Camera Work: History and Global Reach of an International Art Magazine

Symposium organized as part of the project “Camera Work: Inside/Out,” University of Zurich, Institute of Art History/Center for Studies in the Theory and History of Photography, in collaboration with the Swiss Institute for Art Research (SIK-ISEA)

Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1903-1917) committed itself to the establishment of photography as a form of art and in the course of its publication became an important distributor of European modernism in the United States. In both respects the international network of the journal was an important prerequisite. Camera Work’s global reach manifested itself in the content of the texts and images as well as in the production of the magazine, its distribution, and reception. For the first time, this conference examines Camera Work’s internationality. It analyzes cultural specifics, intercultural relationships, and their theoretical reflection. With a special focus on the reception and distribution of Camera Work in Japan, the presentations investigate transpacific and transatlantic connections. The aim is to identify specific conditions, such as the extended duration of Pictorialism in Japan, its amalgamation with the aesthetic strategies of New Vision, and simultaneous integration of traditional Japanese pictorial formulas, materials, and motives. In addition, the technical and material requirements for the institutionalization of Camera Work in Europe and the U.S. are examined, for instance the international correspondence of the people involved and the reproduction techniques used—facts that shed light on the social background of Pictorialism and emerging modernism. The Japanese case asks for a theoretical and methodological discussion on modernism in the plural whilst the second example requires an angle of vision from below, especially with regards to an elite venture such as Camera Work. The conference thus opens up a further emphasis: it invites the investigation of the localization of research on the topic of Camera Work itself.


PROGRAMME

Friday 9 March 2018
Swiss Institute for Art Research SIK-ISEA, Zollikerstrasse 32, 8032 Zurich

15:30
Viewing of Original Issues of Camera Work (For Invited Guests Only)

16:30 Registration

17:00
Roger Fayet, director SIK-ISEA: Welcome Address

17:05
Bettina Gockel, University of Zurich, Keynote Lecture: Camera Work and Gender in a Globalized Photographic World

18:35 Reception (Apéro riche)


Saturday 10 March 2018
University of Zurich, Building Rämistrasse 59, 8001 Zurich. Auditorium, Room G01

9:30 Registration and Coffee

10:00
Kaspar Fleischmann, Dr. Carlo Fleischmann Foundation: Welcome Address

10:15
Bettina Gockel, University of Zurich: Opening Remarks

10:30
Anne McCauley, Princeton University: Production/Reproduction: Circulating Pictorial Photographs in the Era of Camera Work

11:15
Lauren Kroiz, University of California, Berkeley/Freie Universität, Berlin: Anne Brigman, Camera Work, and California

12:00 Lunch

13:30
Julien Faure-Conorton, École du Louvre, Paris: Making Camera Work an International Endeavor: Alfred Stieglitz and French Pictorial Photography

14:15
Thilo Koenig, University of Zurich: Camera Work in Europe: Italy and Germany

15:00 Coffee

15:45
Catherine Berger, University of Zurich: Camera Work: A Quarterly Containing All the Arts

16:30 Reception (Apéro riche)

17:30
Kelley Wilder, De Montfort University, Leicester: The Furtherance of Modern Photographic History: On a Decade of Photo Historical Innovation


Sunday 11 March 2018
University of Zurich, Building Rämistrasse 59, 8001 Zurich. Auditorium, Room G01

10:30
Yuko Ikeda, The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo: Jugendstil and the Japanese in Camera Work: Their Aesthetic Exchanges

11:15
Kerry Ross, DePaul University, Chicago: Magic in the Darkroom? Pictorialism and Amateur Photography in Early Twentieth-Century Japan

12:00 Lunch

13:30
Jennifer Coates, Kyoto University: Pictorialism and its After-Images: Post-War Japanese Cinema Culture

14:15
Stephanie Tung, Princeton University: A Fusion of Feeling and Scene: Liu Bannong and Art Photography in Republican Era Beijing, 1923-1928

15:00
Coffee, Discussions, Farewells, and Final Tours in Zurich