Klosk: A History of Photojournalism. - book review

Robert Lebeck and Bodo von Dewitz, eds.

Gottingen, Germany: Steidl, 2002

This unusual history of photojournalism eschews the producers for the products- instead of big names and canonical images Kiosk focuses on covers and inside spreads from hundreds of rare illustrated news magazines. It is less a history than a survey of the usage of photojournalism as practiced by the famous and the obscure. After a largely anecdotal introduction by the photojournalist and collector, Robert Lebeck, nine sections trace the emergence and decline of the illustrated press--commencing with its prehistory, in t839, 43 years before the half-tone process--and ending in the t9705 with its decline. The magazines are culled from Lebeck's collection of legendary titles such as Like, Illustrated London News, Picture Post, Stern, and such like, as well as propaganda publications such as Signal. The book betrays a U.S.-European bias, so no Drum, therefore.

Inevitably Kiosk (the title invokes the era of mass news readership through its outlet) fails to interweave the "story" of the news magazine with that of photojournalism--partly because the texts are so cursory they cannot do justice to the complexity of this task, and partly because this is a picture book. Nevertheless it contains treats as well as disappointments. In the first place the reproduction and printing are excellent. It's fascinating to see how many types of news magazine there used to be--from Live, with its cinematic treatments, the lavish USSR Under Construction, boasting complex gatefolds, to Du from Switzerland that resembled nothing so much as a photography magazine. One can also appreciate some of the best examples of the suppressed art of photojournalism- presentation. What emerges of interest in a single publication is rarely the photography alone. It is therefore unfortunate that the biography section (which usefully lists details of all periodicals mentioned) only credits photographers when plainly editors, designers and picture editors are worthy collaborators.

Kiosk is most interesting as a (albeit unconscious) remapping of photojournalism, revealing it to be a series of discrete practices rather than the one canon. From the start, the old pictorials used a remarkable diversity of images. The selection here ranges from eyewitness reportage--from spot news to orchestrated picture essays by Don McCullin--and includes "celebrity" photo features (David Douglas Duncan's coverage of Picasso a Ia Maison), photomontages by john Heartfield and forensic photographs of executed Nazis. It is obvious that if photojournalism can be defined by its function (the contention of the book) then the photographer needs to be recast as a supplier in a long chain. In some cases a supplier who never even meant to take a news picture.

Lebeck argues that the 1970S witnessed the end of the era of great picture periodicals, blaming TV and citing mergers. Interestingly, he reproduces two "classic" layouts from early issues of the Sunday Times color supplement. Supplements became home to the picture essay as the pictorials began their decline, but so did other politically engaged "leisure" titles including Nova (from the UK), Rolling Stone and so on--not to mention the underground press. The picture essay may have become extinct but photojournalism lives on--as style.

Factor 1991 by Claire Doherty. Foundation for Art and Creative Technology/18 pp./price unavailable (sb).

Go by Brace Gilden. Distributed Art Publishers/100 pp./$50.00 (hb).

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I was Elvis Presley's Bastard Love Child and Other Stories of Rock'nRoll Excess by Andrew Darlington. Headpress/224 pp./$19.95 (sb).

Lewis Carroll by Roger Taylor and Edward Waketing. Princeton University Press/280 pp./$49.95 (hb).

Night Photography by Andrew Sanderson. Amphoto/125 pp.! 29.95(sb).

On Film: Thinking in Action by Stephen Mulhall. Taylor and Francis/142 pp./$12.95 (sb).

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