that you would now like to reconsider or retract? Is there anything new you would like to say?

MM: Like any sensible person, I am sure I have had opinions that I would now regret or no longer embrace. I just couldn’t go back and suffer through my old work to find out what they are. I like to think that the invention of photography was as culturally transformative as the steam engine, electricity or universal suffrage—it changed everything. It gave us a high-density medium for instant information capture, storage and retrieval that was unprecedented and freed artists to create more inventive works with pencil and paint. It took the romance out of war and discredited the spooky and the spiritual—if you couldn’t photograph it, then it didn’t exist. It discredited mythologies by making it harder to lie and deceive. It showed us that our world and the universe are far stranger than anything we could imagine. It puts us in our place, and maybe it will teach us to treat each other and our suffering planet a little more kindly.

Photographer Unknown Untitled, 1926 gelatin silver print 21.4 x 39.4 cm

“Photographers use many words to describe what they do. They look for photographs, make them and they create them, but the word that most accurately and honestly describes the process is take.”

Arnaud Maggs Michael Mitchell, from the series 48 Views, c. 1982 gelatin silver print 40 x 50 cm

Michael Mitchell, “Abracadabra: Arnaud Maggs Makes Portrait Magic,” Canadian Art, Fall 2010, 2.

FRAMING REALITIES: Photography as an Editing Medium

Kasia Laszczuk and Carla-Jean Stokes In addition to a decades-long career in photography, Michael Mitchell has produced a number of written meditations on the possibilities and limitations of the medium. From the 1970s to the present day, he has shared his perceptions in the field of photography and photographic history. However, some views are repeated throughout his writings. One of the most frequently reasserted ideas is that “photography is an editing medium.”1 Through an exploration of his writings, we are told that there is more to photography than capturing a scene on sensitized paper or a compact memory card. Often produced with both expediency and ease, Mitchell states, “most of the millions of photographs made daily are mere records as mute as stone.”2 The most meaningful photographs, to Mitchell, are the ones that are taken for the purpose of discovery. 3 Photographers can bring their perceptions to light 23

through the medium, but the most effective and interesting work uses the medium to inquire something of the world. By way of explanation, he states, “I take pictures to find out what I don’t know or what I’m beginning to know. Making pictures is a step along the path to understanding.”4

a chosen point in the continuum of time. In the case of most, but not all photographs, the crucial decisions might be seen as a process of editing--editing time down to the instant of exposure and the editing of space visible from the vantage point, down to the significant elements to be included within the frame.”5

What Mitchell identifies as “editing” commences with framing the photograph before it is taken. We see many explorations of this idea in his work. For example, in his close-up portraits of prominent Canadian figures (Fig. 1), he focuses the camera on sites of his sitters’ faces in a way that highlights specific features. This approach echoes landscape photography but is applied to portraiture in a way that makes notable individuals less recognizable. This deliberate composition is a way to edit the scene.

Portable lights and flash units are other tools photographers can employ to edit a scene. Mitchell explores this in his 1978 exhibition Nightlife (image, page 1). Although it’s not the sole focus of this collection of works, Mitchell’s writing suggests that harnessing light in a setting that is dark functions as a means to edit reality. In the accompanying text, Glenda Milrod writes, “the photographer is making pictures about being alone, ways of being alone and the search for companionship.”6 Again, this practice of editing is irrelevant without the twin desires to ask something of the world, and to tell what you have found.

Indeed, editing can be understood, in a broad sense, as an activity that is not confined to darkroom or Photoshop practices. Merely choosing to take images and employing ideal camera settings, the photographer has begun the editing process: “[The] photographer chose a certain lens and aperture/ shutter speed combination and made an exposure at

Fig. 1 Michael Mitchell Ydessa, 1994 chromogenic print 64 x 52 cm

When reviewing negatives, the photographer chooses which photographs to print, and which to discard.

The images can be cropped during printing to further emphasize the subject. As Mitchell points out in his essay “Fatal Edit,” a host of darkroom tricks can be employed to alter the tone or contrast of a print.7 24

Digital technology expedites this process, but the essence remains the same—editing is telling. Editing allows the photographer to leave his or her individual mark on a piece, otherwise, as stated by Mitchell, “[the] images will look like backdrops. [The photographer’s] lack of experience will be exposed.”8 Through editing, the photographer is able to highlight his or her level of experience with the medium, resulting in a higher quality of work. Mitchell goes on to argue, “deep experience of place and process is crucially important to good picture making.”9 Discussing the later work of Arnaud Maggs in 2010, Mitchell adds a new perspective to this equation— photographers can inquire something of the world around them, but they are simultaneously limited by that world. He states, “photographers are the hostages of reality. They make sense of reality by editing it.”10 Again, the power of the photographic medium and the act of editing become apparent.

Fig. 2 Photographer Unknown Housecleaning Diver, 1958 gelatin silver print 23.4 x 18.8 cm

Fig. 3 Photographer Unknown Actress Bette Davis on a Film Set, c. 1937 painted gelatin silver print 23 x 18 cm

This sentiment, that photographers are able to question and manipulate reality through editing, is further demonstrated in Mitchell’s collected works, such as the image of a person vacuuming an aquarium (Fig. 2). There is a surreal quality in the image that

might make a viewer question what they have seen.

As Mitchell says, “by choosing a moment in time, the photographer is rejecting all other moments.”11 In this case, the photographer has chosen this moment in time, identifying a task that perhaps few knew even existed.

There are similar examples of photography as an editing medium in Mitchell’s expansive photographic collection. On a wall in his home, there is a painted photographic print depicting Bette Davis (Fig. 3). The painted areas show how photographs were edited for the press, but this particular print is displayed on Mitchell’s wall with its markups intact. This photograph shows editing as a process, not as a result.

Mitchell’s writings suggest that, in the practice of photography, the processes of inquiry and discovery never expire. When reconsidering and reviewing their negatives, photographers are reminded of the choices they made. According to Mitchell, “through the final selection of negatives to be printed, the photographer makes himself.”12 Because of the connections between investigation, encounter, editing, and telling, photography also grants us the ability to discover and rediscover ourselves.

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Notes 1

Michael Mitchell, “In the New World: John Gutmann and

American Photography,” in Gutmann, ed. Maia-Mari Sutnik

(Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1985), 23; Michael Mitchell, “Fatal Edit,” in Memory Unearthed: The Lodz Ghetto Photographs of Henryk Ross, ed. Maia-Mari Sutnik (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2015), 173.

2

Mitchell, “Fatal Edit,” 173.

3

Gail Fisher-Taylor, “Staying Home: An Interview with Michael

Mitchell,” Photo Communiqué (Fall 1983): 20.

4

Ibid., 21.

5

Ibid.

6

Glenda Milrod, “Foreword,” in NIGHTLIFE: Photographs by Michael

Mitchell (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1978), np.

7

Mitchell, “Fatal Edit,” 173.

8

Cited in Edward Burtynsky, Australian Minescapes (Perth: Western

Australia Museum, 2009), 5.

9

Ibid.

10

Michael Mitchell, “Abracadabra: Arnaud Maggs Makes Portrait

Magic,” Canadian Art (September 2010), 2.

11

Mitchell, “Fatal Edit,” 173. This quote acts as the opening phrase

for an essay of a much different subject, but the sentiment is relevant here.

12

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Mitchell, “In the New World,” 23.

Photographer Unknown Untitled gelatin silver print with applied colour 29.5 x 24.6 cm

Emil Otto Hoppé Framework of the Graf Zeppelin Dirigible, 1930 photogravure 20 x 15.4 cm

NORTH OF THE TREE LINE: Michael Mitchell’s Work with Inuit Communities Ingrid Forster Michael Mitchell recalls his first trip to Baker Lake in the late 1970s—he stood in the doorway of a small airplane, staring out into a snow-covered, barren landscape during the coldest part of the year, wondering what he had gotten himself into. After several minutes, Mitchell finally stepped off the plane and set out on foot to try and find town, pulling his cases and gear behind him. A snowmobile eventually came to pick him up and so began his first adventure north of the tree line.

Mitchell’s first trip to the region was for an assignment commissioned by the then Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, Ottawa. Mitchell was sent to research and photograph five Inuit communities on Baker Lake. The anthropological work he had done in these communities later landed him a job for Canada Post. Canada Post began producing a series of small books with heritage stamp collections, including both written content and images. One of these books, Singing

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increased significantly, Mitchell struggled to keep up and everyone had a good laugh.

Songs to the Spirit, was meant to highlight the history and culture of the Inuit (Fig. 1). Mitchell was hired to assemble the content for the publication using his own photographs, writing and visual material from other collections and photographers. Unsatisfied with the idea of solely portraying a romanticized version of Inuit life, Mitchell decided to include some images that reflected the modern realities faced by the Inuit people, such as a somewhat controversial photograph of an oil spill.

An intriguing photograph in the book is that of an Inuit elder from the Rankin Inlet community performing a traditional drum dance; a significant image for Mitchell, as it was not an easy photograph to take (Fig. 2). Mitchell had heard whispers of a drum dance, but community members were reluctant to tell him where and when it would take place. After waiting for several hours at a community hall, well into the night and unsure whether the event would ever happen, the doors suddenly opened and community members and elders came pouring in, gathering in a circle. The drum dance began and Mitchell managed to get one shot of the elder dancing before his flash died, but this image came with a price. After the woman finished dancing, she placed the large hand drum in front of Mitchell and encouraged him to enter the circle and dance. The speed of the dance

Fig. 1 (top) Michael Mitchell from Singing Songs to the Spirit: The History and Culture of the Inuit: A Heritage Stamp Collection, 1980 Ottawa: Canada Post Fig. 2 (bottom) Michael Mitchell, Drum Dance, Rankin Inlet, 1978 from Singing Songs to the Spirit: The History and Culture of the Inuit: A Heritage Stamp Collection, 1980 Ottawa: Canada Post

During the mid 1980s, another project for the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs brought Mitchell back to those northern communities in the territory now known as Nunavut. Mitchell and fellow anthropologist David Zimmerly were commissioned to interview and take portraits of artists in the stone-carving industry (Fig. 3). During the 1970s, Inuit soapstone carving went from small-scale, artisanal production to a commercial industry, providing a source of economic growth and development for many Inuit communities.

Two portraits from this series are featured in the exhibition (Fig. 4 and 5).

The purpose of the project was to take portraits of the aging carvers, at risk of silicosis, in order to document them while they were still alive. Initially, exposure to soapstone dust was minimal, as carvers would produce only a small number of objects by hand to trade, or sell. With the commercialization of soapstone carving, production increased and power tools were introduced, thus resulting in greater and constant exposure to silica dust particles. Mitchell, in discussing the work, notes that he was very aware of the harsh reality facing the

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subjects he was photographing and the underlying reason the project had been commissioned; a hint of socio-political awareness that can be found in a lot of his writing and work.

The portraits made for this project are quite candid and illustrate Mitchell’s dynamic approach to documentary photography. Rather than taking static and posed portraits of the Inuit carvers, Mitchell chose to photograph them as they were being interviewed in their homes, resulting in engaging compositions and a distinct visual narrative, as seen in this photograph of carver Philip Hakuluk demonstrating how to throw a harpoon (Fig. 6).

Fig. 3 Michael Mitchell John Kavik, Rankin Inlet, 1986 gelatin silver print 30.9 x 20.9 cm Fig. 4 (opposite) Michael Mitchell Philip Hakuluk, Rankin Inlet, 1986 gelatin silver print 20.9 x 31 cm

Years later, in 2002, Michael Mitchell once again returned to the Arctic to make a documentary film.

Caribou Kayak, released by the National Film Board of Canada, was directed and written by Mitchell and produced by his partner Sheila Murray. In this film, Mitchell documented a project involving two Inuit elders, Gino Akka and Otto Apsaktaun, who wanted to pass on their knowledge of how to build a traditional Arctic kayak, the Netsilingmeot, once used for hunting caribou (Fig. 7 and Fig. 8). The project involved a collaboration between elders and youth of the hamlet community of Kugaaruk, as well as some boat building

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enthusiasts from British Columbia. The participants set up camp in a remote spot along Barrow Lake, where Mitchell captured a unique transfer of knowledge between elders and the younger generation, in order to preserve what was left of a long-standing tradition and important part of Inuit heritage.

The aforementioned projects reflect Mitchell’s multifaceted career and his keen sense of how to create an informative and engaging narrative, through which, in this instance, the audience is introduced to various aspects of Inuit life and culture. Michael Mitchell’s anthropological background serves as a constant backbone for not only his research and writing, but also his approach to photography and filmmaking. These projects make up only a small portion of the documentary work that Mitchell has produced, but demonstrate his dedication to further understanding the world, its inhabitants and sociopolitical currents.

Fig. 5 Michael Mitchell Philip Hakuluk’s Family, Rankin Inlet, 1986 gelatin silver print 20.9 x 31.5 cm

Fig. 6 Michael Mitchell Philip Hakuluk, Rankin Inlet, 1986 gelatin silver print 20.9 x 31 cm

Fig. 7 and Fig. 8 Michael Mitchell Caribou Kayak, 2006 stills from video National Film Board of Canada Release

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“Who can understand the moment? Instead, the judgement comes when all the returns are in.

We then sit as jury—is this personal expression, formal play, documentary or all three? Only then can history paste on the labels.”

Michael Mitchell Jake Mitchell & Atget, Christmas, 1982 from the series Staying Home chromogenic print 38.1 x 46.6 cm

Michael Mitchell, “Toronto Documentary Photography Project: Things as they are,” Photo Communiqué, Winter 1984, 36.

MICHAEL’S CABINET: Musings on Opening Random Compartments Maia-Mari Sutnik Our little lives are kept in equipoise By opposite attractions and desires, The struggle of the instinct that enjoys, And the more noble instinct that aspires.

—H. Wadsworth Longfellow Astute observers have noted that the distinguishing qualities of a great poet seem to be beauty of imagination, delicacy of taste, wide sympathy and mild earnestness. This assessment possibly attests to Longfellow’s eminence. These attributes are hardly universal qualities; only the exceptional are so imbued.

I would say that Michael Mitchell—a legendary figure in our midst—shares this fine company. He also possesses several additional qualities: depth of knowledge, well-springs of passion and visionary persistence—the latter clearly marking his belief in scrupulous looking and thinking about creativity. Some people achieve 37

status by flaunting a slick, hollow ego; Michael, on the other hand, is no chest-thumping “me, me” bearer. As a true legend, he not only personifies all the essential qualities, but also cannot help but provide a bonus: yes, dashes of goofy but chaste banter!

It is tempting to think of Michael as an intrepid sailor (he has that “salty” look). His passion for Georgian Bay’s wind and water journeys is firmly noted. But I actually see him as an elegantly crafted cabinet of many compartments: ideas, objects, whimsy, symbols, good wines, art, film, photography and the as yet unknowable—of course, there must be some mystery!

But there is no mystery to tallying up Michael’s magnanimous gestures, which are all stacked in the cabinet’s multiple compartments. Open any one of them, and stacks of extraordinary gestures benefitting the Toronto ‘s arts community—and beyond—are revealed. Not unlike Poco a Poco, his beautiful fold-out book of prismatic rays, Michael’s own spectrum of light has illuminated photographic culture since the 1970s, both as an observer and a creative protagonist.

The 1970s meant one had emerged from a tumultuous decade of assassinations, massacres in Vietnam, uprisings from South Africa to Prague, and riots and

anarchy from Paris to Chicago—and yet also space travels, feminist manifestos, Grace Slick’s “White Rabbit,” The Rolling Stones, and The Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love.” Many news events became hallmarks for photojournalists, and photography garnered a mounting audience south of the border. In Canada, there were also some sensory awakenings: Marshall McLuhan’s “the medium is the message,” Glenn Gould’s exit from the concert stage to contrapuntal sound and the celebration of photography at Expo ’67, with “500 best” photographs by 272 photographers—all of 10 Canadians included!

Douglas Curran Michael Mitchell, Mount Hood, Oregon, c. 1983 cibachrome 20.3 x 19.3 cm

Yousuf Karsh, one of the “500 best,” wrote at the time: “In any country, the artistic standards of photography depend on...exposure of the general public to photographic excellence and the ability on the part of the public to recognize artistic quality.”1 A well-noted sentiment with its inbuilt irony. At the same time, Michael and like-minded “photography pioneers” were acutely attuned to the mass of “artistic quality” and also vexed by showers of formal resistance to the medium.

Regardless, remarkable strides took place between ’67 and ’77, and at random...

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Compartment T: It is stacked to the brim. I recall latenight gatherings at Michael’s studio and home. He consolidated a group of determined photographers and a fresh vision emerged: an artist-run centre for photography. The much-heralded Toronto Photographers Workshop (TPW), a place for dialogue and the exchange of ideas, was founded. And with Michael’s good grace, the raucous Harbourfront animator Anita Aarons—an unrivalled dynamo who gravitated toward good-looking men, funky ceramics and, luckily, photographs,—provided dedicated space for exhibitions. Photography is energized by public exposure. The impact TPW made in 1977 has been felt ever since.

Compartment F: Desperation! After I had navigated the expanse of landing Robert Frank’s The Americans, Frank requested that his latest work from Mabou, Nova Scotia, be included. A first-time Frank showing is significant news! Yet no one was willing to review Frank’s anguished vision. Call to Michael the rescuer!

In 1980, in Parachute magazine, he wrote, “Frank in a sense, never saw America nor, perhaps did he really seek it...He was always grappling with the really big questions—what to do as you walk your time on this planet, and how to reach out to others so you do not 39

walk alone...Hence the astonishing number of intensely intimate conversations taking place in the dim hallways of the AGO.”2 Michael understood.

Compartment E: Exposure: Canadian Contemporary Photography, organized by the AGO’s Extension department in 1975, travelled throughout Ontario.

This cross-Canada opportunity engendered plenty of bickering—complaints of biased judges, a politically incorrect image for the letter-head (nude young girl in soft focus)—still, thousands of aspirants entered. A final tally of 146 photographers and more than 200 prints and photo-sculptures. Notable progress since Expo.

Michael was featured with three versatile colour prints.

His sand and sun set-up with Mickey Mouse and sexy Minnie relaxing on the beach is all too funny! (I said there was a goofy side, did I not?)

Compartment N: This one belongs to NIGHTLIFE. Anyone who experienced this spellbinding exhibition of large colour prints aglow in darkness will echo critic Alan Porter’s statement: Michael is a “new breed of seers.... In his imagery are things we could never see without his masterful visualization.”2 Kudos to Extension’s Glenda Milrod for positioning this travelling exhibition at the AGO. It modified certain notions about

photography. Nightlife convinced that photographs work just beautifully on gallery walls.

Compartment R: Responding to Photography: Selected Works from Private Toronto Collections (1984) succeeded in large part thanks to Michael. As I aimed to establish a circle of like-minded collectors interested in extraordinary photographs—from the masterly canon to the less-known, and even embracing the obscure—I feared I might be entering shaky territory. Michael, alerted me to special-interest collectors, loaned 15 pieces from his own collection and raised the funds to produce the catalogue. It was necessary to realize this ambition: to illustrate that exciting photographs also preside in less-encumbered objectives, where “art” definitions did not centre the validation of the image.

This approach, a kind of “curious anarchy” that Geoffrey James articulated in his contributing essay, could only be demonstrated in the catalogue. All was made possible by Michael’s link to the McLean Foundation.

Compartment S: When our mutual friend Doug died in 1999, at the age of 47, I felt his curatorial projects and artistic vitality called for a tribute. I was certain only Michael Mitchell could write about Doug and bring his rightful sensibility to Sweet Immortality: Douglas Clark.

Toward the conclusion, Michael writes, “No other visual medium was capable of recognizing the phenomenal strangeness and beauty of the world with such fidelity.

Photography changed how we saw and how we communicated...IT WAS AMAZING!...His excitement was a great gift. Doug often joked that he was going to trade his personality for a new one. Photographers from one coast to the other are glad he couldn’t.”3 We must not forget Doug.

Compartment G: Michael spent time with John Gutmann in San Francisco before the exhibition at the AGO (1985). Whatever conversations they shared, they made Michael the only writer to apprehend John’s layered personality. Many curators and critics have come to mythologize John; only Michael seems to have truly understood his curious, sensual and emotional side. He’s not kidding when he writes about John’s photographs of women being sensuous and palpable targets of desire: they have bodies that even clothing cannot contain. John was obsessed with death and collected trinkets from Mexico. Months before his death, he pointed at a little white skeletal figure and said I should take that one to Michael. I forgot about it.

After John’s death in 1998, I visited as the house was cleared.

This time, I remembered John’s memento to Michael.

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Compartment L: Most recently, Michael analyzed the complexity of Henryk Ross’s extraordinary Lodz Ghetto “Folio,” the photographer’s attempt to create a narrative with 35mm contact prints. Michael throws light upon this disjointed and bewildering construction. His own experience of photographing conflict in Nicaragua takes us closer to understanding Ross’s dilemma.

Clearly, once again, I am indebted to Michael for his contribution.

Compartments unopened: Michael’s cabinet is rich with musings from A to Z. Running out of time and space, but, quickly, random drawers reveal: affections for purring cats, especially Ziggy; the story of starformed “Bear on the rock”; a weakness for crazy striped socks; the knowledge to build a traditional kayak; authoritative research into two editions (1979 and 2002) of Monsters of the Gilded Age: The Photographs of Charles Eisenmann, -the vaudevillian photographer of human freaks and oddities; a personal memoir, The Molly Fire; a Governor General’s Literary Award nomination; a Writer’s Trust Draine Taylor Prize for biography; and more...

In one of my very favourite drawers lies a copy of Staying Home, a poetic meditation on pictures of 41

found “simple curiosities,” the traces of Michael’s sons’ scattered playthings. The book’s form actually hides its unintended sophistication. There is “equipoise” in the chaos of innocence; one aspires to the recovery of oneself, momentarily. Seen through Michael’s personal image, the mood is palpable and true.

Maia-Mari Sutnik April 2015

Notes 1

Yousuf Karsh, “Canadian Prints & Drawings.” (Ottawa: Canadian

Government Pavilion, Expo 1967).

2

Michael Mitchell, “Commentaries/Reviews,” Parachute (Summer

1980): 46-47.

3

Michael Mitchell, NIGHTLIFE: Photographs by Michael Mitchell (Toron-

to: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1977).

4

Michael Mitchell, Sweet Immortality: Douglas Clark (Toronto: Art

Gallery of Ontario, 2005).

LIST OF WORKS EXHIBITED The Associated Press Ltd., The Traffic Policeman, 1944, gelatin silver print, 31 x 15.2 cm

David Heath, John Gutmann and Michael Mitchell, 1985, colour instant print (Polaroid), 7.9 x 7.8 cm

Félix Bonfils, Dakka Temple Ruins, Nubia 1882, albumen print, 26.5 x 37 cm

David Heath, John Gutmann and Michael Mitchell, 1985, colour instant print (Polaroid), 7.9 x 7.8 cm

Douglas Curran, John Reeves, "The spaceman of Brookville," and His Flag From Venus, Brookville, Florida, 1977, chromogenic print, 20.1 x 25.3 cm Douglas Curran, Curtis W. King's Flyingsaucer House, Signal Mountain, Chattanooga, Tennessee, 1977, chromogenic print, 20.1 x 25.3 cm Douglas Curran, Michael Mitchell, Mount Hood, Oregon, c. 1983, cibachrome, 20.3 x 19.3 cm Charles Eisenmann, The Elastic Skin Man, c. 1880, cabinet card, 49.8 x 32.3 cm John Gutmann, Omen, 1934, gelatin silver print, 24 x 19 cm David Heath, Michael Mitchell, 1985, colour instant print (Polaroid), 7.9 x 7.8 cm David Heath, Jay and Michael, 1983, colour instant print (Polaroid), 7.9 x 7.8 cm

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David Heath, John Gutmann and Michael Mitchell, 1985, colour instant print (Polaroid), 7.9 x 7.8 cm Emil Otto Hoppé, Framework of the Graf Zeppelin Dirigible, 1930, photogravure, 20 x 15.4 cm Arnaud Maggs, Michael Mitchell, from the series 48 Views, c. 1982, gelatin silver print, 40 x 50 cm Michael Mitchell, Caribou Kayak, stills from video, National Film Board of Canada Release, 2006.

Michael Mitchell, Go Train and the Gardiner Expressway, 1997, chromogenic print, 40.5 x 61 cm Michael Mitchell, Black Billboard, Highway 10, from the series World of Wonders: New Urban Landscapes, 1997, gelatin silver print, 21.2 x 45.4 cm

Michael Mitchell, Ihor Holubizky, 1994, chromogenic print, 35 x 27.8 cm Michael Mitchell, Ydessa, 1994, chromogenic print, 64 x 52 cm Michael Mitchell, John Kavik, Rankin Inlet, 1986, gelatin silver print, 30.9 x 20.9 cm Michael Mitchell, Philip Hakuluk, Rankin Inlet, 1986, gelatin silver print, 20.9 x 31 cm Michael Mitchell, Philip Hakuluk's Family, Rankin Inlet, 1986, gelatin silver print, 20.9 x 31.5 cm Michael Mitchell, Untitled, from the series Structured Paradise, c. 1985, chromogenic print, 38 x 38 cm Michael Mitchell, Columbia Icefields, Alberta, 1985, chromogenic print, 38 x 38 cm Michael Mitchell, Takkakaw Falls Road, Yoho National Park, 1985, chromogenic print, 38 x 38 cm Michael Mitchell, Sandinista Soldiers guarding the oil port of Corinto, Nicaragua, 1984, chromogenic print, 37.9 x 38 cm

Michael Mitchell, Ashley and Crippen Photographers, Toronto, Ontario, from the series The Family Portrait: A Cultural Sample, 1984, chromogenic print, 23.9 x 18.7 cm Michael Mitchell, Wong’s Photography, Toronto, Ontario, from the series The Family Portrait: A Cultural Sample, 1984, chromogenic print, 23.8 x 18.8 cm Michael Mitchell, Katerina’s Studio, Toronto, Ontario, from the series The Family Portrait: A Cultural Sample, 1984, chromogenic print, 23.8 x 18.8 cm Michael Mitchell, Hilario Wedding Centre, Toronto, Ontario, from the series The Family Portrait: A Cultural Sample, 1984, chromogenic print, 24 x 18.7 cm

Michael Mitchell, Studio Seamless, from the series NIGHTLIFE, 1979, chromogenic print, 38 x 38 cm

Michael Mitchell, Highland Maya Man and his Son, Chamula, Chiapas, Mexico, 1972, gelatin silver print, 28 x 27.5 cm

Michael Mitchell, Black Square: Alberta Badlands, 1979, chromogenic print, 76 x 101 cm

Marcus Schubert, Elk Lake, Ontario, 1982, gelatin silver print, 39.5 x 32 cm Photographer Unknown, Untitled, c. 1970, cibachrome, 20.3 x 19.3 cm

Michael Mitchell, Singing Songs to the Spirit: The History and Culture of the Inuit: A Heritage Stamp Collection. Ottawa: Canada Post, 1980.

Michael Mitchell, Drum Dance, Rankin Inlet in Singing Songs to the Spirit: The History and Culture of the Inuit: A Heritage Stamp Collection. Ottawa: Canada Post, 1978.

Michael Mitchell, Self-portrait, c. 1983, colour instant print (Polaroid), 10 x 8 cm

Michael Mitchell, Leslie Miller, 88 and William Caswell, 90, from the series Sunnybrook Hospital: War Veterans, 1977, gelatin silver print, 24 x 23.7 cm

Michael Mitchell, Jake Mitchell & Atget, Christmas 1982, from the series Staying Home, chromogenic print, 38.1 x 46.6 cm

Michael Mitchell, Gertrude Beere, 87, from the series Sunnybrook Hospital: War Veterans, 1977, gelatin silver print, 24 x 23.7 cm

Michael Mitchell, Ed Drawing with a Sparkler, from the series NIGHTLIFE, 1979, chromogenic print, 38 x 38 cm

Michael Mitchell, Aubrey Winch, 61, from the series Sunnybrook Hospital: War Veterans, 1977, gelatin silver print, 24 x 23.7 cm

Photographer Unknown, Housecleaning Diver, 1958, gelatin silver print, 23.4 x 18.8 cm Photographer Unknown, Untitled, gelatin silver print with applied colour, 29.5 x 24.6 cm Photographer Unknown, Actress Bette Davis on a Film Set, c. 1937, painted gelatin silver print, 23 x 18 cm Photographer Unknown, Untitled, 1926, gelatin silver print, 21.4 x 39.4 cm Photographer Unknown, Portrait of a Man Holding a Top Hat, c. 1855 –1865, ambrotype, 5.3 x 4 cm

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

CREDITS

EXHIBITION COMMITTEE

PUBLICATION COMMITTEE

DIGITAL COMMITTEE

Generously supported by the Howard and Carole Tanenbaum Family Foundation.

Ingrid Forster Laura Gentili Liisa Graham Elizabeth Larew Cassandra Zeppieri

Jessica Glasgow Kasia Laszczuk Carla-Jean Stokes Lisa Yarnell

Samantha Diaram Prachi Khandekar

A feature exhibition of the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival.

The FPPCM Class of 2015 wishes to thank all those involved in helping to bring this project to fruition. It would not have been possible without the generous financial support of the Howard and Carole Tanenbaum Family Foundation, the Ryerson Image Centre and the Ryerson University School of Image Arts.

We would like to extend our deep gratitude to Michael Mitchell for sharing not only his collection, but also his thoughts on and passion for photography.

We also owe special thanks to the following individuals and organizations for their contributions: Sophie Hackett and Gaëlle Morel, for their expertise, guidance and enthusiasm; Maia-Mari Sutnik for sharing her personal insights; Valérie Boileau-Matteau, Antoine Bourges, Thierry Gervais, Eric Glavin, Charlene Heath, Anna Jedrzejowski, Christina Papantoniou, Jennifer Park, Paul Roth, Natalie Spagnol, Erin Warner and Chantal Wilson at the Ryerson Image Centre for their advice and support; Marta Braun for her support; Sara Angelucci for her time and assistance; Anne Cibola for her design advice; and to Matthew Alexander at Colour Innovations for assisting in the production of this publication.

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Courtesy of the Estate of Arnaud Maggs.

Front cover: Michael Mitchell Self-portrait, c. 1983 colour instant print (Polaroid) 10 x 8 cm

Page 21: Arnaud Maggs Michael Mitchell from the series 48 Views, 1982 Courtesy of the Estate of Arnaud Maggs © Arnaud Maggs

Inside front cover: Ingrid Forster Collecting, 2015 digital photograph

Inside back cover: Ingrid Forster Michael Mitchell, 2015 digital photograph

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