Sunday 5 October 2014

Postcards from Oxford

I was in Oxford on Friday.  There's a photography festival on at the moment, and a highlight that immediately grabbed my attention in the programme is a show of the work of Finnish master Pentti Sammallahti.  As regular readers will know, I'm a fan.  There's a room of about 30 photographs in the St. John's College Kendrew Barn exhibition space, and it's well worth seeing if you're in the area.  There is also work by two other Finns in the same show, but that is pretty negligible stuff by comparison.


The most immediately striking thing about the Sammallahti photographs is how small they are.  Thirty or so frames comfortably occupy a space about the size of a large domestic room.  Even the signature panoramic images are only about 14 inches by 6 inches, which is, by contemporary exhibition standards, tiny.  But the tonal quality and control are exquisite, even behind reflective glass and some rather uneven illumination.  It's an opportunity to look and learn.

Talking of looking and learning, while I was in town I dropped in on the recently refurbished Natural History Museum, and the resolutely unrefurbished Pitt Rivers Museum.  While I was there, I made this postcard for you:


On the way to an old friend's house for lunch, I made the obligatory stop at the Ashmolean.  There, I made another postcard:


The contrast of the old and the new philosophies of museum display comes across pretty clearly, I think.  Though there's something quite contemporary, in an eco-friendly way, about the Natural History Museum's extensive use of natural light.

The contrast would have been starker if I could have been bothered to photograph in the Pitt Rivers Museum, but it's simply too dark in there.  The collection -- a large proportion of which is indistinguishable from mouldering touristic bric-a-brac -- sits in a permanent gloom, presumably to stop the stuff fading away any more than it already has. What a very strange place it is; a cross between a museum, a junk shop, and a department store.  "Charms against the evil eye?  Certainly, sir -- ground floor, third cabinet on aisle three.  Assorted throwing sticks and boomerangs?  That'll be on the first-floor balcony, over towards the far side, opposite the bows and arrows.  Have you brought a torch, sir?  It's a touch dark over there between the taller cabinets..."

It seems to be very popular for group visits from the sort of school that still wears caps and blazers.  Jennings and his chums couldn't get enough of a case of sub-machine guns and rifles, I noticed.  Shades of Lindsay Anderson's film If..., if anyone remembers that now.  I had thought I would still love the place, too, but -- like the curators of the Ashmolean -- my views on museums have changed since my last visit (in 1974!) and I found its taxonomic, pile-em-high approach a relic of an anthropological worldview that is as much a curio, now, as the unplayable instruments, faded costumes and blunt weapons arrayed in its glazed mahogany cabinets.

Give me a squid bottled in formaldehyde any time...

fast and bulbous...

11 comments:

Debra Morris said...

Thanks for the postcards, Mike. Good to keep in touch now that you are on an everlasting holiday.

Mike C. said...

Debra,

Don't know about everlasting, but it certainly beats going to work...

Mike

seany said...

Glad to see your making good use of your time Mike, I have Pentti Sammallahti's book "Here Far Away" I would like to see his work printed large this exhibition doesn't appear to do him justice,from your photograph it seems badly hung.
Regards Michael.

Mike C. said...

seany,

I suspect the small prints are an aesthetic choice on his part -- you can buy his prints at the Photo-Eye gallery and elsewhere, and they're always small (even some at 2.5" x 6" would you believe?).

The St. John's gallery uses a "hanging system" with a rail at the top of the wall from which nylon cables are hung, onto which sliding hooked clips are fixed. This means the pictures are like pendulums and easily displaced -- it's not ideal, but quick and easy to set up with no wall damage to repair...

Mike

Gavin McL said...

Seany

Mike's correct - The Photographers Gallery represets Pentti Sammallahti's during a visit I showed an interest in them (making it clear I couldn't afford to buy one!) the assistant kindly showed me their stock and they are barely larger than the photos in the books if at all. He said that thats the way the all are. Mr Sammallahti likes 'em small

Huw said...

Mike,

On the subject of picture size, do you intentionally present your photos relatively small? I click through from the main page to see the slightly larger versions, and often wish there were even bigger available. I'm aware that it's probably both an aesthetic and technical choice.

Huw

Mike C. said...

Huw,

For exhibition purposes, I print about 20-25 cm in the shortest dimension, depending on the native resolution of the image, which is about 10-20% or so larger than A4, on an A3 sheet. The printed resolution is generally about 360 dpi. Beyond that, the print loses the "tightness" that I prefer.

For the blog, I resize to 20cm at 96 dpi, which is big enough to see, but too small to pirate...

Mike

Kent Wiley said...

Who could forget "If"? Haven't seen it since 1968 or 69, but I've recently spent quite a bit of time reading about and watching twice more "A Clockwork Orange", Malcolm's next biggish picture. Guess what? He's not really at all like Alex. He's a dedicated actor. But I'm going to watch "If" and "O Lucky Man" again, soon. It's been long enough that it will be like seeing them for the first time.

Mike C. said...

Kent,

It's curious, how quickly some things become invisible to younger generations -- my daugher is a film nut, and has an impressive knowledge of cinema, but will not even have heard of something like, say, "Butch Cassidy". I'll ask her about "If..."!

Mike

Kent Wiley said...

And what about "A Clockwork Orange"? Would she have see that, since it was unavailable at least theatrically in England for so many years? Did anyone pay attention to it when it did finally show at the cinemas?

Mike C. said...

Kent,

I'm pretty sure she must know "Clockwork Orange" -- Kubrick is a major director, and nothing piques interest like a ban...

I saw it in the cinema back before the ban, but personally haven't enjoyed most of Kubrick's films other than "Barry Lyndon" -- I find them a bit sterile, and "2001" is unwatchable, now.

Mike