Ginza Six is an upscale department store in Tokyo. Most stores are uninteresting unless you are interested in luxury clothing and accessories. But on the top floor of this mall, you will find Tsutaya Books, an excellent bookstore with a great selection of photo books.
I only had an hour before we had to travel to the airport, but I found many unusual books and zones by Japanese photographers. There was even an original Les Americains by Robert Frank behind glass.
I Will Be Wolf is the first book by Bertien van Manen. It is from 1975. The book exudes a wonderful freshness. Van Manen has seen Robert Frank, and I think also Eggleston. The images in I Will Be Wolf are a sort of European version of Frank’s The Americans. Less critical than The Americans, more friendly. Van Manen seems as shy as Eggleston. Photographs of people’s backs, often taken from a distance with views obstructed by poles and window columns. For me, it all works.
I visited Ed van der Elsken’s retrospective at the Stedelijk Museum. Van der Elsken is chaotic and distinctly extroverted, an expressionist. His films are messy and experimental. The exhibition was impressive, but mostly, it was a lot.
I came down the stairs with a full head. The book De Verliefde Camera is the catalog of this retrospective. In the introduction, Hripsimé Visser, the catalog’s compiler, calls the work vibrant and dynamic. Surely that seems like an understatement. The book gives an overview of Van der Elsken’s work chronologically.
Paris, street photographs. Then, a series called A Love Story: Love on the Left Bank. The photographs in this series are large areas of black, little light, and stark—more lust than love.
Then Africa. Again, rather dark photos. Where the story is anthropological, in my opinion, Van der Elsken was much more interested in the aesthetics of black people. Close-ups of Negroes and Negresses, and I don’t mean that as a swear word, but as an indication of the style of the photographs. Photographs that are not about life in Africa as their subject but much more about the anatomy of the African man.
Sweet Life. Van der Elsken at his best: street photographs of everything that comes in front of the camera that he finds interesting. Here, Van der Elsken measures up to William Klein and Robert Frank.
Amsterdam. There are street photos, reportage-style photos, and portraits. Again, the individual photos are the strongest. The street photos are of everyday things.
Eye Love You. Color for the first time. Everyday scenes. Topper: a photo of elderly ladies with sunglasses and in neat dresses photographing two Negro children as if they were at the zoo. The vicarious blush comes to your cheeks.
Japan. Again, the street photos of someone who takes unfettered pictures of everyday subjects.
Ultimately, Ed van der Elsken was primarily an excellent street photographer who tried to make ends meet through his photography. His street photographs are world-class.
