THE IDEA OF VERNACULAR PHOTOGRAPHS IN MAJOR EXHIBITIONS AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS

NORMAN KULKIN

17 years ago

Categories: Music & Film

THE IDEA OF VERNACULAR PHOTOGRAPHS IN MAJOR EXHIBITIONS AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS

I am all about being a  visual person. Ever since I was born I began to see. Let me tell you about one of the first visions I had when I was  an infant in Prague Czechoslovakia. I was looking up at the amazing clock tower in the main square while in my mothers arms, I saw something very mind manifesting just after hearing the bells chime, a most unusual site. A mechanical device had driven a skinless figure out of a window up there near the time of night. Like a Merry-Go-Round, out popped a skeleton holding a bell and shaking it. Then it returned into its private decorated window. A most memorable site and sight.
 
But this writing is about meanings of "Vernacular Photography", which is an element of "Vintage Photography" and is crossing the same bridge that one has to go over to visit the exteriorization of Art thinking, or interiorization of Art seeing, and  making.
 
To me the meaning of "Vernacular Photography" means just about everything. It would be everything, but there are still thoughts that I pick-up daily, that I include into my knowledge and belief of Photography’s definition.
 
Generally though "Vernacular Photographs", are one’s that got away. The pictures that were once meaning something specific to someone or their family or friends. Possibly from albums made during the lifetime of someone we no longer know who it was. Perhaps the family completely died out in the past. Or if singular, it may have gotten lost without any identification.
 
These "Vernacular Photographs", come from broken albums and antique shops and flea markets. Basically "Vernacular "means, made by an anonymous photographer. Not a known artist such as one of the alphabetical listings within the history of Photography.
 
For myself ,and others, the popularity of collecting and  showing,these little objects. The French call objet trouve. We call them found photographs is compelling and rewarding visually at this time in history as things come to light.
 
Its "Snapshotmania".
 
Many museums show collections of this material with high attendance, and more lovers are born. They are familiar and easy to see and understand.
 
I could go on and on about the defining qualities of "Vernacular Photographs", but I will limit my words, but include one really fascinating feature.
 
A picture that once meant something specific, if it does not carry a caption originally or notes on the back. Becomes re-born  with the new meaning that the new owner gives to it.
 
Intuitively it is completely out of context and the collector or viewer creates immediately a new meaning to ,"The picture that is worth a thousand words ", It is all about the direction. The person who designates the new understanding. So pictures are liquid and transforming, according to belief or fantasy.
 
This now means that.
 
The following is surrounding me. Many stacks of pictures. Each rectangular or square column holds it’s own weight and notes on top of the sculptural stacking remind me of what category it beholds. Then the editing begins.
 
I will randomly pick up a portion of the column and describe the picture that I see.
 
This writing is ongoing and I will add more descriptions as time passes, if I still feel inspired to do so. It is revealing.
 
Please pardon my spelling errors or occasional grammatical error. My formal education never really happened. I am basically self taught. Also another disclaimer, some of these writings are made in the wee hours of the clock.
 
Now I begin to lift one up and see.
 
#1. "The Team"
 
So I am about to get verbally poetic about all of the pictures that I own.
 
I think I will.
 
For this first entry, I will talk about the first of many categories that without knowing look blindly , like architecture around my place. (none of the categories that I write about will be in order of importance or sequence) I am just going to say what is on my mind each time I make an entry. (I will make a description from pictures in the stack, to my hand, and eye/mind) This is all about my thoughtfulness regarding an element of "Photographica".
 
It’s about the "look into" my stacks of images here at my studio. I have nearly a 100,000 or more pictures.
 
"Children" is the first categorical stack that is near me.
 
If I decide this storytelling, is creative enough to spend time on in the future , I will do some more writing about "Whatever", which could be a category that makes it’s position available to my eye. So keep checking the place where you found yourself reading these beginnings of discovery.
 
But now I will talk about the great thin slices of different sized photographs from various years of the past.
 
It is all the past, after the upcoming period.
 
Here right now is an geometrical height and weight of picture papers from the bottom up to the top. There is a note on the top of the mini-order of pictures. The note reads: "Children" I would say that there is a hundred to one hundred and fifty quietly standing on top of each other in this particular stack.
 
There are stories written on some of the reverses of these photographs. Sometimes there will be a month and day which includes the year. Let’s say June 12, 1957 is written on one of them on the back.
 
This type of caption is interesting because it marks and documents the date.
 
It was fifty years ago today, because today is June 12, 2007. Was it a birthday or summertime vacation? Is it the viewer or owners birthday? Its not mine, as my B-day is 25 February. I was born during one of  the dates of the coldest part of time. But this is a Summer’s day and there is a group of children in this vertical composition. They huddle together as if they were a team. The trees in the background have lots of fresh leaves stopped in motion from the little breeze off the lake . (maybe? ) The great thing about found photographs are that the meaning of the picture can be made into a new meaning by the observer. One calls these anonymous pictures "Vernacular". It is the newest category of history and in organization. Art thinking. Finding  peoples pictures of the past allow a new meaning to be thought about since the original reason is lost. The idea one gets from looking or analyzing allows them to redefined into whatever you want them to mean. It brings out the artist and describer in oneself. I guess simply, it is inspirational. 
 
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Back to the foot high of photographs. What about the bottom one? What is that? What could it be like?
 
The beauty of discovering the next picture that you see is that you will be the first one to see it. The pleasure is in seeing it next. One doesn’t see something like a photograph every second so the next one, one sees is really unknown till the time is right.
 
So the bottom one, has the weight of all the others on top of it. But I am going to lift them off and expose the base picture.
 
#2. "Calendar Boy"
 
It is a boy wearing a felt cap and winter clothing. The ground is white with snow. Footprints are visible as tracked arrival to this location was emphasized by boots weighted by kids. Surface marks in circles and random forwards and back kind. There is a snowman at the left of the boy and it is three times the size of the kid, with a carrot nose and coal eyes and red scarf. The fascination that my eyes take here are the  teeth. These were quarter sized dentally placed buttons with four holes in each ivory , along the smile. The camera must have been a medium format camera as the sharpness is all there.
 
Just to the right is the capped boy who seemed to jump out of the last page of the calendar. He is holding a stick horizontally that has a yellowish white or gray tinted string rolled around the wood. The string is visible and goes diagonally up toward the sky’s cloud where one sees visible a  beautiful kite up in the air. The kite is designed as an American flag. I like this one. Maybe that is why it is on the bottom so it does not get shifted so easily.
 
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#3. "Swinging Girl"
 
Now I cut the deck of pictures, and slide off the next surprise. It is a beautiful girl. Long hair down to the middle of her body length. Her hair must have taken six years to get that long. She is caught candidly in upward motion on a swing. A fast shutter speed freezes time.  Her light color hair paints the vacant background expressively just as a Franz Kline paint brush stroke in dark black, only this stretch of outstretched hair is light, in fact sunlight seems to glow thru its softness. The girl smiles. Its all there.
 
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Its 12:16 in the morning right now for me so I might just not finish looking into this stack let alone the other stacks of pix or other categories laying about like monuments on a map. But I feel like going till 12:30 in the morning as I love these old photos.
 
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#4. "Gone Fishing"
 
The next one is horizontal and happens to be another summertime fun picture. Two boys seated on a large boulder, and water beneath the rocky landscape. Probably Colorado but could be California or somewhere else? Let’s say for the fun of it that is  mid-west ,Illinois along a river someplace. The 2 guys sit casually on the round hard spot both holding bamboo poles. There besides the young fishermen is one fish. It is a certainty  that they will have a good dinner tonight .(back then)
 
I am going to say that this gelatin silver photograph is from the 1920’s. The photographic market was producing a lot of Gelatin Silver photographs during that commercial Kodak period. They were processed in drug stores mostly, although some photography buffs did make pictures in their own darkrooms. But this was definitely produced in the drug store. How would I know? You might ask. Because on the back side, which can be a great indicator of many bits of information there was a rubber stamped number that was : 07821 , now the meaning of this was  probably corresponding to the clients name for pick-up purposes. Or perhaps a date, July 8,1921?
 
Back to the plain graph of this photo. Or pal playing graph.  Two young boys out for the day. They have gone fishing. In fact that could be the caption to this one. Of course it could be any string of words. Captions are an important aspect of thinking about pictures. Fun is the rest.
 
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#5. "The new Babe"
 
Almost stuck to that last photo but only by compression reveals the next descriptive visual. It is a 3.5x 3.5 color photo from the early sixties. Showing a baseball player (boy) wearing the uniform of white and red. The insignia is a Cardinal bird in red and black drawn symbolically and graphically. The number on the shirt is a nine. Its one of my favorite numbers when I was a kid (coincidentally).
 
This boy is in stopped motion. Obviously he is a pitcher. Throwing the ball which is out of focus but still recognizable in mid air towards the viewer or camera.
 
The shape of the figure is unique and artistically inspirational as this is what happens to me when I see this. I see sculpture or inspiration to make one. Equal to Rodin, or a Modernist shape. The body of the pitcher is now (as I behold this photo) shapely as a letter in the alphabet. Possibly two letters merged into one like the German letters bound together on an address atop of an envelope sent to you. Or German typeface in an old bible.  Its a beautiful shape as I say.
 
Any conductor at a symphony could make an invisible line such as this, while conducting an orchestra. This simple square photograph has the date on the bottom margin as : April 1, 1962. The back reads "Ritchie pitching" . There is an imprint of "Kodak" in rose color printed back there too.
 
I like sports photos but this one is beyond all that. Beyond all that is a good thinking conclusion. One must come to a conclusive thought if one wants to play with the creativity of real photos that are simple and anonymous.
 
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#6. "Unusual Bubble"
 
The next picture comes from the stack of "unusual". It is a loose category that I plan on re-editing into smaller or other connotative stacks. It is a small picture that I describe: the measurements are approximately 1 inch by 1.25 inches. Very unusual is the look of this picture.
 
Before I make a description let me make the note at this time that this picture is a torn off section of a photo-booth quartet of pictures.
 
God knows where the other three may be, but I must say that it is a bit of fortune that this solo section exists, and that I own it.
 
It is remarkable as an image, and probably should be the cover of a book or something for the masses to enjoy. 
 
 Showing is a close up self portrait from the P-booth. Which means the person went into the booth which is essentially a large camera. Then paid some money to be photographically  flashed while looking at their fun reflection in the mirror like square, inside the booth.
 
Then quickly shot onto  film. Then almost instantaneously , in about a minute or so one could get the results from a slot on the outside of the booth.
 
Out it came for the person magically, after it was developed, and then the person must have given away the missing three pieces of pictured information over the time that has passed between then (1940’s) and now.
 
But here in this example of the extant image is a private fantastic picture.
 
It is of a face that occupied most of the rectangular composition.
 
When first looking at this incredible picture it is the focus that takes one’s mind to another place.
 
The sitter is a young girl with short hair. She is caught in the photo, with the champion of all champion bubble gum bubbles.
 
The circular blown force of thin evanescent shape covers 95% of her face.
 
It is however possible to see her forehead, and eyebrows, eyes, nose, mouth and chin, in thru the gum’s balloon semi transparency.
 
It is a haunting instantaneous photograph! I see now.
 
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#7. "Farm Life with Tony"
 
I am in a maze, no I am amazed, as I walk among my stacks of paper photos.
 
I can imagine, and  feel the special one in this stack, as I lift with the crane of my hand two inches of pictures. I am  uncovering  the one that I am about to describe: The picture is of the simple life  of one farmers young family. By looking at the caption in the white margin at the bottom it reads: James, Maggie,& Tony, March 12th. 1941, Cornfield, Missouri .
 
The old black and white pictures the rural children,  in a bare field of mostly sunlight and  snow, with some melt. There are the cold  leafless trees , and a barn in the distance.
 
On their ground surrounding them were, sleigh markings. Easy to see are half white and half semi-reflected dark mud streaks.
 
One would not know it in a verbal description. Without a picture’s note.  Fortunately this explanation comes from reading the inscription. "Tony" is the horse. So its Jim and Mag flanking the harnessed Jack and sleigh.
 
Its one of the war years 1941.  I wonder if the children of rural Missouri had much thought about the meaning or horror of the current war. In this simple photo the trio seems so innocent, two smiling farm-kids and a horse. One would never sense any desperateness in the world.
 
I have to think who is holding the camera? May be its another brother or the father or friend? Perhaps it was a self portrait set up on the Christmas gift tri-pod?
 
The timing was right , at this moment because one little detail was as if in a  film . I could see a stream of cold breath, smokey looking , visible in the photo, showed from the horses mouth. My favorite aspect of the composition.
 
The 2 stood near their horse named Tony, J & M were wearing blue jean overalls, the kind with the double straps over the shoulder. I can tell by the square line across their chest of jean like material while their jackets were open. 
 
 It was certainly cold, and spring was near but their coats were open unselfconsciously to expose the design of the manufacturer Levi.
 
The company that made those overalls with the metal buttons.
 
I must have put this picture in the stack of "children photos" although I remember that I could have just as easily placed it in the "horse" category.
 
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Well there are so many more in this first stack, but I am going to sleep now. Probably in my next writings I might cover or uncover some of my dream pix, that conjoin  into pictures with new meaning. Out of context . Ones that will never exist other than in my mind and eye’s translation.
 
These words are my meaning, to be willing to exist,
 
As adjustments of my mind’s thoughts, typed out by my fingers.
 
 
 
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NORMAN KULKIN: NORMAN KULKIN

LOS ANGELES,CALIFORNIA ,90046

USA

TELEPHONE:

323.653.6929

EMAIL: PIXIDIOM@AOL.COM

PIXIDIOM.COM

SELECTED BIOGRAPHY

BORN:

February 25, 1946

Prague,Czechoslovakia

American Citizen, 1950

EDUCATION: Department of Photography UCLA Extension

Workshops with:

Edmund Teske (1967)

Leland Rice, (1979),

John Divola, (1980),

Patrick Nagatani (1980)

Robert Heineken,(1984)

TRAVEL: U.S.A.,

Canada,

Mexico,

Europe,

North Africa,

Turkey,

Iran,

Afganistan,

Pakistan,

India,

Ceylon/Sri Lanka

Middle Eastern Countries,

PUBLISHED WORKS:

FOTOGRAFARE, Anno V, No. 4, Aprile 1971, (Italy) ("Un tema fisso: La gioia di vivere")

CAMERA, JUNE 1971, No. 6, (SWITZERLAND) ("August Sander, Lewis W. Hine + Descendents")

Nuova Fotografia,Dicembre 1971, Numero 11 (Italy) ("Personale")

FOTO, 26e jaargang, December 1971, Nr.12, (Holland) ("Jong Talent")

PHOTO CINEMA MAGAZINE, Fevrier 1972, no.844 (France) ("le fantastique a travers le reel")

PROGRESSO FOTOGRAFICO, Anno 79, Marzo 1972 (Italy) ("Da New York alla Sveza al Mediterraneo: girovaga ricerca Inspirata dall anelito alla liberta")

Posters + Covers C.G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles THE KIEFFER E. FRANTZ MEMORIAL CONFERENCE ("CELEBRATION EARTH AND SKY") (POSTER) APRIL 1980

PHOTO SAN FRANCISCO , JULY 2006 ("3.24.06, NoNo/MOSIAC SERIES COLLAGE") ( CATALOG COVER )

EXHIBITIONS: U.C.L.A., G.O. GALLERY, Department of Photography, Dickson Art Center (Los Angeles, California) March 1980

Heidelberg Kunstvereins im Deutsch-Amerikisches Institute, 6. Marz-12. April 1985 (Germany)

Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery Barnsdall Art Park and Watts towers Art Gallery Group show titled: Gods,Goddesses,Clowns,Devils April 26th. Thru June 9th.,1991

Jason Vass Gallery Santa Monica, California Works on Paper, July 14-July 31, 1992

Kasher Gallery

New York City Group Show:

("SEQUENCE and CONSEQUENCE ")

June 22, 2006 - July 28, 2006

COLLECTIONS: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

The California Museum of Photography, University of California, Riverside , California

Musee de l' Elysee Lausanne, Switzerland

Feuchtwanger Library, University Southern California

Various private collections