Te Deum Zeitgeist Drift

te deum zeitgeist drift

EDITORIAL

For those who wonder and perhaps regret an all-text issue of Aperture the kindest word of explanation that can be offered is the observation that so many biographies and autobiographies of leading photographers have been published in the recent past, that the end of an era would seem to be at hand. This kind of event in the world of images, especialy familiar images, benefits most in verbal and word structuring.

These books, many of which are reviewed in this issue, are not the only evidence of a change or stirring of the Spirit of the Times. This awareness of a change in the Zeigeist (this Zeigeist which is so easy to prove does not exist) comes from many points of the compass. The editor alone can point to four or five interlocking thing-occurances observable recently that radiate suggestions of a potential drift in the Zeitgeist, which as has been said may not exist: exhibitions, resurgent criticism, teachers of photography around a round table, images across the country that flow across his desk.

The notable feature of an exhibition cosponsored by the New York State Fair and George Eastman House called Photography ’63 was the means by which the usual taste-making of museum exhibition was bypassed. A photo-appropriate democratic exhibition arose by requesting photo-editors, museum directors, photography teachers and a few well known independent photographers to nominate serious, dedicated, creative workers known to them who were out of school and not over forty ... a generation of photographers. Those nominated would be invited to send three prints one of which was guaranteed exhibition. An “open section” of entries were shown as the Director of the Exhibition chose. While any museum show designer or curator would be positive that he could have extracted a stronger show from these same persons exhibited in Photography ’63 the remarkableness is the high level of taste, perception and communication-evocation of an exhibition based on “photographers’ choice”. This significantly points to a maturity of taste among at least one stratum of photographers that few thought that we had yet achieved. This generation of serious, dedicated creative, responsible workers is as handy with the PHOTOgraphic as with the photoGRAPHIC. They practice photography as if some photographs function in the manner of art and that they are showing the world what kind of an art photography can be.

Teachers of college level photography sitting on the shores of a round table in Chicago voted a Society for Photographic Education into existence. Papers were read on criticism, appreciation, and words for a functional criticism germain to photography. Discussion only re-emphasized the observation that there is a growing camera consciousness in high schools and colleges. Re-emphasized was the knowledge that when some of the how-to-makephotographs “courses” in high schools and colleges are revised in to how to “read” photographs and images that society will be at the beginning of a future society literate in visual matters.

The exhibition at Lever House in New York last summer by a group banded together under the name of Heliographers was another straw in the wind. In this case pointing to the solid existence of a growing body of purposeful and successful photographers who take as their model of superiority almost anything except the Press, TV, U.S. CAMERA or Advertising. The original members of this organization are not at all confused that an art of photography revolves around esthetic emotions or the esthetic state of mind, body, and intuition long associated with the experience of esthetic events and principles. Only the New York photocritics seem to be hostile to the esthetic experience. Hence they do not represent that segment of the viewing public who enjoy and are warmed by the poetic image.

On tours West to conduct workshops and indulge himself in camerawork last year the editor encountered at least the following pair of incidents that suggested to him a change in the Zeitgeist — which Spirit as has been said before is demonstrably a fantasy. In Phoenix, Arizona a private showing of a dozen young regional photographers and their instructors was remarkable in that it showed that these men and women are not afraid to take Nature as their model for emulation and material for expressive work. Remembering the early photographs of a comparable group back in the mid and late forties, it was suddenly obvious that today’s beginners are entering photography at a different place that did their counterparts of fifteen or twenty years ago. If this new place can be characterized, which without illustrations is impossible, it is not a preference for Nature over the Urban because the same new “taste” was seen in the city interiors and exteriors of a workshop group, in San Francisco.

This same workshop group, which consisted of as many women as men, half of whom are freelancing, and most of whom brought some formal training in photography to bear, and photographs of a high level of attainment pushed that particular Session to far higher levels than usual ... to a college graduate level with professional overtones. Visually naive they are not.

The increase of lively criticism in the little photography magazines, after the doldrums, is astonishing. On sober thought one might say that we are witnessing a resurgence of meaningful photocriticism. Ralph Hattersley when on the masthead of INFINITY started something that both he and INFINITY continue in the field of criticism. Another straw in the wind is the survival and growth of the photo-quarterly CONTEMPORARY-PHOTOGRAPHER which along with reproductions of the new “taste” in poetic images carries an increasing amount of responsible criticism. In answer to a 1960 article in INFINITY, A call for Critics, David Vestal wrote in a letter, “What do we want critics for?” Since then he has entered the photocritical arena with several pieces in CONTEMPORARY-PHOTOGRAPHER. The sharpest deliniation of the new look in photocriticism is to be found in the February issue of POPHOTO in the series of reviews of The Photographer and the American Landscape show, at the Museum of Modern Art, by four staff man and Vestal. The staff men muttered and mumbled. One can disagree with a Vestal and feel clean about it.

To sum up these observations of one person about the drift of the Spirit of the Times it seems that there are enough photographers today enraptured with the poetic image regardless of subject matter to keep a half a dozen little magazines overflowing with images that not so long ago (after having been shown to friends) were stored in boxes . . . either that or enlarge the intimate circle of admirers and enemies.

Whether or not there is a sufficient audience to keep several small magazines solvent is another matter. But that also could change because, though it can semantic-gymnastically be proven that no such thing as a Zeitgeist exists, when the Zeitgeist drifts the entire social structure changes.

Minor White