Dresden: The Final Adventure

For the past four years, Wet Plate Collodion photography has taken me east to Budapest, Hungary, west to Glasgow, Scotland, north to Gothenburg, Sweden and south to Barcelona, Spain; plus many other cities in between.Some of the places I've traveled to teach, exhibit and make photographs.

I just returned from Dresden, Germany. It was probably the last Wet Plate Collodion adventure for me in Europe; at least until I return to Paris in a couple of years.

Like so many places in Europe, Dresden is a beautiful city with a lot of interesting history. I especially like the photographic history of these places. Dresden was the largest manufacturer of albumen paper in the 19^th century. Albumen means “egg white”. The albumen printing process was invented by Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard in 1850. He was from Lille, France.

The Dresdener Albuminfabriken AG (The Dresden Albumen Manufacturing Company)
They produced 18,674 reams of albumen paper in 1888. Each ream consisted of 480 sheets 46 cm x 58 cm (~18” x ~23”) in size. To coat a ream of paper required 9 liters of albumen solution, obtained from 324 eggs; only the whites, separated by hand. All of the paper was made by women – all by hand. In 1888, this one factory consumed over six million eggs – that’s about 16,500 eggs per day! There were a lot of bakeries around making custards and other pies/pastries with all of the egg yolks, too. Can you imagine what Dresden’s collective cholesterol level was in the late 19^th century? Women in Dresden making Albumen paper.

The Dresden Museum Wet Plate Collodion Performative Lecture
I was invited by the Dresden Museum to do a Wet Plate Collodion performative lecture in conjunction with the August Kotzsch exhibition. Kotzsch was a German photographer working from the 1860s to the 1880s in Dresden/Loschwitz, Germany. He lived in that area his entire life. He mainly photographed rural German life, but wanted to be graphic artist. The exhibit shows his early drawings from the 1840s – he was quite good. He did a lot of still life work, too. His albumen prints are amazing. One of the city historians told me that Kotzsch made his own albumen paper – how strange is that and, moreover, why would he do that in Dresden?

The Dresden museum is beautiful and the Kotzsch exhibition was nothing short of that. It was an honor for me to be there talking about Kotzsch’s process and showing the people how he made his photographs.

The space they had arranged for me was perfect; large (non-UV) windows and even a sink close by. The museum is in the center of the city. People were walking by watching me turning back the hands of time with the Wet Plate Collodion process through the large windows of the museum.

There were about 25 people in the audience; the perfect size. Ernst Hirsch was one of the attendees. Ernst is a filmmaker and photographer. He is well-known and admired. I asked him to sit for the demonstration. I later learned that he made a book about Kotzsch and his work. After the lecture, he presented me with a copy of the book (August Kotzsch 1836 - 1910. Von den Anfängen der Photographie in Loschwitz bei Dresden) and a print from one of Kotzsch’s negatives. It was a very nice addition to my book collection of 19^th Century photographers. Ernst owns several hundred original prints of Kotzsch’s and knows his great-great-grandson – who, by the way is a successful fine art photographer today.

I ended up making a few portraits. I had a very nice time. The trip was a great way to end the Wet Plate Collodion adventure in Europe, at least for now.

I want to thank my wife, Jeanne for taking all of the great photos, Richard for translating all of my stories and jokes during the lecture, Ernst and Cornelia for the book and print, Jan for making the trek to Dresden from Berlin, and Frank for the DVD/prints and the long conversation at the hotel about communism and photography. I learned a lot about the former East Germany and the communists.

We miss you, Summer XOXOXO

A Dresden egg. I should’ve brought some home for paper!

Quinn doing his thing in Dresden, Germany
"Is that Chuck Close?" someone asked. No, it’s the museum’s curator, Fredrich. 
Practicing on Ernst – the sitters need to practice before we expose the plate. 
Can someone get a photo of this? Please! 

The afternoon produced these images.

The afternoon produced these images.
Frank

Richard, my translator and museum coordinator for the lecture.

Richard (negative) – so he can print on modern paper.

Herr Kotzsch und Herr Jacobson, standing on the shoulders of giants…

Inspect Your Worst, I Mean Wurst

German "platform toilet" - inspect your WurstPlatform toilets. These are toilets that allow you to inspect your "Wurst" (Sausage) - translation: your shite. Germans are infatuated with them. I first saw them in Berlin. I thought, "Wow, this is weird, I'm shatting on a porcelain platform." It reminded me of seeing a pile of dog shite on the sidewalk, just completely out of place!

This is from Portnoy Stammtisch on the topic of "poo platforms". It was "World Toilet Day" on November 19. No kidding.

To most newcomers to this fine country, the contraption is an enigma. Who would want a shelf, just inches from your backside, that collects your business while allowing you to revel in your own stench? Not even a mercy flush is much help with this thing. And, to make matters worse, it's almost impossible to get rid of what you want to get rid of without the manual assistance of a toilet brush.

Germans, perhaps tired of having to defend this terrible device to perplexed outsiders, usually just shrug if you bring it up.

It wasn’t until I’d lived here for several years that I finally found one who I believed would give me a straight answer. In a newsroom of mixed nationalities, we were blessed with a German colleague of questionably fervent patriotism (let’s not use the adjective “brown” in this context, okay?) with an amazing knowledge and love of Teutonic culture. I would never have managed to squeeze out a question about the platform on my own but emboldened by my other English-tongued colleagues, I let it fly.

"It’s so you can inspect your poo. You can tell if you’re eating right," he told us in all seriousness. Rolf (name changed) was über-German – I've only ever met Dutch or Swiss who can speak with less irony. Actually, I’m being too kind. What he really said was: “It’s so you can inspect your Wurst.”

German Town Nixes Kristallnacht Ceremony

The German town of Görlitz is refusing to allow its Jewish community to hold its own ceremony marking Kristallnacht.

After Kristallnacht. Instead, the only ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the Kristallnacht pogrom will be held by the local Protestant church, which has traditionally focused on all victims of the Third Reich.

The small Jewish community had planned to bring a Torah scroll from Dresden into a newly renovated synagogue, which dates from 1909. It is the only synagogue to have survived Kristallnacht in the state of Saxony.

But the city insists that ceremonies must be secular and inclusive. The former synagogue was deconsecrated after the 1938 pogrom. Following its six-year renovation, the structure now has room for 230 guests.

"The city has canceled the entire event planned by the Jewish community and the Society for the Promotion of the Synagogue," which was to include several performances and speeches,  Alex Jacobowitz, cantor and chairman of the town's tiny Jewish community, told JTA.

He insisted that the Jewish community's program would be inclusive.

The Society for the Promotion of the Synagogue is a secular group authorized to hold ecumenical events in the building. It cooperates with the Jewish community. Now, only the ceremony run by the local Protestant church is still scheduled to take place in the building.

The city bought the synagogue from the remnant Dresden Jewish community in 1963, and then formally purchased it again from the Claims Conference after German unification, according to Jacobowitz, a musician who came from New York to Germany in 1991.

The approximately 30-member Jewish community has held services in a small sanctuary within the building for about a year, Jacobowitz said.

Story from JTA - http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/110844.html

"We're Cleaning Up In Hessen"

This says, "We're Cleaning Up"

It's disturbing, and scary, when I see these kinds of blatant displays of hate and racism in a country like this.

It's from a political party here called "National Democratic Party". One poll cites that the majority of the population in Germany considers the NPD to be undemocratic and damaging to the image of the country. The NPD is viewed by its opponents and the mainstream media as a de facto neo-Nazi organization. The party opposes the increasing number of non-whites, Jews, and Muslims living in Germany. Don't misunderstand me, I think they should have the right to speak and express themselves. What I worry about is the fragility of this culture and inciting the people here. This is a very fragile place that way.

This poster says, "We're Cleaning Up" and the other one says, "We're Cleaning Up In Hessen". We live in Hessen. Think about the metaphor of cleaning up as it relates to this history. And the sheep! Wow! I suppose they know their demographic.

I'm not saying that if I lived in the United States, my neighbors would be tolerant and peaceful. However, I wonder if I drove down the street in Littletown, USA if I would see something like this?

"We're Cleaning Up In Hessen!"

Art Is The Enemy Of The Routine

"Adoph Hitler Strasse" - Viernheim, Germany In my (ongoing and lifelong) pursuit of defining the meaning and  purpose of art, I've come across a lot of insightful and powerful quotes. Simon Schama said something so simple and brilliant that I felt compelled to share it with you here. He said, ""Art is the enemy of the routine, the mechanical and the hum drum. It stops us in our tracks with a high voltage jolt of disturbance; it reminds us of what humanity can do beyond the daily grind. It takes us places we had never dreamed of going; it makes us look again at what we had taken for granted."

Of course, this isn't definitive (in defining art), but for me, it defines an aspect of what good art can do and some of the purpose involved in making art.

There is something to be said for being "present" in your daily life. Present to the good and to the not so good. I believe artists are highly perceptive and extremely "present" in their daily lives (sometimes too present as they go mad or sink into depression). The subtle, unnoticed details are what tell the story. Artists are very good at picking up on those and sharing their opinions or views about them. If you think about all of the mundane and superficial information we are subjected to on a daily basis, few things are really valuable. Artists have an important voice in the world, I wish more people listened.