A Few Updates (and a Movie Review)

• Martin Parr: After writing about the reprint of Martin Parr's famous The Last Resort, I neglected to mention what I myself did. Although not a natural fan of Martin's work, I decided he was too important not to be represented in my library, so, a year or two ago now, I got Martin Parr by Sandra S. Phillips, from Phaidon. I've recently rearranged all my books, so of course I can't find it to refresh my acquiaintance with it. Like most things around here, it's around here somewhere. But it struck me as a serviceable overview that includes a good sampling of the better-known pictures, one that doesn't take up a lot of space or require a stiff investment. Of course if you're into social documentary, color photography, English photography, or if you just like Parr, you would want more than that.

• Meanwhile, back at the café: Don't miss the new postscript at the end of Peter Turnley's Egypt post. Brings it all full circle.

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Bob Burnett, The Tangerine Hotel, Burbank

• Many more notes: Following up on the last Music Notes post, there are several new mixes now up at C60Crew on Mixcloud. Always great soundtracks to my mornings, even the cuts that aren't for me. Photo above by Bob, from his "Dark Wood" mix of "improvisation / electronica/ float / cello / sound textures," who says it's "Near Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills Cemetery, where I found the graves of Liberace, Freddie Prinze, Bette Davis and Ronnie James Dio." If I ever go to Burbank I'll know where to stay.

• The Woodmans: I did get to Chicago on Monday, and had a fine time. I don't socialize much. I spent the second half of the trip on the verge of being lost, ending up at my friend Gabi's newly-acquired vintage two-flat in an old neighborhood near Lake Michigan. You know those friends who you think are just so unique in the world you can't believe they're not world-famous, celebrated far and wide by one and all? Gabi is one of those for me. Her new place combines high ceilings and 19th-century charm with newly-finished hardwood floors and an ultramodern starkness in the bathroom and kitchen, suffused thorughout the airy rooms with soft light and a comforting feel.

With Gabi navigating, a more relaxed drive down Lake Shore Drive on Chicago's lakefront brought home again that beautiful city's magnificence—few cities in the world can hold a candle to Chicago for architectural spectacle. It must be seen. We walked right past the Chicago Cultural Center where the Vivian Maier show is hanging, kicking ourselves for not leaving enough time to stop in and see it, to the Gene Siskel Film Center, my first time there. As you might expect, it's a nearly ideal place to see movies, up a long and broad flight of stairs, with small, intimate theater spaces gleaming with subsidized wealth.

I thoroughly enjoyed the film. It's not entirely about Francesca the photographer—by necessity, the filmmaker, C. Scott Willis, concentrates on her surviving family, who are all artists. The interviews are articulate and in places quite moving, and the absences in the film are almost as eloquent. The film is in part about the life of artists—how they work, how they exist. And it can't escape being the story of a family marred permanently by the suicide of one of its members—about the sense of loss and pain and permanent mystery a suicide leaves in its wake.

I do feel it gave me a very good handle on Francesca Woodman and her art. I can't shake two parallel feelings: that she was not a major photographer, and that she would have been, had she not felt so fragile and depressed that day she stepped off into space from a high building. If you've studied the biographies of enough artists, you begin to get a feel for what constitutes their "early work"—their initial explorations, before their genius really gels. The seed of their later work is in it. Woodman's "early" work is almost achingly suffused with that sense of genius to come...it just never did, is all. The "early" work is all there will ever be. As with most suicides, I blame her for that, a little. Suicide might be romantic, but persistence is more courageous. I admire the elderly.

I have a hard time separating the movie from the rest of my evening—Gabi's bon mot about the movie score as being "too Philip Glassy" and the homemade pizza she and her housemate attempted to ruin but didn't, and Blue, the world's most timid and laid-back pit bull, who I find enormously likeable even for a dog. I found the film thought-provoking and moving to watch, even engrossing. I thought it was great while I was looking at it. It leaves less of a residue, however, than I thought it would, and the perfect little experience of it seems like just part and parcel of a larger experience, enjoyable throughout.

Two things I'll remember: George Woodman reporting that after his daughter's death he couldn't even read because he simply couldn't concentrate on anything (reading is a big part of my life, and I empathize), so he turned to the poems of Emily Dickinson because they were the only things he could find that were short enough for his fractured attention span, one by one chewing up all eighteen hundred of them. And the hopeful upturn of the film's end, when we see the huge installation that Betty Woodman has been working on throughout the film go up at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. Parents lose the most when a child kills herself, and yet it's inescapable that they always get blamed, at least a little. The delighted smile on her face when she saw her creation in place took me back to when she said in a halting voice that she can face the pain but cannot even touch the guilt.

A fine documentary about art and artists. Not essential, and at the same time well worth seeing. If and when it appears in a streaming format, I'll try to pass along a heads-up.

Mike

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Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Comments

[Tim McGowan]

Mike,on the subject of suicide and the reason for it. Someone who had seriously concidered it told me that he was in a state of pain (mental I assume) and suicide seemed like the only way to get relief. There are states of mind that us lucky "normal" beings cannot comprehend.

[Ray Hunter]

Living here in that remote village, St. Louis, I thought about a mad dash trip to Chicago to see this, but couldn't quite bring myself to do it. I really appreciate your comments-Thanks very much! I look forward to seeing it online as streaming video.
I have always been impressed with Woodman's early work, and was lucky enough to stumble across a small monograph of her images ten years' ago or so. I felt her early conceptual work was, well, really conceptual, and not the sort of "worn out sight gag" that constitutes the work of many of her contemporaries (at least for me).

[Bron Janulis]

"she said in a halting voice that she can face the pain but cannot even touch the guilt."

Doesn't matter how they go; losing a kid; there's guilt. Sometimes the pain is just pain, no thinking required.

Empathy for the father; it took me about 5 years before I could finish a book, and now, it's a blessing, being able to read whole books again.

Mike, happy for you, to have a nice day in town.

[Yger]

Thanks, Mike. For the first time, I am moved by your writing. It's deep and honest.

[Edward Bussa]

Moved again by your writing Mike and thanks for that. So moved, in fact, I found myself wishing you had drawn it out a little more, given the substance of the review its own space to breathe. And I want to know more about your friend Gabi so a seperate post for that too.

I totally agree with you on the chicago skyline, world class.

Thanks again!

http://goo.gl/gGkaF>

[Brian White]

Mike thanks for the review and thoughts. Having lost my best and closest friend 26 years ago to suicide, I appreciate your comments. Some may not, but I do and I am sure his parents do. I must try to locate them and get in touch again. I have to say I agree with you that her art seems to suggest the genius yet to come that never is able to make it's appearance what a shame it is. Just like with my friend years ago. What he could have been now...

[Ray Hudson]

Not saying this pertains to Woodman, as I don't know anything about her, but, some of your remarks bring me to write this. Depression is an illness, like cancer, TB, diabetes, and so on. Yes, like those diseases, it has a behavioral component. It's rarely romantic to those who suffer from it, or those who love them, and persistence will not cure it. One of it's symptoms is that folks who have it sometimes get it in their heads that killing themselves is a solution to what feels like unendurable pain. Your 'blame' is entirely misplaced.

Thanks for listening.

Ray Hudson

[Mike Johnston]

Ray,
What you say is true (I've suffered from clinical depression since I was 13), but depression itself is not a death sentence. There's still an element of choice involved.

The romantic component is often an investiture made by others. (There does seem to be a bonafide contagious aspect to suicide, and it is susceptible to suggestibility. As you probably know.)

Mike

[Roger Bradbury]

What sort of place is a two-flat, Mike? Googling the phrase has left me none the wiser.

[Mike Johnston]

"What sort of place is a two-flat, Mike? Googling the phrase has left me none the wiser."

Roger,
More or less what it sounds like--a building with two apartments, one on top of the other. Try Googling "Chicago 2 flat" and hitting "image," you'll see some characteristic ones. They're very common in Chicagoland for some reason.

Mike

[William Walker]

Mike,

With regards to your comment on suicide, and your reply to Ray, let me say this: I am a parent who has lost a child (motor accident). That does not qualify me as an expert on "losing a child". It only makes me an expert on losing my child.
The same, I would suggest, applies to your experience of depression.
William

[Mike Johnston]

William,
Point taken, and very sorry to learn of your loss.

I'm not an expert on any aspect of this. However, I know a lot about suicide prevention, and it's important not to step uncritically into the view that it's romantic and/or justified and/or the inevitable result of mental disease. When I say what I said about Francesca, I'm thinking not of Francesca but of anyone living who might be suffering from suicidal ideation and who might stumble across my words about her story.

Not a major part of the article, in any event.

Mike

[Cateto/Jose]

Mike: I enjoy this site and I you are one of the bloggers I follow on a continuous basis, with a refreshing approach on most topics. So I would say I have a positive bias towards content posted at TOP.

Having said that, I found this sentence to be quite shocking:
"few cities in the world can hold a candle to Chicago for architectural spectacle.".

Without going into details, let me respectfully say that I found that statement to be overly US-centric, and I bet that many architects could provide a long list of cities in the world that can hold more than a candle against Chicago. And I mean a few more beyond the pure beauty that is called Paris.

[Mike Johnston]

Cateto/Jose,
Paris beats Chicago for quaintness, charm, history, and ambience, but for architectural spectacle--and pure magnificence? Chicago beats the pants off Paris, IMO. I've been to both cities numerous times.

Mike

[Roger Bradbury]

Thanks Mike. Before I moved a year ago I lived for nineteen years in a two-flat without even knowing it. : 0