When Orange Was the New Yellow
In which I assemble a few things that have been on my mind these past few days
Over the course of the past ten years, my professional life has mostly centered on working from home. I used to get up, take a shower, get dressed, and then I would sit down in front of my computer to write or to talk to students. The current pandemic has changed none of that. I don’t know whether I should consider myself lucky or not, but I don’t feel as if my life has been severely disrupted (so far), and neither has my work. I don’t feel any more or less inspired than before. Some days are very productive, others less so, but all in all, it’s business as usual.
In fact, if anything, I’m now more busy than before. Twice a week, I talk about photobooks on Instagram, using their “Live” feature. I think I mentioned this in an earlier email. Having played with recording these presentations and getting frustrated with not being able to overcome technical difficulties at this end, I decided that the presentations aren’t all going to end up on YouTube after all. There’s something to be said about an event that happens, that you can watch for 24 hours, and that’s then gone (also, I simply couldn’t justify the added work necessary to get this on YouTube any longer, given there’s no remuneration).
One of the things I started was to write about the pandemic. This previously struck me as the stupidest idea. But it also posed a challenge for me: would there be a way to write about… well, that’s already the wrong word, because I don’t want to write about the pandemic any more than I want to see photography illustrating people wearing masks or standing behind windows. Would there be a way, though, to use this situation as a springboard for something written in the way that my occasional neighbourhood walks have spawned some photographs I wouldn’t have considered otherwise? For a while, I couldn’t come to an answer.
(I always tell my students to solve problems not by thinking about a solution but, instead, to solve them by attempting to solve them, by, in other words, taking pictures. I had that in mind. Obviously, while often enough I follow my own advice, at times, I don’t.)
The other day, though, a possible solution occurred to me, and I set out to write. So far, it has been going great — great in that I do write regularly (daily), without being too concerned about whether it’s actually going to turn out well or not.
Much like photography, writing mostly is done for the electronic garbage bin anyway: vast parts of what I write never get seen (let alone published) anywhere. But all that bad writing serves as the conduit for the good one or rather the one I can stand behind (whether it’s good is for other people to judge).
I knew this would be a good picture the moment I saw the scene. So that’s somewhat gratifying but only so much. After all, the pictures I enjoy a lot more are real discoveries — instead of being recognitions.
With this picture, I wasn’t so sure. This is another type of picture I tend to take: when I mostly know the picture isn’t going to hold up, but I take it anyway. However, when I looked at the picture on my computer (I rarely check my digital camera’s display other than to check the histogram) I thought that there was something there. Not sure what that “something” is, though.
In part I’ve shown you these pictures so this wouldn’t all be words. On Monday, 13 April 2020, I published an interview with Yurie Nagashima that I had been working on for a while. I hope you will read it if you haven’t done so already. Ordinarily, I would show you one of her photographs here. But I promised Yurie to delete her pictures from my computer, and that’s what I did. After all, there are plenty of pictures to see in the interview.
I had met Yurie for the first time in 2018. Last year, I had been able to spend more time with her while working alongside her. But it was really the casual conversations that turned us into friends. A day or two before I left Japan, we met up at an opening of an exhibition by Miyako Ishiuchi. Being unable to speak Japanese, I had gone with a mutual friend who speaks Japanese and English fluently. Yurie also speaks English very well, having spent time in the US while getting an MFA (much like all Japanese people I’ve met she’ll say that her English is not very good).
After the opening, we decided to have some food and ended up at a little izakaya (think of an izakaya as some sort of Japanese diner that serves alcohol). There, we had a long and very personal conversation about our respective families. This was easily one of the most meaningful evenings I’ve ever had with people from the world of photography, and I was deeply grateful for the shared experience.
Yurie told me she had been working on a book of writing. The year before, I had been able to read one of her autobiographical stories that had been translated into German (sadly, it’s not available online). And I knew that she has been writing for magazines and newspapers. I was curious to find out more about the book (that’s the cover above), so I asked her whether we could do an interview. I also wanted a larger non-Japanese audience to find out more about this pretty amazing artist.
There’s a (first?) English-language review of the book, which you can see here. This might be the key paragraph of Fumiko Nakamura’s piece:
Looking back on these developments, one realizes how the historical phenomenon of “the number of female photographers being smaller than that of male photographers” has become a fixed idea of sorts in the appreciation and discussion of photography, and that this might have impeded an active investigation and verbal discussion of the works of female photographers. Written based on a historical point of view, this book highlights once again the necessity to reestablish a discourse on photography.
Obviously, that’s very true for photography all over the world, not just in Japan.
I’m really happy with the interview, and now I want to go back to doing more of them.
Having just read Noah Kalina’s newsletter (which is a sheer joy every week) made me wonder whether I had any cool stories in my past. I think the answer is: no. I haven’t thought very long about this. Still, if I can’t think of something right away, then whatever might come up later can’t be that cool to begin with, can it?
But (and this isn’t going to surprise you if you’ve ever met me) I have a lot of awkward and/or embarrassing stories. Here’s one.
I don’t remember the year, but at some stage during the real heydays of blogging, a New York City gallerist asked me whether I could do a guided tour for the exhibition they had on view for some folks. I’m an incredibly naive person and possibly the worst businessperson in the world so I accepted without even asking to get paid for it. That was the time when I thought that for sure exposure was going to get me somewhere.
The exhibition in question focused on colour photography, and champage maker Veuve Cliquot somehow had arranged to either sponsor the event or be involved. I don’t remember the details, but I was told the theme of everything was going to be “yellow” (I’m not making this up). Would I focus my presentation on yellow? Why yellow, I inquired. Well, I was told, that’s the colour of Veuve Cliquot. But wait a minute, I inquired further, that colour isn’t yellow, it’s orange. No, I was being informed, IT’S YELLOW. OK, well I guess orange is the new yellow. That should have been the final reminder for me to pull out of this but, you know, the exposure…
The day I show up for the presentation, I find a bunch of New York rich folks literally sipping champagne (you’re going to have an easy time guessing the brand) and doing small talk. I should have been aware of that but I already told you I’m naive. Not sure whom else I might have expected to see. (Btw, you know absolutely nothing about the combination of arrogance, entitlement, and privilege if you’ve never conversed with a wealthy New Yorker.) As if that wasn’t bad enough, I had also unwittingly coordinated my outfit with the outfit of the wait staff. I probably don’t have to detail the looks I got at various moments when first, I didn’t behave like a waiter, and then that waiter who doesn’t behave like a waiter is talking about photography? How dare he? At least nobody dares ask me for more champagne.
Needless to say, I haven’t done any such events ever after. And for sure, I’m not doing stuff for free any longer.
Also, that Veuve Cliquot colour is totally orange.
Btw, this is fierce (if you’re into black metal). Just discovered it.
As always thank you for reading, and feel free to be in touch with suggestions for me what you might want to read about. I can’t promise I’m going to be able to produce something smart, but I’ll try!
Stay safe!
— Jörg