Re: Mortensen

[Richard Knoppow <dickburk@ix.netcom.com>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Christina Z. Anderson" <zphoto@montana.net>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca>
Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2008 8:56 AM
Subject: Re: Mortensen


> Oh what a wonderful story, Richard!!!  When someone reacts 
> so strongly to another, what do you think the fear about 
> Mortensen was?  I wonder if he was just so obnoxious, or 
> if they thought schlocky nudes would take over the world 
> or whatnot...
>
> BTW, talking of female body parts, I was able to see Adam 
> Fuss's Vulva series (I don't know if that is what he 
> called them) that if I remember correctly were 
> daguerreotypes?? Someone can help me out here???  Anyway 
> they were at the Corcoran Art Gallery in D.C. in 2005. 
> Talk about detail...very dark and very sharp.  But I 
> cannot seem to find them on the web and I wonder what kind 
> of criticism he received.  I know Robert Hirsch was there, 
> viewing them at the same time....so he might remember tho 
> he is not on the list.
> Chris
>
>
> __________________
>
> Christina Z. Anderson
> http://christinaZanderson.com/
     There is a fair amount of biographical material about 
Mortensen on the web which a Google search will find.
    Personally, I find him a facinating mixture of 
charlatan and genuine artist. His work is in many ways 
unclassifiable, it is not really pictorialism. His books are 
also a curious mixture: some of the technical stuff is quite 
conventional and correct, some just plain off the wall. But, 
much of the writing was actually done by George Dunham, who 
was Mortensen's darkroom "assistant" and also a frequent 
model. Dunham evidently understood sensitometry and, I 
think, was responsible for the explanations of the relation 
between development and contrast. Mortensen, on the other 
hand, was the one to pushed stagnant (AKA stand) development 
and some other strange techniques. These would have 
frequently resulted in difficult to print negatives and I 
wonder if that was the real motivation for the Abrasion Tone 
process and some other manipulative techniques used in many 
Mortensen pictures.
    Also, Mortensen was well known for producing good three 
color carbon prints but I have never seen one on display. 
One story is that Dunham stole many of them because he had 
actually made them. OTOH, three color carbon or carbro 
prints seem to be very rarely seen in exhibitions.

--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
dickburk@ix.netcom.com