A Strange Necessity: Rebecca West, James Joyce & the artistic impulse

Why does Art matter? What is this strange necessity?

–Rebecca West

…the closer you try to approach the facts through history, the deeper you sink into fiction. The greater the care with which you explain a fact, the more nonsensical a fable you fish out of chaos. – Halldór Laxness, Under the Glacier

In her book-length essay The Strange Necessity, philosopher-writer Rebecca West observed how the creative act could be thought of as a completely holistic and natural force in the world. In the act of creating, the artist becomes a part of nature, fused and connected to the natural world. West’s metaphor of the natural artist is ; “determined and exclusive as the tree’s intention of becoming a tree, and by passing all his material through his imagination and there experiencing it, he achieves the same identity with what he makes as the growing tree does.”[i][1]

Strange Necessity claims the actions of an artist, in the process of creation, comes out of a biological necessity, an unstoppable urge bound up with natural primal desires. The artist is never in total control of the process of creating, but is only fulfilling a natural process bound up within life. The necessity that West explored can be simplified as the “spiritual impulse”, an intuitive connection and higher realm, beyond thought or emotion that resides in the creative act. West further identifies a fundamental unity between all art and experience. The creation of artwork is an engagement with life, a process that’s transcendent, connected with a spiritual purpose.

The Strange Necessity is a moving portrait on the motivations of an artist. In her concluding chapters, West shifts to the exaltation and spiritual function a work of art performs on the individual. It is a relationship to art that borders on the sexual: “I have…this crystalline concentration of glory, this deep and serene and intense emotion that I feel before the greatest works of art… It overflows the confines of the mind and becomes an important physical event…Is this exaltation the orgasm, as it were, of the artistic instinct, stimulated to its height by a work of art…”[ii] This spiritual and orgasmic manifestation of art is noted in the grandiose and sublime landscapes of Frederic Church and J.M.W. Turner, the floating abstraction of Kandinsky, in the mathematical genius of J.S. Bach and Mozart, or the poetry of Melville and Poe; all works that commune with the soul on a metaphysical landscape. This pull toward the spiritual, sublime and orgasmic was fundamental to the development of modernism. Inside Jazz, abstraction, visual art, poetry and fiction, were the release and attributes of a mind in exaltation of the orgasm.

West used the example of a single day of city life to investigate the novel as a creative act and the moving effect of art on her own life. An intensive study of Joyce’s Ulysses takes place inside a single day of West’s life within her home in the city of Paris. This doubling of art and life was itself at the very center of Ulysses, which also takes place in a single day in the life of James Joyce. This entwined process of art and life becomes like an image reflected in a hall of mirrors. Joyce never made public his notice of West’s criticism, however he wrote a scathing put-down of her and a parody of Strange Necessity within his novel Finnegan’s Wake. West takes the example of Joyce as a motivating pendulum in all the arts. The passage of a spiritual or natural transformation from one artist to the next often occurs between written and visual worlds. The simultaneous fractured time and cubism within Joyce is reflected in Picasso paintings, comic books, a Bach concerto and  jazz riffs.

The way art is expressed through society, the way it’s supported, taught, encouraged and rejected, is often based on the timorous relationship between artist and patron and the political mechanics of the time. During times of wealth and industry (the Renaissance is the most obvious example), this relationship can be developed fruitfully and become a concentrated force.

The relationship of funding and material support in the arts is illustrated in Ezra Pound’s comment that, “Great art does not depend on the support of riches, but without such aid it will be individual, separate, and spasmodic: it will not group and become a great period… a great age is brought about only with the aid of wealth, because a great age means the deliberate fostering of genius, the gathering-in and grouping and encouragement of artists.”[iii] This careful balance and support of the arts is often shaken and disposed of in times of great social upheaval and despair, yet this “strange necessity” is present in all eras, and should be viewed as a constant interior force.

Forces of spirit or metaphysics which effect and drive the artist, is a theme often overlooked and diminished. From the nineteenth century “art reform” to contemporary theorists, metaphysical and spiritual influences continue to be downplayed or ignored. The opening of early nineteenth century America to its vast resources and its “manifest destiny” has been a clear source of our nation’s spiritual tensions and troubles. The drive onward instead of inward creates uneasiness and an emphasis on earthbound desires. Conditions of genocide, war, racial divisions and destruction of land and resources can only be reconciled or balanced by spiritual solutions or the transformation of consciousness –conditions that are universal in the art process.

West declared America itself as part of a political necessity; a country of belief and action balanced on a life or death situation. America evolved into existence because of the necessity for freedom, an idea constantly tested and often betrayed by many of America’s leaders. It was once believed that America was founded on and contained the seeds of spiritual freedom, and served as a beacon for other nations. That noble idea of spiritual freedom has gradually been replaced by a slide into greed and selfishness.

The idea of spirituality as unbounded space, without restraint, serves the arts and the areas in which art flourishes. New York City once came close in the 1930s and 40s as a site where the arts could flourish without boundaries. During the development of the ashcan and abstract expressionist schools      modernism took root, at least a modernism outside of European influence. That heroic past has been documented closely and mythologized, yet, the story of cheap rents, artist garrets and a pioneering spirit is not exclusive and is one we return to again and again, in many sites around the globe.

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postscript:

Beauty in things exists merely in the mind which contemplates them. –David Hume, Essays Moral and Political, 1742

The Eighteenth century philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) remained unpopular and  mostly unread until the mid-twentieth century. His idea on beauty was that it existed as fragmented perceptions in the mind. That the mysteries and beauty we seek in art are always “impressions of the mind” –the thoughts and feelings we carry within us through comparisons of experience. Hume said, “power and necessity… are… qualities of perceptions, not of objects… felt by the soul and not perceived externally in bodies”[iv] That fragmented-self idea was later embraced and radicalized by Gilles Deluze and the poststructuralists. We are all parts of a greater whole and the process of art is nothing less then the universe being itself and seeing itself.

The eternal return is woven through the fragmented-mind and its removal of the object of our passion. The artist is on a feedback loop where art and the mind are always one.

[ii] The Strange Necessity, p. 210-211

[iii] Ezra Pound, Ezra Pound and the Visual Arts, Harriet Zinnes, Ed.,  (New Directions, 1980) p. 266

[iv] David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, (New York: Dover, 2003 edition), p. 168

Technorati Tags: A Strange Necessity, art and meaning, artistic process, creativity, essay, Hume and beauty, James Joyce, Rebecca West

Mitch Ryder, the legendary “unsung hero” of Michigan rock and roll will be presenting and signing his new autobiography Devils & Blue Dresses: My Wild Ride as a Rock and Roll Legend, at the Book Beat bookstore on Sunday, February 5th between 12:30 -2:30 PM. This is a rare opportunity to meet and hear Ryder speak in a small and intimate setting. The Book Beat is located at 26010 Greenfield in Oak Park. This event is free and open to the general public. To reserve an autographed copy of Devils & Blue Dresses, you can order online now or call (248) 968-1190 Music by Mitch Ryder will be available next door from our neighbors at Street Corner Music.

order now online at: Devils & Blue Dresses: My Wild Ride as a Rock and Roll Legend,

Mitch Ryder’s autobiography goes well beyond typical eyewitness accounts of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll road stories. His account of rock stardom is one of the most lucid, original, darkly emotional and surreal in rock and roll. In 34 concise chapters, Ryder has penned a passionate and often experimental exposè, told in a distinctly introspective voice, a ‘long nights journey’ through the twisted alleyways of the music business and how his natural talent and notoriety was used and abused by himself and those around him.

…read more about Mitch Ryder’s Devils & Blue Dresses

Technorati Tags: author appearance, autobiography, booksigning, Detrot Rock, Devils and Blue Dreeses, Mitch Ryder

Paul Clemens at Baldwin Library; Wednesday, February 1 at 7 pm

Detroit Author Paul Clemens will be at the Baldwin Public Library on February 1, 2012 at 7:00 pm speaking about his newest book, Punching Out: One Year in a Closing Auto Plant. This is Clemens’ second book on Detroit, his first being Made in Detroit and it concerns the loss of manufacturing and the working class in Detroit and America.

From the New York Times,  “All this said, “Punching Out” is frequently rewarding. Mr. Clemens traces the colorful history of the Budd plant, which manufactured parts for a variety of car brands and which once employed nearly 10,000 people. He is a lovely, mournful observer of Detroit’s people.”

….read more here

Rock Legend Mitch Ryder signing at Book Beat on Sunday, Feb. 5th

Mitch Ryder, the legendary “unsung hero” of Michigan rock and roll will be presenting and signing his new autobiography Devils & Blue Dresses: My Wild Ride as a Rock and Roll Legend, at the Book Beat bookstore on Sunday, February 5th between 12:30 -2:30 PM. This is a rare opportunity to meet and hear Ryder speak about his life in a small and intimate setting. The Book Beat is located at 26010 Greenfield in Oak Park. This event is free and open to the general public. To reserve an autographed copy of Devils & Blue Dresses, you can order online or call (248) 968-1190 for more information.

Mitch Ryder’s autobiography goes well beyond typical eyewitness accounts of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll road stories. His account of rock stardom is one of the most lucid, original, darkly emotional and surreal in rock and roll. In 34 concise chapters, Ryder has penned a passionate and often experimental exposè, told in a distinctly introspective voice, a ‘long nights journey’ through the twisted alleyways of the music business and how his natural talent and notoriety was used and abused by himself and those around him.

…read more about Mitch Ryder’s Devils & Blue Dresses

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Coming on February 29th: Elmore Leonard Book Signing for Raylan at the Grosse Pointe War Memorial… details TBA

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Book Beat reading group selection for February

The Book Beat Reading Group  will meet February  29th  on leap year to discuss The Museum or Eterna’s Novel (The First Good Novel) - a book ahead of its time. Written during the 1930s and ’40s – the heyday of Argentine literary culture – Museum is in many ways an “anti-novel: It opens with more than fifty prologues – including ones addressed “To My Authorial Persona,” “To the Critics,” and “To Readers Who Will Perish If They Don’t Know What the Novel Is About” – that are by turns philosophical, outrageous, ponderous, and cryptic. The second half of the book is the novel itself, a story about a group of characters (some borrowed from other texts) who live on an estancia called “La Novelo”. Meetings are held at  the Goldfish Teahouse (117 W. Fourth, in downtown Royal Oak) at 7pm. Books are discounted 15% at Book Beat (26010 Greenfield Rd., Oak Park, MI). All are welcome! 

Wednesday, January 25th beginning at 6:30 PM Wong Herbert Yee, the Theodor Geisel Honor Award winner, will be demonstrating his process for writing and illustrating books. You don’t want to miss his dynamic presentation! The Picture Book: From Concept to Creation will take place at the  Bloomfield Township Public Library 1099 Lone Pine Road. The Book Beat will be supplying books for the event. Please contact the Bloomfield Township Library (248) 642-5800 or the Book Beat (248) 968-1190 for more information.

About The Author: “I was born in Detroit, Michigan, one of seven. My first grade teacher tacked a drawing of mine, Horse with Feedbag up on the bulletin board. From there I went on to study art at Wayne State University, graduating in 1975 with a BFA in printmaking. I had my fair share of rejections at the start, but through perseverance my first picture book, EEK! There’s a Mouse in the House was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1992. My latest early reader, Mouse and Mole Fine Feathered Friends received a 2010 Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor Award.” -from the author’s blog site.

Technorati Tags: Bloomfield Township Library, book illustration, Children's book events, Wong Herbert Yee, workshop

*  *  *   *   *  Devils & Blue Dresses, a review

Mitch Ryder’s autobiography goes well beyond typical eyewitness accounts of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll road stories. His account of rock stardom is one of the most lucid, original, darkly emotional and surreal in rock and roll. In 34 concise chapters, Ryder has penned a passionate and often experimental exposè, told in a distinctly introspective voice, a ‘long nights journey’ through the twisted alleyways of the music business and how his natural talent and notoriety was used and abused by himself and those around him. Readers take caution, this is not a light bedtime story.

Devils & Blue Dresses is an emotionally searing autobiography where Ryder opens his heart and confronts his past with deadly aim. It’s a well-written memoir on music-politics, the weight of fame and identity, and its attendant web of  prizes and perils. The book highlights many tragic-comic episodes both high and low; starting with impoverished scenes of childhood, a dysfunctional home-life and Ryder’s early manipulation and naivety inside the commercial hit-making machine. A string of exceptional high moments sparkle throughout the book; witnessing Bob Dylan’s recording of Highway 61, jamming with Jimi Hendrix (who asked Ryder to be his singer), partying with The Beatles at a countryside LSD retreat after their celebratory release of Sargent Peppers and Hollywood screen tests with Sam Peckinpah and others.

Gifted with one of the greatest voices in rock and blue-eyed-soul history, the teenage Ryder was taken under the wing of producer/manager Bob Crewe, an early 60s hit-single Svengali known for his Four Seasons smash hits; “Big Girls Don’t Cry”, “Walk Like a Man”, “Sherry” and Frankie Valli’s “Can’t Take My Eye’s Off You”. Crewe would indoctrinate Ryder through strange scenes of stardom decadence while ensconced at his posh Dakota apartment in New York City.

Ryder’s first top-ten hit was the Crewe produced wonder “Jenny Take a Ride”  –a rocket of a single that skillfully combined Little Richard’s “C.C. Rider” with “Jenny Jenny” –a classic showcase for Ryder’s high-energy solid gold vocal style. That talent/producer relationship was dramatically revealed by Ryder who said, “Mr. Crewe held all the cards… all of the music appeared on his record labels, or was licensed out, and he held management, recording and publishing contracts… As long as the hit records kept coming, I was safe from the ill will of an industry that, by nature, was insensitive and exploitative and whose executives were, for the most part, angry and bitter at having to suffer the childish abuse of so many of their client victims.”  Ryder himself a ‘client victim’ lost most of his royalties and was bound to medieval contracts that froze his assets. Finally he was forced to beg for a $15,000 down payment on his Southfield, Michigan home –and that became one of the last royalty payments Ryder ever received. His love for music and contempt for the industry is burned deep onto every page.

Ryder’s story is a roller-coaster of comebacks, failures, marriages, infidelities, depressions, suicide attempts, career mistakes and close calls. His association with Barry Kramer at Creem Magazine and manager John Sinclair (of MC5 fame) culminated in a heady lost year, but his reformation of the band Detroit produced his 1971 release Detroit, a blistering rock LP that featured the Lou Reed / Velvet Underground single “Rock ‘N’ Roll”  -one of Ryder’s last hits and a version Lou Reed declared to be definitive.

The book is filled with first hand documents; recording contracts, publicity shots, family photographs and deeply personal poetic side-bar sections titled, “a window to my soul” – italicized journal entries that convey Ryder’s inner thoughts on Southern Antisemitism, Holocaust museums, the feminist movement, “the dysfunctional existence we call American culture”, and his evaluation of poverty, freedom and democracy. Near the book’s end is a twelve page break-up letter and biting personal assessment from his wife Megan, followed by a glossary (Appendix A) that posts an A-Z listing of the artists Ryder met and his recollections of them, some include; Chubby Checker: I wish I knew how to turn a penny into a dollar like he does. Dave Clark Five: The Riveras and I took care of them before we ever had a hit. Janis Joplin: we talked about how tired we both were… we looked like two penniless vagrants … it was a surreal scene.  Little Richard: It was his voice that taught me about energy. Jackie Wilson: …there was Jackie nude on a bed with a nude woman and we conversed for maybe fifteen minutes. Appendix B is Ryder’s outspoken geographic impressions from Canada to Switzerland. Appendix C is a complete discography of singles and albums and Appendix D, “An Essay from Mitch” is a last poetic stream-of-consciousness rage, a Heart of Darkness decent into an empty and bleak apocalypse. A sense of betrayal, anger and vitriol is aimed both at himself, the marketplace and his critics he calls “a pack of vengeful hyenas” – yet through all the pain and rejection there remains the rock steady soul of a Detroit survivor, unafraid to face himself and his demons head-on.

All the loose threads and surreal  juxtapositions give the book a down-home slightly dizzy feel where Ryder may in fact be forging new directions in prose. Sincere and courageous to the nth degree and constructed seemingly without editorial direction, his book is one of the most self-analytic, raw and beautiful memoirs in the history of rock and roll. It’s purity comes from the fact he did this completely himself  and its uncertain how his fans will receive this type of a creative autobiography, but one thing undeniable is that Ryder has laid out the naked truth for all to see and he remains a verifiable Detroit and national treasure.

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Ryder’s book will also accompany a new album, The Promise, his first release in over three decades. Produced by another Detroit legend Don Was, the disc’s dozen tracks feature eleven originals plus a live cover for the Motown classic “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted.” Copies of the new CD will be made available during the signing from our next door neighbors at Street Corner Music. We appreciate your support of this event, for more information please call: (248)-968-1190

Technorati Tags: book signing, Detroit music, Devils and Blue Dresses, Mitch Ryder, Rock and Roll, The Detroit Wheels

Set in an ominous 1920’s Russia, The Letter Killers Club is a secret society of self-described “conceivers” who, to preserve the purity of their conceptions, will commit nothing to paper.  The logic of the club is strict and uncompromising. Every Saturday, members meet in a firelit room filled with empty black bookshelves where they strive to top one another by developing ever unlikelier, ever more perfect conceptions. The members of the club are strangely mistrustful of one another, while all are under the spell of its despotic President, and there is no telling, in the end, just how lethal the purely conceptual—or, for that matter, letters—may be.

“SK’s The Letter Killers Club is a monumental literary discovery, a gem buried in the Soviet Archives and only unearthed in 1976.  With its daring experimentalism and acid commentary on state power, the book still stands as a work of revolutionary power.” –full review from The Driftless Area Review

“I am interested not in the arithmetic, but in the algebra of life.”-Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky

One of the best foreign translations of the year comes naturally again from the New York Review of Books. The Letter Killers Club will be our second book discussion on SK since his brilliant Memories of the Future short story collection.

“A Russian writer whose morbidly satiric imagination forms the wild (missing) link between the futuristic dream tales of Edgar Allan Poe and the postwar scientific nightmares of Stanislaw Lem… an impish master of the fatalistically fantastic.”
—Bill Marx, The World

Sigizmund Krzhizhanovky was the Ukranian-born son of Polish emmigrants. In 1920, he began lecturing in Kiev on theater and music. The lectures continued in Moscow, where he moved in 1922, by then well known in literary circles. While clerking for an attorney Krzhizhanovsky began writing, and would do so steadily for close to two decades. His philosophical and phantasmagorical fictions ignored injunctions to portray the Soviet state in a positive light. Three separate efforts to print collections were quashed by the censors, a fourth by World War II. He died in 1950, largely unpublished in his native country. Not until 1989 could his work begin to be published.

To take photographs means to recognize—simultaneously and within a fraction of a second—both the fact itself and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that give it meaning. It is putting one’s head, one’s eye and one’s heart on the same axis.

– Henri Cartier-Bresson

Take care of all your memories…  for you can not relive them. -Bob Dylan

From poetic and humorous recordings of family life and urban landscapes to his surprising tabletop conceptual works, Bill Rauhauser’s photography has always been stamped with clarity of thought, gentle beauty and an eye for composition. His decades long love affair with Detroit, modernism, photo history and the organization of forms and their refinement is an inspiring tale. He is at the age of 93, still questioning, developing and recreating himself as an artist.

There’s nothing sentimental, passive or decorative about Rauhauser’s street work yet they contain a romantic and passionate core, all beautifully rendered black and white images, each a small poignant story.  Some of the best work is risky, unconscious, snapshot driven and yet also carefully composed, implanted with his memories and a respect for  the city and its culture. The urban landscape is the main star in a Rauhauser photograph.

Detroit has become a favorite location for photographers in the recent past, chosen as the symbolic and literal center of the post-industrial wasteland. Many books have documented its magnificent ruins. Rauhauser’s investigation was a prelude to the ruins, a map before the crime-scene, familiar territory for anyone brought up in Detroit in the 1950s-60s.

There is something fatally romantic about an urban photographer in the mid-1950s wandering freely throughout Detroit. Rauhauser’s practice both coincided and sometimes mirrored the beat era mythology that grew around the wandering figures of Robert Frank and Jack Keroauc, whose On the Road was published to a sensational response in 1957. Being anchored to Detroit in the 1950s was a much less fashionable and frenetic situation for Rauhauser, but perhaps a more truthful one. He was stuck in the quintessential American city, the crucible and furnace of  Fordism, where the struggles of race and class played out in everyday life.

After describing a visit to Henri Cartier-Bresson’s exhibition at MOMA in 1947, as a “revelatory” one, Rauhauser quickly realized that his life’s passion and career path would soon be devoted to photography. The idea of eternity frozen in a photograph – life organized and contained in a single ‘Decisive Moment’ rang true for Rauhauser, and he began spending his free time on the streets with a Leica 35mm rangefinder (the same preferred camera of Cartier-Bresson).

In 1955, a photograph by Rauhauser (Three Figures on a Bench) was chosen by Edward Steichen for his “Family of Man” exhibition, one of the most successful and viewed photo exhibits in history, seen by over nine million people. Rauhauser took that as an encouraging sign and he continued his street work with renewed vigor. 1955 was also the same year Robert Frank began his cross-country photo project that would result in “The Americans” – another milestone in photo history. Frank’s snapshot aesthetic held a fascination for Rauhauser, who was already  practicing those methods himself on the streets of Detroit.

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Rauhauser has often referred to himself as a flânuer, a wandering urban observer, sampling and documenting the rhythms and pace of the city.  The flânuer was a term popularized by Charles Baudelaire to describe the slow city-gazing, 19^th century window-shopping dandy of his time – the romantic wanderer of the urban landscape. Baudelaire admired photography’s documentary nature but also despised and thwarted its fine art applications. In his essay On Photography of 1859, he describes the dual nature of photography and where he saw it headed, “If photography is allowed to supplement art in some of its functions, it will soon have supplanted or corrupted it altogether, thanks to the stupidity of the multitude which is its natural ally. It is time, then, for it to return to its true duty, which is to be the servant of the sciences and arts… Let it rescue from oblivion those tumbling ruins, those books, prints and manuscripts which time is devouring, precious things whose form is dissolving and which demand a place in the archives of our memory—— it will be thanked and applauded.”[i]

The book Bill Rauhauser 20^th Century Photography in Detroit is a treasure trove for what it preserves of Motor City life, especially the era following World War II when streets were still filled with vendors, shoppers and energetic activity of all kinds. Rauhauser concentrated his walks along Woodward Avenue, Mid-town (Wayne State University), the riverfront, Belle Isle, and took to documenting small working class homes and the city’s architectural gems. The vibrancy of those times marks a stark contrast to how the fortunes of the automotive capital would slowly unravel.

In over 300 black and white images we journey with Rauhauser in a city overflowing with consumerist euphoria, determination and grit –scenes abundant with immediacy and excitement. The photograph Sander’s Lunch Counter, Woodard Avenue, Detroit shows a group of three women enjoying ice-cream on a typical hot summer’s day, the middle figure blowing a frozen funnel of cigarette smoke into the air, a scene most Detroiters of a certain age can identify with –and there are many others, like the series of the Michigan State Fair sideshow barker’s and their sexy but dangerous looking carnival gals. Street preachers, rushing lunchtime office workers, newsstands, fruit vendors, street cleaners, gamblers, musicians, barbershops, students, bikers and fashionable women fill the book with a timeless lost-world glow. The photos are presented with little or no captions, but they will gain in awareness over time, true vessels of how we saw ourselves and once lived in Detroit before the apocalypse of ruins.

Gazing over the book is like walking through fields of memory, recognizing scenes from a past gone-to-dust and a history belonging to all who’ve lived it or care to see. There are many isolated and lost figures; lonely seniors, tired park-bench warmers, beggars, pimps and bums  -the outsiders of society found in daily encounters that break down and disrupt “normal” social order – gatherings and crowded street scenes dissipate into fragile moments of reflection and despair, slices of life’s existential sadness – tiny miracles caught in time.

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There’s a wealth of material to soak in, amazing jaw-dropping images that stop you in your tracks. Here’s mid-century Motown, alive with a variety of activities, barbershop rituals, bus-stop ques and swaggering soul brothers and sistahs. One small section devoted to Detroit auto-shows in the 1960s is one of the book’s strongest highlights. Young models with exaggerated flipped up hair-dos, million-dollar smiles, mini-skirts and go-go boots light up the Cobo Hall displays selling sex and sizzle alongside the latest Detroit muscle cars.

This decades-long self-assignment aligns well with many other urban photo projects such as Atget’s life-long study of the monuments and beauty of Paris, Arnold Genthe’s Chinatown in turn-of-the-century San Francisco and the New York Photo League’s gritty documentation of New York City in the 40s and 50s. Rauhauser’s work clearly shows the lighthearted sense of improvisation and quick thinking he brings to street photography, which is the main attraction filling most of the book. It should remain the standard reference for displaying Detroit in classic mid-century for years to come.

Rauhauser’s street scenes are varied in technique and subject matter, ranging from posed snapshots, to comical, uninhibited, and voyeuristic off-the-hip shooting. Many photographs are the result of strong technical ability matched with careful planning and dumb chance. The Zen-like presence of the photographer is there to see and think ahead, becoming invisible to his surroundings and subject. For the most part his subjects are caught off-guard and unaware of the camera. Rauhauser’s key distinction is a graphically charged and constructive eye that builds a photograph from layers of physical reality and desire (the subject matter) against the balanced dispersal of light and darkness.

He once said, “I see in black and white.”- a vision used with good effect alongside the complexity of moving subjects and architectural backgrounds. I think Bill also see’s in shades of desire;  a pretty figure, sophisticated well-dressed ladies, women in bathing suits, leggy dancers, snake-charmers, sexy backsides, young women smoking, modeling and performing  – a luxuriant parade of beauties and delights!

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Several images quote important historic photographs, an ability that came naturally and perhaps unconsciously to Rauhauser with his deep knowledge of photo history. There’s the Atget-like side view of a man in thick boots wheeling a heavy loaded cart of cardboard across the street (p.92) looking plucked from another century and several movement-freezing shots echoing Martin Munkacsi; (p. 83, 143) who once said, “all great photographs today are snapshots.” Rauhuaser’s image of four young blacks on the beach of Lake Michigan (p.114) harken back to the iconic Munkacsi image, Black Boys ashore Lake Tanganyika taken in 1931, an image Cartier-Bresson credited “as the only photograph to ever inspire me.”

Overloaded streets filled with humanity combined with Rauhauser’s eye for women bring to mind Gary Winogrand’s “Women are Beautiful”  series ; (p.134, 148, 155, 178, 213) and the flattened almost painted looking urban cityscapes of Aaron Siskind; (p. 100, 130, 164, 194) or the pool-hall greasers of Danny Lyon (p. 62, 209, 219) and the urban lunch counters of Robert Frank; (p. 60, 81). His image of the tough bee-hived French Fry Girl from either Bob-lo island or the State Fair is a powerful 60s portrait, close to iconic. Visual puns and mirrored images abound like the ridiculous toy-car parade Shriner’s convention, Detroit 1978, (p.184), or the odd man at the State Fair unconsciously mimicking a circus banner behind him (p.227) or the Weegee-like bum sleeping off his drunk in the doorway: Cass Avenue, Detroit (p.103).

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The still-life series Rauhauser began in late 1960s became known as the “Object Series”. Dejarlais notes in the book’s introduction, “He purposely photographed objects that were invisible to society because of their daily functional use…using a 4×5 view camera he aimed for intense clarity and lit them for optimal revelation of detail…”  He furthered these experiments by exploring object abstractions that ended in a series of totally wild black and white architecturally constructed objects, the Egyptian titled Temples and Tombs series –a totally unique body of work in the history of photography, one he discovered by himself and owns –a series created out of found materials and discarded kitchen utensils. These fantastical high contrast works were produced sometime in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a humorous conceptual and creatively jarring body of work, perhaps an antidote to his earlier street photography.

The still life constructions were extensions of the photographer’s passion for architecture (his first profession) and are non-manipulated, experiments in free-form expression. The Temples and Tombs series are self-contained utopian worlds, surrealist M.C. Escher post-objects, (almost a reversal of documentation).  The series developed at a time when it was more difficult to work in the street. By the 1980s privacy issues became dominant and the streets were becoming more dangerous. Rauhauser explained that with the still life work, he went into himself and pushed the straight “truth telling” aspect of photography to an extreme edge. The Temples and Tombs were an answer to an exit, analytic fragments of  truth found in architectural abstraction, like something Frank Ghery would make from crumpled wastepaper. They are deceptively clever tabletop fantasies – chaotic yet ordered, strange and alien perception puzzles of pure form.

Rauhauser’s 1970s elemental object series and still lifes are relatives to Marcel Duchamp’s revolutionary notion of the readymade[ii]. By isolating the found object, removing it from its normal usage and understanding, Duchamp wished to challenge the viewer and what we accept as works of art. Duchamp presented the bicycle wheel, urinal, bottle rack and the snow shovel – the everyday object as some of the first minimalist artworks – what he called “a form denying the possibility of defining art”.

Where Duchamp wanted to go against the grain and destroy “retinal art” with his readymade sculptures, Rauhauser emphasized the beauty and aesthetics of simple objects and common sculptural form; the baseball, derby hat, music stand, ruler, rain boot, transistor radio tube, etc., the everyday objects he was attracted to for primarily aesthetic and functional reasons – objects whose “form followed function.”  These were then presented as purely clean and flat minimalist “retinal art” – a sly reversal of Duchamp’s approach. The photographic isolation of the object became a commonly used devise that would influence book and graphic illustration to a staggering degree by the early 1990s. Rauhauser’s careful choice of objects are linked in a self-referential index – functional forms that also register as signs and symbols in the photographer’s visual autobiography.

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The book’s lack of complete annotations is a mystery, a small flaw that could be fixed in a later printing. The dark grey chapter headings are abrupt and intrusive beside the photos, upsetting the flow of the book. The overall size is about 8.5 x 11″ and is overly generous with photos in a short span, over 300 images appear in 311 pages.  The paper is of good quality with almost no bleed-through and a soft varnish was added to the photos which have a great tonal range and appear printed in tri-tone or full color. The decorative glossy cover is a great graphic image of a summertime parade down Woodard Avenue with the world’s largest American flag flapping on the side of the Hudson’s department store, a female photographer shooting her family, with her prominent ass in the foreground. The book design is functional, but could be improved with a looser, less crowded layout and little more research for the captions.

A 30 page introductory text by Mary Dejarlais gives a close inspection to Rauhauser’s history and background, his formation as an artist and educator, from his beginnings in Detroit’s Silhouette camera club to his current adoption of digital photography. Dejarlais lays out the influences and histories that informed Rauhuaser’s photography and thought, including his friendship with photo dealer Tom Halsted and central figures Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank and film theorist Siegfried Kracauer.

Dejarlais’ introduction also makes clear Rauhauser’s contributions to photography and the city. Over the course of five decades many area students (who are now professional photographers) had taken Rauhauser’s classes at the Society of Arts and Crafts, later the College for Creative Studies (CCS). As a teacher and photo collector he exposed students to firsthand examples of famous photo works, originals he brought into the classroom. In 1964, Rauhauser opened Gallery Four, one of the first galleries in the US devoted exclusively to photography. He was also responsible in the early 1960s for bringing the attention of collecting and appreciating photography as an art-form to the Detroit Institute of Arts, one of the first national museums to display an interest in the medium.

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Rauhauser has worked a lifetime in semi-isolation (a common situation in Detroit), but its one of the aspects he most enjoys. Detroit allowed him the freedom of anonymity, of walking the streets unfettered and for many years the city proved to be a trusted canvas and muse. He has not spent his time searching for exhibitions or promoting his work outside the city (even though there are few opportunities in Detroit for exhibiting or receiving critical feedback). He works along self-imposed rules, free to explore anywhere his imagination takes him.

When thinking of Rauhauser’s extended street project, I’m reminded of the quietly eccentric and stoic Eugene Atget (1857-1927), a photographer who witnessed and documented the working classes alongside the 19th century grandeur and transformation of Paris, lugging his heavy view camera across the city photographing beggars and prostitutes to regal palaces and elegant parks. Atget was unrecognized by the public but enthusiastically followed and collected by a small group of surrealist artists who eventually saved his work from certain destruction. Images taken by Atget now construct our view and how we think about Paris from the late 1890s and early 1900s. They are a transformational archive.

Bill Rauhauser 20^th Century Photography in Detroit is not the glossy hallmark tour of the Motor City you might expect. The Book is a gritty but sincere survey across a sixty-year arc of Detroit images, from its industrial peak to its gradual decline. It’s raw do-it-yourself  journalism of the common man, an urban spectacle and a private diary of the past, one photographer’s long term affair with photography, photographic history and Detroit, and is unlike anything published on the city before. Rauhauser is a stealthy, acute observer and flânuer of daily life, a masterful sage in our midst.

Bibliographic Coda

Just over 10 years ago, after Bill Rauhauser’s retirement from CCS, he began to seriously collect and organize the body of his photographic work. These reflections become a source of renewal for the photographer who has made a public offering in the form of books and donations of  artwork. Major collections of his photographs now reside in the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Burton Library in Detroit. Soon after the publication of 20th Century Photography in Detroit, a man in the audience during Bill’s presentation at the Book Beat, purchased an extra copy for his niece who is a curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The Museum then showed an interest in purchasing works and were recently given a donation of original silver prints by Mr. Rauhauser for their permanent collection. 

Bill Rauhauser 20^th Century Photography in Detroit (2010) is the most comprehensive monograph of Rauhaser’s work to date. It also  compliments several other books he produced and helped to publish over the past decade; Detroit Revisited (2000) with photographer’s John Thomas Baldwin and Gene Meadows, text by Mary Dejarlais, Bob-Lo Revisited (2003) with text by Martin Magid, Detroit: Auto Show Images of the 1970s (2007) and Beauty on Detroit Streets (2008) text by Mary Dejarlais. All should be known to anyone with an interest in photography, urban studies and the history of Detroit. Rauhauser and Dejarlais  have recently formed a new joint publishing partnership named Cambourne Publishing and we eagerly look forward to future volumes.

Last Note: The famous Three Figures on a Bench photo shown at the beginning of this article was later appropriated and cast in bronze by another artist. It was a life-sized replica of the photo, except it showed the figures engaged in sex, but that’s a story for another time.

[ii] on the readymade: Introduction, ToutFait Towards a Definition at http://www.toutfait.com/unmaking_the_museum/introduction1.html

Technorati Tags: 20th Century Photography in Detroit, Bill Rauhauser, detroit art, Detroit Photography, photography book review

Book Beat is pleased to welcome legendary author and beloved Detroiter Elmore Leonard, along with his son, author Peter Leonard, to the Baldwin Library (300 West Merrill0 Street Birmingham, MI 48009) on Thursday, Jan. 19th at 7 pm.  They will be speaking and signing books. This free event is co-sponsored by the Book Beat and the Baldwin Library, and open to the general public. Please call Book Beat (248) 968-1190 for more info or to reserve copies of these titles.

This event is one of only three nationwide book signings planned for the book launch of Raylan, Leonard’s latest novel that features the U.S. Marshal Raylan featured in the hit TV series JUSTIFIED.

….read more here

Wong Herbert Yee at Bloomfield Township Library, Jan. 25th

Wednesday, January 25th beginning at 6:30 PM Wong Herbert Yee, the Theodor Geisel Honor Award winner, will be demonstrating his process for writing and illustrating books. You don’t want to miss his dynamic presentation! The Picture Book: From Concept to Creation will take place at the  Bloomfield Township Public Library 1099 Lone Pine Road. The Book Beat will be supplying books for the event. Please contact the Bloomfield Township Library (248) 642-5800 or the Book Beat (248) 968-1190 for more information.    

Paul Clemens at Baldwin Library; Wednesday, February 1 at 7 pm

Detroit Author Paul Clemens will be at the Baldwin Public Library on February 1, 2012 at 7:00 pm speaking about his newest book, Punching Out: One Year in a Closing Auto Plant. This is Clemens’ second book on Detroit, his first being Made in Detroit and it concerns the loss of manufacturing and the working class in Detroit and America.

From the New York Times,  “All this said, “Punching Out” is frequently rewarding. Mr. Clemens traces the colorful history of the Budd plant, which manufactured parts for a variety of car brands and which once employed nearly 10,000 people. He is a lovely, mournful observer of Detroit’s people.”

….read more here

Rock Legend Mitch Ryder signing at Book Beat on Sunday, Feb. 5th

Mitch Ryder, the legendary “unsung hero” of Michigan rock and roll will be presenting and signing his new autobiography Devils & Blue Dresses: My Wild Ride as a Rock and Roll Legend, at the Book Beat bookstore on Sunday, February 5th between 12:30 -2:30 PM. This is a rare opportunity to meet and hear Ryder speak about his life in a small and intimate setting. The Book Beat is located at 26010 Greenfield in Oak Park. This event is free and open to the general public. To reserve an autographed copy of Devils & Blue Dresses, you can order online or call (248) 968-1190 for more information.

…read more about Mitch Ryder’s Devils & Blue Dresses

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Book Beat reading group selection for January

Book Beat’s Reading Group Selection for January is Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky’s surreal The Letter Killers Club. The Reading Group will meet on Wednesday, January 25th in the Goldfish Teahouse (117 W. Fourth, in downtown Royal Oak) at 7pm. Books are discounted 15% at Book Beat (26010 Greenfield Rd., Oak Park, MI). All are welcome!       ….read more here.

Technorati Tags: author readings, Author signings, Baldwin library, Book Beat author events, book beat events, Detroit book signings, Detroit literature, Elmore Leonard, Helen Frost, January 2012 literary events, local signings Detroit, Paul Clemens, Peter Leonard

From the New York Times,  “All this said, “Punching Out” is frequently rewarding. Mr. Clemens traces the colorful history of the Budd plant, which manufactured parts for a variety of car brands and which once employed nearly 10,000 people. He is a lovely, mournful observer of Detroit’s people.”

Books will be available for sale at the Baldwin Library, 300 W Merrill St, Birmingham, MI 48009. Call 248-968-1190 for more information.

Technorati Tags: Author Signing, Baldwin library, book beat events, Detroit book signings, Detroit literature, Paul Clemens

Frost is known for introducing poetry to children in an enjoyable way through captivating stories featuring strong female characters and unusual poetic structures.  Diamond Willow is a novel in verse with each page of text in the shape of a diamond and it is being read in Baldwin’s Battle of the Books program.  This is a great chance to meet and listen to a very talented author who’s lived an exciting life, teaching school in Alaska and Scotland as well as being the author of books of poetry, fiction and drama for children and adults.  This event will be at the Baldwin Public Library in the Lower Level, 300 West Merrill, Birmingham Mi, 48009.  Book Beat will be there with a selection of books written by Frost for sale and Frost will speak and autograph books.  Please call 248-968-1190 for more information or to reserve a title to be signed.