USA, 1963, Washington, John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy receive the Moroccan king Hassan II
© Max Scheler Estate, Hamburg Germany

I remember Max Scheler with one of his beloved Davidoff cigarillos smoldering away nearby. He was an impressive character, with an elegant dryness that one would be tempted to account being Hamburgian, yet he was born a boy from Cologne. In his later years Max had dedicated his time entirely to taking care of the Herbert List estate – the iconic work of the photographer who shaped and mentored him. On one of my visits to the archives we went through folders and boxes of photographs and came so across prints of Max’ work for the first time, almost by accident. I had not been aware of his photography then, though i knew he had worked at Merian and founded the magazine GEO at Gruner & Jahr, introducing colour reportage to the wider audience.

I’ve talked with co-curator Olaf Richter, head of the estates of both Herbert List and Max Scheler about Max, his background and the relationship to Herbert List and the current exhibition

RENÉ HABERMACHER: How did this exhibition come together- and why right now?
PEER-OLAF RICHTER: The idea of this show was born in February 2003 – the month Max Scheler died.  It took us about 6 years to finish this project.  Why did it take so long?  Max Scheler was humble if not neglecting his own work. He stopped working as a photographer in 1975 and since then had turned the tables. He rather worked to publish other photographers work, than his own.

I took quite a bit of effort to rediscover what was going on in his life as a photographer. The negatives from the late 50s until the mid 70s were in a rough chronological order, but before that, the first 8 years, were all over the place.  For us the first period was especially interesting, because it told us something of where he was coming from. He learnt photography from another photographer: Herbert List.

Herbert List printed the images that he considered important. The Estate had a rich base of vintage prints that covered all the projects he worked on in his life time. These prints were frequently titled on the back. The main books on List that had been on the market had all been made with these prints as a basis.

For Max Scheler things are very different. There is not that much vintage material, and it is hard to say if these old images reflect his personal choice or some editors preference. So we went back to the negative and contacts and researched there. Unfortunately the negative have only a rough labelling, and therefore it took a lot longer to make a selection, research locations and titles.

Max would always put Herbert’s work ahead of his own – which was something that I never understood. Why this hesitation?
I guess he felt that his work of that period, was the work of a pupil, while the work of his teacher, was really what was worth remembering. It is interesting how close the two worked together. After an initial year or two as an assistant on the road and in the darkroom, Scheler started getting his own assignments, gained some respect, moved from Munich to Paris, met Robert Capa and  even became a junior member of Magnum.

How did the relationship of the two evolve after the first meeting during war in Munich: personally and professionally? I am also asking that as I have a special interest in the idea of the “stimulating” mentor.
I guess stimulation needs at least to prerequisites. At first the receiver of the stimulus needs to be in a situation of wanting to open up, receive a certain change in her/his perception and possibly even her/his life. And the stimulus must also be desireable and fit the pattern of interest of the receiver. If the stimulus is too foreign or threatening it might be rejected. I think these things fell in place when Max Scheler met Herbert List.

He was very young then- it must have been the shaping experience…

Max and his mother left Cologne in 1941, when Max was 13 or 14 years of age. Around the same time List left Athens, because Germany invaded Greece. He had tried to immigrate to the USA but failed and had to return to Germany. Max was raised without a father, since he died the year Max was born.  The sudden presence of a male person of authority in the life of Max and his mother was quite welcome. Not to be misunderstood all three of them were very liberal, unconventional and forward thinking persons. None of them wanted to construct a classical family. It was more the realisation of his mother that this very sophisticated photographer in his forties did spark some certain interest and outlook in the young max’ life, that she possibly could not, because the was too close. She of course realized that he was gay and therefore no husband material. But she might have also understood that the conventional reaction of a mother to not allow her son to have contact to a 25 years-older gay man, would have been rather short-sighted.

So through the turmoil of the war they kept close contact.

The stimulation we talked about earlier, that caused Max Scheler to learn a craft, languages and a certain ‘savoir vivre’ from Herbert List, developed through that time.

And I think that it was manyfold. I am not sure if photography was really the most potent influence here. And I am not sure what was going on between the two of them emotionally. Did they fall in love? That is speculation, but I guess it safe to say that a certain amount of love and trust is necessary to allow oneself to be stimulated.

In that context – I am wondering what kind of surrounding Max was born into?
Max family background is rather interesting and must have been very intellectually stimulating. The father was next to Heidegger the most prominent German philosopher of his time. And I dare say with regards to his several marriages and scandalous affairs his outlook on life must have also been rather liberal. Also his mother was a very autonomous person. Raising a boy by yourself during the war was a destiny she shared with many women at that time, but to be the publisher of her husbands writings and lectures after his death, surely required some intellectual capacity and stamina.

So little Max already came with some added ballast weight, preparing him in a way for this relationship…
Well… I would not call it a burden, but it is interesting that he would choose an opposite lifestyle from his father. Being a straight man with several marriages, that opened his mind from a desk or auditorium in German midsize towns like Jena or Cologne, he would rather take after List, and go out and explore the world visually.

But then again his relentless work for the estate of his mentor in later year of his life is quite similar to the position his mother took with the writings of her husband.

USA, 1961, Los Angeles, All around the country private fall out shelters are available, in case the A-bomb will be dropped.
Part of an extensive reportage on the defense of the USA in cold war times. © Max Scheler Estate, Hamburg Germany

In regards to that highly academic family background, one perhaps would consider Max’s path to see the world as a photographer as rather flamboyant….
To be honest I think Max was everything else but flamboyant… that adjective better describes Capote or Liberace. Max was almost conservative, classical italian in his choice of clothes, his furniture, slightly sportive with his cars — he owned several Porsche. And not least the motorcycle he was riding until his 70th birthday.

To what you said before regarding mentoring : I would say that tradition is being carried on in your “house” in one way or another  – Herbert – Max – Michael – and now you.
Yes…we are diverting.

So they had a concept of partnership or family in a very unconventional way. Max clearly passed this tradition on.  He invited us, Michael and me, to share a very open life with him. He enabled Michael and to a certain extent also me to study, and not least to travel, see the world, and get to know interesting people.

So let’s talk about carrying on the torch. Herbert List enabled Max to leave postwar germany and go and explore the world. Max lived in Paris and then Rome in his twenties – Rome was clearly the place to be in the mid-fifties. And he met a tons of interesting and important people.  So all this he kind of owes to List. The man who gave him a camera. And they were a family at times, and then at other time they did not see each other for a few months, since Max was in Africa or Asia on assignment, or Herbert made a book in the caribbean.

Herberts maintained many relationships to artists and celebrities of the time, which is evident in his work. What was the social surrounding of Max like?

Max had quite a few artist friends himself, some of them rather being pop culture – singer, actors. But he was not the one that the magazine sent to do in depth portraits of an artist with a difficult or complex attitude.

Politicians, Industrialists, Monarchy, — such things would be his beat. He had very good manners, was fluent in 5 languages and sophisticated and charming. That opened many doors.

USA, 1964, Atlanta, Martin Luther King and his family on a sunday walk. © Max Scheler Estate, Hamburg Germany

To me it felt Herbert’s view was very driven by “sehnsucht”, a certain longing, while Max’s work stood as rather pragmatic, living through “zwischentoene” [nuances], maybe in that way recalling the metaphysic approach of his “mentor”?
It is very difficult to talk about their work from a biographical, psychological background. There is lots of room for speculation there.

I think the justified comparison between the two leads to the difference on how Herbert saw photography as a young man looking for an outlet of his creative energy and how Max might have seen it.

Herbert saw himself an amateur – not meaning dilletant with little knowledge of technique and such, but rather, that he refused to work on commercial assignments. After the war the situations changed for him, but at least that were his roots.

For Max photography was always a profession and he was a “gun for hire”. In terms of composition and atmosphere a lot of the early images of Max still relate to the style of List. He thinks in single shots, not in whole photo essays. After the initial 5 years in the business that changed. Like List in the mid 50s,  he switched from the Rolleiflex to the Leica, from single shots to story telling through a series of images.

List actually took his first 35mm pictures with Max’s camera. Max had a Leica first, List followed.

It is interesting to see how Herbert went into a different approach later on with work that goes more in the direction of reportage. As the special issues on Naples for DU magazine for example…
Herbert saw himself clearly as an artist. Even in his years he worked as a photographer for money, he always tried to maintain complete control over what he was doing. It was his vision and his idea and the camera was his tool. He therefore related to all artist on and eye to eye level.

I think the war and the horror surrounding it, really initiated a shift in Lists work and also gave a base to Max’ interest with the Camera. List was very much interested in photographing objects, architecture, still-lifes and landscapes in the 1930 and 40s. But he changed and started focussing on the human being. This shift to “human interest” was not a singular incident for the work of List, but happened all over. A rougher style of photography – out on the streets, in peoples life, focussing on their emotions – became popular. For List this was something that he added to his vocabulary, but for Max Scheler, this was always the main focus. He was a “died in the wool” human interest photographer.

What is the last thing that stimulated you?
I saw the movie IMPORT/EXPORT last night on Arte. That really moved but also disturbed me. It reminded me of photos of Antoine d’Agata. His book STIGMA is one of the best.

The exhibition “From Konrad A. to Jackie O.” runs to 31.07.2011 at the Willy-Brandt Haus in Berlin
Tuesday to Sunday 12.00-18.00, Willy-Brandt-Haus, Wilhelmstraße 140 / Stresemannstraße 28, 10963 Berlin-Kreuzberg

Poster of SAVE TOKYO CREATION by ENLIGHTMENT. Photography by Yasuyuki Takaki

The 18 designers produced special pieces for the project to be auctioned for donation. Among the designers showing, is much beloved Jun Takahashi for UNDERCOVER, YOSHIKO CREATION, famous for her unique pieces to Lady Gaga, TOGA, N.HOOLYWOOD and emerging designer JOHN LAWRENCE SULLIVAN, among others as ANREALAGE, G.V.G.V., KEITA MARUYAMA TOKYO PARIS, MAME, MINTDESIGNS, SACAI, SOMARTA, KOLOR, PHENOMENON, TAKAHIROMIYASHITATHESOLOIST, ISVIM, WHITE MOUNTAINEERING and YOSHIO KUBO.

SAVE TOKYO CREATION Photography by Keiichi Nitta

The designers AW 2010 designs were picked up by Photographers and lensed especially for that show: Akira Kitajima, Chikashi Kasai, Tajima Kazunali, Keiichi Nitta, Leslie Kee & Ryan Chan, Masahiro Shoda, By P.M. Ken, Yasumasa Yonehara and Yasuyuki Takaki.

The Stimuleye spoke with Takafumi Kawasaki

SAVE TOKYO CREATION Photography by Leslie Kee & Ryan Chan

RENÉ HABERMACHER: What was your intention with this exhibit?
TAKAFUMI KAWASAKI: SAVE TOKYO CREATION supported by NARS is a big feature of Japanese fashion designers, most of whom lost a chance to exhibit their 2011AW collection because of the earthquake impact.
It’s a charity but not a money-donated oriented.
I wanted to provide Japanese fashion designers a chance to show their 2011AW collection that could not be shown on catwalk because of the earthquake.
As a fashion director & stylist, I believe it is a form of charity that only I can produce to provide those designers with the opportunity to present their creation in public.

SAVE TOKYO CREATION Left: Photography by Kazunali Tajima. Right: Akira Kitajimat

How did the earthquake and its aftermath affect you personally?
The earthquake made me find the huge scepticism about Japanese government and the power of citizens. I would say I feel my approach to fashion and my styling works became more clearer and straight forward.
It may sound a little funny but I became more optimistic about the life. What already happened, happened, even if it’s a massive tragedy, there is no way to change or dismiss it. I feel there is no point to keep crying over that. But what we should do now, is to step forward.

SAVE TOKYO CREATION Photography by Yasumasa Yonehara

Do you feel there is a different mood now among japanese society? I am asking as Japanese people expressing in the past to feeling alienated to their fellow countrymen…
Yes, “alienation” is a serious issue after the quake. Japanese people appear to be longing for the tightly-bound feeling.
Not only real communication and society, but also they are keen to make bonds with others in virtual community, such as Facebook, Twitter and other numerous social media networks. Some people are obsessed about that too much.

Generally speaking, however, I think the Japanese people have found what is important and what is less in life. I believe this is a great chance to reform the typical Japanese convenience-oriented life.They appear to have started making their lives a little slower and calmer, too.
It’s really a big shift of the country.

SAVE TOKYO CREATION Photography by Chikashi Kasai

What is the last thing that stimulated you?
I would say THE EARTHQUAKE in Japan.

The exhibition is held from May 27th to 29th at EYE OF GYRE, Omotesando, Tokyo.

SAVE TOKYO CREATION Photography by Masahiro Shoda

She has recently put together the exhibition 19th-Century British Photographs; the third in a series of five exhibitions of selected masterpieces of the collection of the National Gallery. This exhibition traces the development of photography in Britain over the course of the Victorian era; from early, salted paper prints, to daguerreotypes, to magnificent turn-of-the-century platinum prints.

I met Lori at a guided tour of the exhibition. Ann Thomas, also a curator at the National Gallery, whom I had met in one of the events I organized introduced me to her and we briefly talked about meeting up to chat about Mexican artists included in the collection amongst other things.

Not too long after we met and talked about astrophotography, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Ron Mueck, her twin sister and some of the cultural differences I have noticed while in Canada.

For my first contribution to The Stimuleye, I will be sharing some of the questions I had for her on the exhibition.

Miguel Batel: How did the idea for this exhibition came together?

Lori Pauli: Basically, with our drawings collection we started a series of exhibitions based on our holdings, so we decided for photographs we would do the same thing. The first one was modern photographs from the collection, then we did 19th-Century French, and after this it will be American Photography from 1900 to 1950.

The fifth probably will be either American 1950 to the present, or possibly our holdings of Canadian photography.

Will this exhibition be travelling?

It will, I’m not sure exactly where it’s travelling, we have had interest from across the country,  and we are just deciding where its going to end up.

How many photographs did you have to go through, and how many are currently exhibited?

There are about 112 photographs in the show, and I think I went through 2,000 in terms of 19th-Century photographs from the collection, so there was quite a bit to choose from, which was great.

The exhibition features some of the earliest photographic techniques. Which are some of the photographs you would consider to be the most important?

Well, of course some of the earliest would be the daguerreotypes, and we have a really great daguerreotype, that is quite large format; I don’t know if you remember it, but its of a man called John Berret Nelson and its around 8” by 10”, its fairly large compared to what normal daguerreotype sizes are. It’s called a mammoth plate, its beautifully created – masterfully crafted- and it comes with its original frame as well, so that is a real gem in the collection.

In terms of British we have a lot of salted paper prints by William Henry Fox Talbot, so those are other also really important pieces, because that’s the inventor of paper photography, it’s really great to have those.

Are there any borrowed items?

No, it is all from the collection.

You acquired some photographs for this exhibition, any specially difficult one to get?

One of them was the piece of armour, we think its by a woman called Jane Clifford. She was married to Charles Clifford, who was the most important photographer working in Spain. He made a lot of use of Queen Isabelle II construction projects and he did use of her armoury and her treasures. We recently acquired that.

We bought three of these photographs, but we are not quite sure if Jane just made the print or if she was behind the camera…

Another recent acquisition is the Wells Cathedral by Frederick H. Evans; he kept out any kind of reference to the present day or any kind of additions that would have been put on and just kept it to its original architectural features.

How did you get involved with photography?

I was actually in a dance programme, and I took a course in dance criticism but the only way we could criticize dance other than watching films was to look at photographs and write a review based on the photograph. Then I realized I liked photography more than dance (laughs).

Then I took a few courses on history of photography, but you couldn’t get a degree here in Canada, so I completed a degree in art history. I wanted to work on Degas and his photographs, but I ended up working on his landscape paintings; and then I came here to work on the Degas show in 87’ or 88’, when we first moved into this building.

But I also took courses on how to make a daguerreotype and how to make an ambrotype and how to make a tintype, because I always find I cant really talk about the process if I haven’t made it myself.

This is a wonderful building by Moshe Safdie, how is it for working?

Its fantastic and it’s great for exhibiting. The curators were actually involved in discussions with Moshe Safdie, so for photography we wanted the ceilings to be fairly low, and we didn’t want windows or natural light in order to protect the works. It’s a great building.

What are some of your next projects for the NGC?

I’m also doing an installation on hands including prints, drawings, photographs and even sculpture, so its all images of the hand that artists have done. There is even a Ron Mueck hand that was a small prototype study for one of the baby sculptures he did. I decided to do it because its a subject artists have always done, its sort of readily available and they can draw their own hand or photograph their own hands… there are about fifty objects.

We have great photographs by a contemporary American photographer called Gary Schneider who basically presses his hand up on the emulsion of film, and the image is actually just made of the heat of the hand; It’s almost a self-portrait in a way.

Tell me more about some of your personal favourites on this exhibition.

One of them would have to be Poor Jo, the one on the cover of the catalogue. It is by a Swedish photographer called Oscar Gustave Rejlander, but he only worked in England. I have always been interested in the idea of staged photography and acting in photography, and we has one of the first to do that.

He did a really famous one called The Two Ways of Life, and it was scandalous in its day because it included naked women and Queen Victoria actually bought a copy of it. I would actually like to do an exhibition on his work.

I also really like this daguerreotype by John Benjamin Dancer. The portrait is of a man called Richard Buxton who was botanist and was known by cataloguing and identifying all the flowers and ferns within sixteen miles of Manchester and he wrote a book on this. But it turns out he was by day a shoe-maker, and was famous in scientific circles for this publication; today it would never happen.

He’s very humble, apparently he was born to a fairly well off family, but they came on to hard times, and he had to drop out of school at an early age so he lost the ability to read because he only got a smattering of it at the beginning. So it is remarkable that he could compose a book in adulthood. I just like that picture a lot.

Where did the quotes come from?

I took them from all different places. There is one of John Herschel I took from a letter he wrote to Talbot, it was his reaction to first seeing a daguerreotype. He was working with Talbot on the paper photograph process, but he saw the daguerreotype in France he wrote back very excited saying ¨you’ve got to see this things, they are pretty miraculous”.

The one from Julie Margaret Cameron its published in her book “annals of my glasshouse” but I like the way it talked about how photography affected her family life, the fact that she was staining dining room tablecloths and things like that.

I just like to give a feel to the times…

19th-Century British Photographs / 4 February – 17 April 2011 / National Gallery of Canada

YOSHJI YAMAMOTO Photography Nick Knight, Art Direction Peter Saville

“The timeline will consist of a mixture of clips of key fashion shows from the last 30 years of his illustrious career, some bits about his main collaborations in film, performance and photography and some very special extras. I hope that this will help shed light on Yamamoto’s extraordinary approach to collaboration” – Ligaya Salazar

On display are 80 women’s and menswear garments, which are most representative of his work that is recognised for subverting gender stereotypes and has featured women wearing garments traditionally associated with menswear. The exhibition also includes  menswear items from the Autumn/Winter 1998 season which was famously modelled on women.

Accompanying the exibition, Ligaya produced a series of images with Nick Knight, styled by Katie Grand, and edited a stunning Book that also sheds light on Yoshji Yamamoto’s relationships with other creative collaborators: including Peter Saville, Marc Ascoli and M/M (Paris), Pina Bausch and filmmakers Takeshi Kitano and Wim Wenders.

René Habermacher sat down with curator Ligaya Salazar for a chat on this and her curatorial work on the projects…

RENE HABERMACHER: Hello Ligaya! how is things? Tense, so short before the opening?

LIGAYA SALAZAR: Ha! We are actually a little ahead of schedule, awaiting Yohji’s visit

Now i am impressed!

Yes he will be coming to the V&A after his Ready-to-Wear show to check everything is in order and to paint on the gallery walls!

I would assume usually that would come first- the painting….

Oh no — not painting the gallery walls, he will be painting life-size silhouettes on the wall behind and amongst the mannequins. It will be very special.

What was the departing point for you and Yoshji’s work on this exhibit?

I think the premise of the exhibition was really to have an encounter between Yohji (and his work) and the V&A. So rather than a chronological or thematic retrospective, this exhibition was also meant to inhabit more than just a gallery space.

It was a mutual intention. I work in the Contemporary Department, which was founded to engage contemporary practice and audiences with our collections. So I guess it was in my curatorial DNA anyway when we first discussed how this exhibition could work.

Of course Yohji’s team were also fascinated with the building and the convoluted-ness of its architecture.

You knew him beforehand?

I had worked with Yohji  Yamamoto Inc. beforehand on my previous exhibition on the relationship between Fashion and Sport.

Yoshji once mentioned he is not to fond of the “retrospective” as a thought…

That was a tricky one and even when I asked him in an interview for my book, he reiterated that he ‘really’ did not like it.

I guess he did agree to do this so he had come to term with it and because it is not a traditional retrospective he is happier about it.

How did you work together in shaping it?

I worked very closely with Masao Nihei, a long-term collaborator of his and the lighting director of most of his fashion shows over the last 25 years. He would speak to Yohji and I would occasionally speak to him when I was in Tokyo.

When i met you at Narukyo’s, you were on the way to Kyoto, what were you doing there?

Kyoto is where a lot of the craft and fabric processes that go into Yohji’s work happen, so we were going to document some of these. For example [traditional Japanese dyeing and embroidery techniques] Shibori, Yuzen and hand embroidery.

I felt very honoured to be able to witness these processes and meet the craftspeople themselves. Of course, being a curator at the V&A, this is a very important aspect of a designers work for us. And I am very proud to be able to work with a designer who has such an interest in helping to maintain these techniques and to show work that has this sensibility embedded in its (literally) fabric!

YOSHJI YAMAMOTO AW 1983-84

For you, what was personally the most exciting moment or greatest challenge in this process of establishing this exhibition?

I think the most exciting will have to be the archive visits to dress and choose the garments. None had gone through the menswear before, so that felt very special.

There were a few challenges, but perhaps the hardest one (probably for all curators) was to narrow the selection from a preselection of 500 to only just 90.

Its funny that there was no focus before on the menswear: i personally think that this is the place where you can push boundaries in dressing codes the most

Of course, because the boundaries are so narrow! And Yohji’s menswear is particlularly interesting for that.

Yohji Yamamoto’s menswear plays with ideas of masculinity and femininity (as does his womenswear). However, in his menswear he seems even more playful with fabrics, patterns and shapes. He often includes lace or see-through fabrics. He has created a whole men in skirts collection… the list goes on.

Fashion has a constant flirt with the art world- yet, the art world is rather suspicious towards the idea of fashion.

How do you see that relationship, also in regards to your work, that often marks a turning point where fashion enters the museum, and accredits for another level… how do you see that?

I started off as an art historian, so I guess looked at design from that point of view for a while. But working with designers and writing on design, you realise that it is just totally different from art. Not in terms of status, but in terms of process, function and recognition.

So I guess, I don’t think that art is better than design/fashion or vice versa. I just think they do different things

How do you see the role of a curator today?

where exhibitions depend strongly on curation,- in a topography that becomes more and more fragmented….

That depends on whether they work on collections or exhibitions, in institutions or freelance.

One thing I have noticed is that the word curation is used across many more media than ever, so maybe there is a perceived need to keep the amount of information manageable…in art, in design, in music, even on websites:

They can be specialists and keepers of collections

They can be responsible for showing things in a different way

They can be conveyors of knowledge

What you’ll be up too after?

Life after Yohji? No rest for the wicked! I am already working on my next show, which will be on literature’s relationship to image (in the widest sense) and a new events strand that will engage young creatives. Maybe a short holiday …

The Yoshji Yamamoto exhibition runs from 12 March – 10 July 2011 at the Victoria & Albert Museum London.
Ligaya Salazar’s curator blog.