Een luchtkasteel? Emma Kinderziekenhuis Amsterdam Photobooks on Care Environments Eva Besnyö Company Photography

[Eva Besnyö] Een luchtkasteel?

No place (Amsterdam), printed by N.V. Verenigde Drukkerij Dico for Emma Kinderziekenhuis, n.d. (ca. 1950), (24) p., with 20 photographic illustrations by Eva Brusse Besnyö and typography by her husband Wim Brusse, several other illustrations, original spiralbound wrapper by Brandt en Zoon, 25.5 x 22 cm. Wrapper slightly foxed but else in remarkably good condition, including the bound-along payment card. Fine and rare brochure photo book, only two copies in PiCarta (UvA and Rijksmuseum). By means of this brochure, Emma Kinderziekenhuis drew attention to its highly outdated buildings, in order to collect funds for new buildings.

Zonder plaats (Amsterdam), gedrukt door N.V. Verenigde Drukkerij Dico voor het Emma Kinderziekenhuis, z.d. (ca. 1950), (24) p., met 20 fotografische illustraties van Eva Brusse Besnyö en typografie van haar man Wim Brusse, enkele andere illustraties, oorspronkelijk spiraalgebonden omslag door Brandt en Zoon, 25,5 x 22 cm.

Omslag wat roestvlekkig maar overigens in opvallend goede staat, met de meegebonden machtigingskaart nog aanwezig. Fraaie en zeldzame brochure fotoboek, slechts twee exemplaren in PiCarta (UvA en Rijksmuseum). Het Emma Kinderziekenhuis vroeg met deze brochure aandacht voor de sterk verouderde gebouwen, om een bouwfonds bij elkaar te krijgen voor nieuwbouw.

The heyday of Dutch industrial photography books 1945 1965

Photographer Paul Huf Paul Huff: Highlights (English and Dutch Edition) once commented succinctly on his work as follows: 'They get what they ask for, but I deliver damn good work' - the very thing that makes industrial photography books so attractive. The books show work from a period during which photographers could not make a living as artists/photographers and depended on such prestigious commissions. With this highly professional approach, photographers like Violette Cornelius Violette Cornelius and Ata Kando: Hungarian Refugees 1956, Cas Oorthuys 75 Jaar Bouwen, Van ambacht tot industrie 1889-1964, Ed van der Elsken , Ad Windig Het water - Schoonheid van ons land and Paul Huf established their reputations and influenced our present-day impression of workers and entrepreneurs in the postwar Netherlands. Experimental poets and well-known writers also contributed to these books, fifty of which are on show. 'Het bedrijfsfotoboek 1945-1965. Professionalisering van fotografen in het moderne Nederland' Het Bedrijfsfotoboek 1945-1965 . 

Photobooks on care environments and matters of life and death in post-war Holland: THEN and NOW

This exhibition focuses on the meaning and significance of photobooks concerning health care environments. Heart-rending, intimate stories on matters of life, sickness, death and personal loss, are observed and experienced by consecutive generations of photographers working in the documentary tradition. Martien Coppens (1908-1986), Koos Breukel (1962), Carel van Hees (1954), Rince de Jong (1970), Roy Villevoye (1960), and Albert van Westing (1960) unveil various aspects of the everyday lives of their friends and family, as well as people in their professional environment who suffer from a severe illness or find themselves facing grim adversity. The photographers record how these people, some of whom are very dear to them, try to deal with their illness or misfortune with a need to hold on to memories of a happier past, and to understand their slow deterioration and the bewilderment that comes with it. There is often a great sense of urgency: the clock is ticking.

The world of the loved one, the patient, is turned upside down. Suddenly, life is built around medical care and attempts to find a new sense of meaning and purpose. A new dimension is added to the concept of ‘home’: ‘home’ is no longer a safe and protected place, and consequently the patient no longer experiences it as such. ‘Home’ turns into a health care environment. Simultaneously, a different kind of reality suddenly becomes of vital importance close to home: the care facility. That turns into a new ‘home’ of sorts, in the shape of a transitory location of controlled care and attention. The hospital, the nursing home, the mental institution; they are like hotels – a temporary accommodation, often born out of necessity, sometimes unwanted; a place to meet fellow sufferers. The photographer infringes upon that environment; he/she considers the ‘home away from home’ his/her work environment.

The core of the exhibition is shaped by photobooks published by and on the Dutch public health care. In addition, photobooks on consumer driven health care and loss within one’s domestic circle and circle of friends are put on view, self-published by modern day photographers. Those publications are considered to be an extension of the genre. Within the genre, photobooks since post-war reconstruction constitute a category of their own.

After World War II photographers recorded their fascination of the harsh reality of human suffering in a number of photobooks. Each of the 25 photobooks selected for this exhibition represents a photographer’s strategy regarding the documentation of medical and personal care in public and private space, then and now. Not only do they show the progression of personal tragedy; they also display the development of care environments in The Netherlands, and the birth of a genre in documentary photography. In this exhibition you will find visual narratives on academic hospitals by the first generation of photographers to work in a tradition of humanist photography and who were members of the Dutch photographer’s guild (GKf). Among them are Eva Besnyö (1910-2003) and Ad Windig (1912-1996). Photobooks that were published after the Second World War are composed around the verb ‘to live’. Moralistic and patronizing in tone they speak of nursing and nurturing in a confined workplace; mental bewilderment and daily care; a ‘day in the life’ of a patient in a care environment that tries to mimic a home life. These publications subsequently make way for self-published and digitally produced book projects. The personal involvement reflected in those projects is domestic and local in nature, focused on the photographer’s own environment and family. Books on display by contemporary author-photographers like Linda-Maria Birbeck (1974), Annelies Goedhart (1979) and Jaap Scheeren (1979) reveal that approach.

Photobooks are selected that were groundbreaking in their day and in the way they depict the socially, often highly sensitive, themes of health care in text and images. Further, the books stand out for their technical execution, layout and way of photographic storytelling. In sum, this exhibition is about commissioners, photographers, graphic designers and graphic industry that have played an important role in the history of photography and graphic design. 
 

Emma Kinderziekenhuis
Een lange rij moeders zit op houten banken te wachten tot ze aan de beurt zijn. De kinderen die ze bij zich hebben zijn van peuter- of kleuterleeftijd. Sommigen hebben ook een baby op de arm. Moeders en kinderen zijn goed gekleed, beter gezegd netjes gekleed. Dat was een hele toer in 1948, het jaar waarin de foto genomen is.

Na de oorlog
In de eerste jaren na de oorlog waren nog allerlei levensbehoeften op de bon. Wollen truien werden eindeloos uitgehaald om weer nieuwe van te breien. Moeders naaiden hun eigen jurken en maakten zelf kleding voor de kinderen. Er was nog niet zoveel te koop. Maar de wederopbouw was begonnen. Er werd weer gezorgd.

Emma Kinderziekenhuis
Het Emma Kinderziekenhuis werd in 1865 gesticht door dr. S. de Ranitz, een bevlogen arts die bijzonder begaan was met zijn patiëntjes uit de verpauperde achterbuurten van de binnenstad. Het kinderziekenhuis was toen nog gevestigd aan de Oudezijds Achterburgwal. In 1872 verhuisde het ziekenhuis naar de Saphatistraat, waar de foto genomen is. Waarschijnlijk wachten deze kinderen op een gezondheidskeuring door de kinderarts, of op een vaccinatie. Later zouden dergelijke voorzieningen ter bevordering van de gezondheid van baby's en kinderen terecht komen bij de consultatiebureaus van de GG&GD.

Eva Besnyö
Eva Besnyö (1910-2003) werd geboren in Boedapest, maar leefde sinds 1932 in Nederland. Voor de oorlog maakte ze veel portretten. Ook had ze belangstelling voor architectuurfotografie. In het begin van de jaren zeventig legde ze veel acties vast van de feministische groep Dolle Mina. Maar wat ze ook fotografeerde, het had altijd sfeer, zelfs deze wachtkamer. Haar archief wordt beheerd door het Maria Austria Instituut, net als het Stadsarchief gevestigd in gebouw De Bazel.

Ons Amsterdam, Stadsarchief Amsterdam en Emma Kinderziekenhuis AMC slaan handen ineen.
" 13:04 06/08/2015

Historisch vakblad 'Ons Amsterdam', het Stadsarchief Amsterdam en het Emma Kinderziekenhuis AMC slaan ter ere van het 150 jarig bestaan van het Emma Kinderziekenhuis, de handen ineen ten behoeve van historische tentoonstelling en uniek historisch themanummer over 150 jaar Kindergeneeskunde in Amsterdam.

Spannende tijden voor het Emma Kinderziekenhuis AMC. De voorbereidingen voor de tentoonstelling 'Tussen Ziek en Beter' zijn in volle gang. Deze tentoonstelling waarin 15-0 jaar kindergeneeskunde in Amsterdam centraal staat, is een samenwerkingsproject met het Stadsarchief Amsterdam. Speciaal ter ere van deze tentoonstelling is er nog een unieke samenwerking tot stand gekomen, namelijk die met het historisch vakblad Ons Amsterdam.

Het themanummer van Ons Amsterdam zal verschillende onderwerpen bestrijken waaronder, ziekten in hun historische context, de ontstaansgeschiedenis van het Emma Kinderziekenhuis en een portret van de eerste vrouwelijke hoogleraar kindergeneeskunde Cornelia de Lange.

Daarnaast zal uitgebreid aandacht besteed worden aan de gebouwen van het Emma Kinderziekenhuis en het vernieuwingsproces dat het Emma heeft ondergaan, 'De Metamorfose'. De tentoonstelling 'Tussen Ziek en Beter' zal van 27 augustus tot en met 15 november te zien zijn. De tentoonstelling omhelst naast unieke historische foto's, bouwplannen en documenten, ook een speciaal educatief programma voor leerlingen van 10 – 14 jaar. Het themanummer van On Amsterdam verschijnt in de week voorafgaand aan de opening van de tentoonstelling. Voor meer informatie kunt u zich wenden tot mevrouw Carla van Burik de afdeling communicatie van het Emma Kinderziekenhuis AMC Wij hopen u op 27 augustus te mogen ontvangen in et Stadsarchief Amsterdam.

R.Wijngaarde, november 2015 Amsterdam

Views & Reviews A New History of the Latin-American Photobook Horacio Fernández Marcelo Brodsky Photography

Oscar Munoz, Archivo porcontacto, 2009 - Bogota.

Foto/Grafica: A new history of the Latin-American photobook at Le Bal

By: Horacio Fernández

PARIS.- ‘Photography’, wrote August Sander, ‘is like a mosaic: it only achieves a synthesis when you can display it all at once’. In order to arrive at such a synthesis, photographers have two forms at their disposal: the exhibition or the book, two continuous sequences of images structured into a comprehensive argument. FOTO/GRÁFICA thus constitutes an original approach insofar as it combines these two forms: an exhibition of photobooks as autonomous objects, accompanied by vintage prints, films and mock-ups.

The research carried out on photobooks over the past ten years has gradually forged a new history of photography throughout the world, including Latin America. During the first Latin American Photo Forum, held in São Paulo in 2007, a committee composed of Marcelo Brodsky, Iatã Cannabrava, Horacio Fernández, Leslie A. Martin, Martin Parr and Ramón Reverté signalled the crucial lack of any overall survey of the books published on the continent during the twentieth century. A rigorous investigation was called for in order to compensate for this silence through the systematic rescue of works whose value was incontestable, owing to a complex alchemy of many ingredients: the quality of the images themselves, the sequencing, the text, the layout, the binding, the printing and so on. This research was to bear exclusively on photobooks published in Latin America by Latin American authors actively involved in the making of the book.

This effort entailed more than three years of interviewing photographers, graphic designers, collectors, researchers and publishers on both sides of the Atlantic and combing rare bookstores and public and private libraries. Tracking down the ‘unknown’ on a continental scale transformed this investigation into a vertiginously exciting quest which had as its outcome an anthology of 150 books published between 1921 and 2009: The Latin American Photo Book. The books which came to light are incisive, complex, unsettling and often forgotten, star-crossed or otherwise secret works. The exhibition FOTO/GRÁFICA presents forty of them, most of which are unknown to the public, and thus serves to reveal Latin America’s remarkable contribution to the world history of the photobook.

CLAUDIA ANDUJAR and MARTÍN CHAMBI 
The exhibition begins with two major works echoing pre-Columbian America: one shows the landscape and its first inhabitants, the other, the cultures destroyed by colonisation.

In Amazônia (1978), by Brazilian photographers Claudia Andujar (Neuchâtel, Switzerland, 1931- ) and George Love (Charlotte, North Carolina, 1937-São Paulo, Brazil, 1995), the primeval America, Paradise lost and its inhabitants, the masters of the Earth are evoked through a dramatic, film-like narrative charged with emotion.

Alturas de Macchu Picchu (Heights of Machu Picchu, 1954) brings together one of the major poems of Nobel Prize laureate Pablo Neruda and the photographs of the great master Martín Chambi (Coaza, Peru, 1891-Cuzco, Peru, 1973). These archaeological photographs are devoid of any human presence, unlike Neruda’s verses, populated by ‘Juan Stonecutter, son of Wiracocha’ and other inhabitants of the vast Inca city lost for centuries before its rediscovery in 1911.

HISTORY AND PROPAGANDA
Photobooks of protest and propaganda trace a visual history of Latin America in the twentieth century which is fraught with implacable tensions between conservative and reformist ideologies. This history begins with the period of the great Mexican Revolution of the 1910s as related in the Álbum histórico gráfico (Graphic history album, 1921) of Agustín Víctor Casasola (Mexico City, 1874-1938).

The political, ideological version of history is propaganda. It found expression in Argentina during the government of General Juan Domingo Perón in anonymous collective works such as Argentina en marcha (Argentina on the march, 1950) and Eva Perón (1952). The same was true in Bolivia during the 1950s, when the government commissioned a heroic narrative on the miners, El precio del estaño (The price of tin, 1955) from Argentine photographer Gustavo Thorlichen (Hamburg, Germany, 1905-Málaga, Spain, 1986). In a more documentary vein, Candomblé (1957) by José Medeiros (Teresina, Brazil, 1921-L’Aquila, Italy, 1990) captures the secret, forbidden rituals of Afro-Brazilian culture.

The triumph of the cuban Revolution in 1959 mobilised an entire generation of outstanding photographers and graphic designers. The books of the early years embody faith in the future and rejection of the past, as seen in Cuba: Z.D.A. (Cuba Agrarian Development Zone, 1960), Sartre visita a Cuba (Sartre visits Cuba, 1960) and El socialismo y el hombre en Cuba (Socialism and man in Cuba, 1965). This revolutionary hope for change spread throughout Latin America, as demonstrated by photobooks such as América, un viaje a través de la injusticia (America, a journey through injustice, 1970), a synthesis of observation, emotion and culture on a continental scale by Enrique Bostelmann (Guadalajara, Mexico, 1939-Mexico City, 2003).

The victory of reactionary forces in the 1970s set off a spiral of violence. In Chile, the 1973 military coup led by General Pinochet sought to justify itself with Chile ayer hoy (Chile yesterday today, 1975), an archetypal example of right-wing propaganda which was countered by works such as Chile o muerte (Chile or death, 1974), a collage of documents, photographs and caricatures. Uchuraccay: Testimonio de una masacre (Uchuraccay: Testimony of a massacre, 1983) attests to the terrible war between Peru and the Shining Path terrorist guerrilla mouvement, whilst the recent Los que se quedan /Those that are still here (2007) by Geovanny Verdezoto (Santo Domingo de los Colorados, Ecuador, 1984- ) examines the situation of those who choose to remain rather than emigrate.

URBAN PHOTOGRAPHY 

Latin America’s cities have inspired major photobooks. Doorway to Brasilia (1959), a work by graphic designer Aloísio Magalhães (Recife, Brazil, 1927-Padua, Italy, 1982) and North American artist and printer Eugene Feldman, extols the architectural transformation of the landscape by means of an extraordinary demonstration of graphic ingenuity. More reserved, but just as monumental, Buenos Aires (1936) embodies the ‘photographic vision’ of Horacio Coppola (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1906- ), in an empty urban stage. By contrast, La Ciudad de Mexico III (Mexico City III) by Nacho López (Tampico, Mexico, 1923-Mexico City, 1983) celebrates the street life uniting architecture and city-dwellers.

In Buenos Aires Buenos Aires (1958) by Sara Facio (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1932- ) and Alicia D’Amico (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1933-2001), the only decoration is the crowd, the hustle and bustle of ordinary people. Similarly privileging the public over the setting, Avándaro (1971) by Graciela Iturbide (Mexico City, 1942- ) recreates the energy of Mexico’s first rock festival through the reframing and repetition of the images. Both of these books are distinguished by their graphic design, the work of Oscar Cesar Mara and Antonio Serna, respectively. Color natural (Natural colour, 1969) by Venezuelan photographer Graziano Gasparini (Gorizia, Italy, 1924- ), meanwhile, celebrates the gleaming, artificial colour of the city of Maracaibo.

PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAYS
A certain number of Latin American photobooks stand out for the complexity of their narratives and the uniqueness of their form.

El rectángulo en la mano (The rectangle in the hand, 1963), for example, is a moving little artist’s book with a marvellous form, a fragile masterpiece by the mythical photographer Sergio Larrain (Santiago, Chile, 1931- ).

In Sistema nervioso (Nervous system, 1975), Venezuelan photographer Barbara Brändli (Schaffhausen, Switzerland, 1932- ), graphic designer John Lange and writer Román Chalbaud present the city of Caracas like a puzzle composed of enigmatic signs reflecting ‘the chaos, the improvisation, the humour, the grotesqueness . . . ’.

In Fotografías (Photographs, 1983), photographer Fernell Franco (Versalles, Colombia, 1942-Cali, Colombia, 2006) sheds light on endless mysteries: ‘I liked to photograph the way the shadows gradually disappeared into total darkness and the light died’. Dissatisfied with the quality of the printing, Franco decided to destroy his book, and only a few copies are to be found today.

El cubano se ofrece (These are the cubans, 1986), an essay by Iván Cañas (Havana, Cuba, 1946- ) on life in a cuban village, shows the other side of official propaganda stereotypes.

Retromundo (Retroworld, 1986), by Venezuelan photographer Paolo Gasparini (Gorizia, Italy, 1934- ) in close collaboration with graphic designer Álvaro Sotillo, contrasts two ways of looking: that of Europe and North America, which proliferates in a flood of chaotic images, and that of the New World, which goes beyond appearances to privilege direct contact with beings and things.

The more theatrical photographs of Brazilian artist Miguel Rio Branco (Las Palmas, Spain, 1946- ) refer explicitly to film and painting and, with the blood-red bestiary Nakta (1996), undertake a ‘journey of pain, of the material nature of suffering’.

ARTISTS’ BOOKS
During the 1960s, many artists considered the process of creation more important than its outcome, the final work. Photographs were thus a means of documenting creative acts which left no other trace. Among Latin American artists’ books stemming from this movement, we find records of performances like Auto-photos (Self-photos, 1978) by the Brazilian artist Gretta (Athens, Greece, 1947- ) or works on the body like Autocopias (Self-copies, 1975) by Venezuelan artist Claudio Perna (Milan, Italy, 1938-Holguín, Cuba, 1997), designed by Álvaro Sotillo.

There were also growing numbers of experimental works on the urban space, such as Sin saber que existías y sin poderte explicar (Without knowing you existed and without being able to explain, 1975) by Eduardo Terrazas (Guadalajara, Mexico, 1936- ) and Arnaldo Coen (Mexico City, 1940- ), which is at once an inventory of merchandise, a chromatic adventure and a celebration of graphic design.

The questioning of artistic language is at the heart of such outstanding books as Fallo fotográfico (Photographic verdict, 1981), a conceptual work by Eugenio Dittborn (Santiago, Chile, 1943- ), or Ediciones económicas de fotografía chilena (Affordable editions of Chilean photography, 1983), a short-lived project for photocopied books which gave rise to works by photographers Paz Errázuriz (Santiago, Chile, 1944- ), Mauricio Valenzuela (Santiago, Chile, 1951- ) and Luis Weinstein (Santiago, Chile, 1957- ).

LITERATURE AND PHOTOGRAPHY 
Literature plays a central role in Latin American culture, which is often described as being more ‘literate’ than visual. Photobooks combining texts and images are noteworthy for their numbers and quality alike. When poetry reaches out to photography, the result goes beyond the impact of the words alone and the photographs read like a text, far from any attempt at illustration.

In Venezuela during the 1960s, the collective El Techo de la Ballena (The roof of the whale) devoted itself to ‘terrorism in the arts’. One of the results of their activity is Asfalto-Infierno (Asphalt-Inferno, 1963), by writer Adriano González León and artist Daniel González (San Juan de los Morros, Venezuela, 1934- ), which shows the full extent of the collective hell recorded on the pavements of Caracas.

Through the graphic design and photographs of Wesley Duke Lee (São Paulo, Brazil, 1931-2010), the poems of Robert Piva’s Paranóia (Paranoia, 1963) constitute a ‘hallucinatory vision’ of São Paulo.

With Versos de salón (Salon verses, 1970), Chilean poet Nicanor Parra invites readers on a roller-coaster ride which designer Fernán Meza joyously interprets through the flip-book style appearance, carving up, resurrection and final disappearance of the poet.

CONTEMPORARY BOOKS 
Photobook publishing has met with great success in Latin America these past years. More than ever, as Brazilian artist Rosângela Rennó puts it, the idea is ‘to use the book as an “exhibition space”, with its own graphic characteristics’.

Urban photography has enjoyed a revival with Siesta argentina (Argentine siesta, 2003) by Facundo de Zuviría (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1954- ) and Noturno São Paulo (São Paulo nocturnes, 2002) by Cássio Vasconcellos (São Paulo, Brazil, 1965- ).

Among noteworthy artist’s photobooks are the performance anthology created by Carlos Amorales (Mexico City, 1970- ), entitled los Amorales (The immoral ones [which is also a play on the artist’s name], 2000), and the surprising family album Miguel Calderón (2007) by the artist of the same name (Mexico City, 1971- ).

The archive is also a veritable genre in the visual arts of this new century, with such ambitious works as O arquivo universal (The universal archive, 2003) by Rosângela Rennó (Bela Horizonte, Brazil, 1962- ) and the compilation of photographs showing strollers from another time in Archivo porcontacto (Archive by contact, 2009) by Oscar Muñoz (Popayán, Colombia, 1951- ).

Last of all, several books demonstrate the renewed interest in documentary photography, such as On the Sixth Day (2005) by Argentine photographer Alessandra Sanguinetti (New York, US, 1968- ).

Alessandra Sanguinetti-On the Sixth Day from eclipse libros on Vimeo.

Contemporary Photo Books from Argentina selected by Marcelo Brodsky

Posted on November 15, 2012 by Deirdre Donohue

“Argentinian photo book production has increased significantly in the last few years. La Azotea, directed by Sara Facio was one of the first publishers of photo books in the region, and that initiative diversified lately to incorporate other publishers, such as Lamarca, Lariviere , La Luminosa or the collection of Fotografos Argentinos. Books by young artists are produced in growing numbers, and there is an active photo production and photo book scene. A small selection of this emerging activity is displayed in the ICP Library window, in dialogue with the upcoming exhibition and seminar “The Latin American Photobook” to be held this month at the Aperture Foundation.” – Marcelo Brodsky

We are delighted to have yet another international ambassador working on behalf of the ICP Library, the artist and bibliophile Marcelo Brodsky!

This summer [his winter] Brodsky gathered a selection of contemporary photography books in Argentina and they are all arrived and also cataloged into our collection now, as well.

A complete list is coming, but if you are in New York, I hope that you can join us tomorrow evening to celebrate the acquisitions together with Brodsky and enjoy looking through these books, most of them the only copies in a U.S. library.