Palestinian peasant's kufiya, 1930 (Frank Scholten)

From Dutch photographer, traveler and religious scholar Frank Scholten's 1930 book of photos,  Palästina – Bibel, Talmud, Koran. Eine vollständige Darstellung aller Textstellen in eigenen künstlerischen Aufnahmen aus Gegenwart und Vergangenheit des Heiligen Landes. Bd. I: DIE EINGANGSPFORTE. JAFFA. Mit 449 Abbildungen in Kupfertiefdruck, Bd. II: JAFFA, DIE SCHÖNE. Mit 371 Abbildungen in Kupfertiefdruck. Stuttgart: Hoffmann, 1930. 

His archive of photos, from his time in Palestine between 1921 and 1923, is quite remarkable. I particularly like this one, as it shows a kufiya pattern unlike anything I've ever seen before.

For more on Scholten:

Sari Zananiri, "Documenting the Social: Frank Scholten Taxonomising Identity in British Mandate Palestine," in Imaging and Imagining Palestine: Photography, Modernity and the Biblical Lens, 1918–1948. 

and this documentary (also courtesy Zananiri). 

Gaza

I think this photo, by Mohammed Salem of Reuters, is the best I've seen from the recent Gaza events, the state-sponsored mass shootings in response to Palestinian protests. Click on it, fill your screen with it. I posted the photo on Facebook and one of my friends observed that it was like a Delacroix painting. It's from Friday, April 6, the second big day of the weekly rallies of the Great March of Return, when protesters burned tires to try to hinder the Israeli snipers posted at the border, who killed at least 20 people and wounded hundreds on the previous Friday. They were only partially successful: the snipers took out 9 more on the 6th.

The photo, I think, shows the indomitable spirit of the Gaza Palestinians who live in a huge open air prison, with very limited access to the outside world, whether coming or going, with massive unemployment, very degraded water resources, etc. Note that these protesters are unarmed. Note their youth, And note, of course, the inevitable kufiyas. Long Live Palestine.

Algerian photos: Lazhar Mansouri

One of the brilliant things about sharing stuff on your blog or Facebook or twitter or whatever is that the odd person will share things in return. For example:

I posted on twitter this photo I took, from inside the CD booklet that comes with the recent release from Sublime Frequencies, 1970s Algerian Folk & Pop. I posted about it here.

I just love this photo. First, it shows an Algerian teenage girl in a short skirt. Second, the girl has her arm around the boy, rather than the reverse. Finally, the pose looks so...natural.

Thanks to someone who noticed my twitter post of this photo, I have learned the name of the photographer: Lazhar Mansouri. Mansouri was a photographer who lived in the town of Aïn Beïda, in the Aurés mountains of eastern Algeria. He shot pictures of local townspeople in the studio he set up in the rear of a barbershop, between 1950 and 1980. (The population of Aïn Beïda in 1954 was 18,900; by 1977, 42,600.) 

Curator James Cavello culled a reported 10,000 negatives left by Mansouri and selected 120 of them to print. A collection of 50 (or 55?) photos toured the US in 2007, and it was reviewed in Art in America, The New York Times, and The New Yorker, among other venues. (And the collection has continued to tour elsewhere.) You can read more about Mansouri, see some photos, and read the reviews here. More photos, and a somewhat more interesting set, are here. Below are a couple samples.

 

Amazing, eh? I wish, however, that the photos were captioned. I have lots of questions, such as, are prostitutes among the subjects?

If you want to dig further, there is a book, which you could borrow on Interlibrary Loan (assuming you are at a university): Lazhar Mansouri: photographe algérien, by Lazhar Mansouri and Gina Abatti (Mazzotta, 2003).

Coming soon: Gil Hochberg, "Visual Occupations: Violence and Visibility in a Conflict Zone"

UCLA Prof Gil Hochberg's book, Visual Occupations: Violence and Visibility in a Conflict Zone, is out soon (May 2015) from Duke University Press. I blurbed it, so I've read the manuscript, and it is terrific, an essential read.

Here is Ella Shohat's blurb:

"Focusing on the politics of visuality, Visual Occupations engages the Zionist narrative in its various scopic manifestations, while also offering close readings of a wide range of contemporary artistic representations of a conflictual zone. Through such key notions as concealment, surveillance, and witnessing, the book insightfully examines the uneven access to visual rights that divides Israelis and Palestinians. Throughout, Gil Z. Hochberg sharply accentuates the tensions between visibility and invisibility within a context of ongoing war and violence. Visual Occupations makes a vital and informed contribution to the growing field of Israel/Palestine visual culture studies." 

and mine:

"Gil Z. Hochberg's brilliant and lucidly written text provides a vivid analysis of the sharp limits on visibility in Palestine/Israel. The expulsions of Palestinians in 1948 are invisible in Israel, and yet they continue to haunt its citizens and mobilize Palestinian resistance. Palestinians under occupation are hyper-visible, as victims and militants, and they seek both non-spectacular images and a measure of opacity. Through her critical readings of an array of Palestinian and Israeli artistic works, Hochberg offers other ways of looking and being seen, in this vastly unequal field of visibility."

and Duke Press' description:

"In Visual Occupations Gil Z. Hochberg shows how the Israeli Occupation of Palestine is driven by the unequal access to visual rights, or the right to control what can be seen, how, and from which position. Israel maintains this unequal balance by erasing the history and denying the existence of Palestinians, and by carefully concealing its own militarization. Israeli surveillance of Palestinians, combined with the militarized gaze of Israeli soldiers at places like roadside checkpoints, also serve as tools of dominance. Hochberg analyzes various works by Palestinian and Israeli artists, among them Elia Suleiman, Rula Halawani, Sharif Waked, Ari Folman, and Larry Abramson, whose films, art, and photography challenge the inequity of visual rights by altering, queering, and manipulating dominant modes of representing the conflict. These artists' creation of new ways of seeing—such as the refusal of Palestinian filmmakers and photographers to show Palestinian suffering, or the Israeli artists' exposure of state manipulated Israeli blindness—offers a crucial gateway, Hochberg suggests, for overcoming and undoing Israel's militarized dominance and political oppression of Palestinians."

Swedenburg family Middle East photos

Sultan Hassan mosque, Cairo, December 1961 (Photo: Romain Swedenburg)

My family made its first trip to the Middle East in December 1961-January 1962. We visited Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan (East and West Banks), and Israel. In January 1964 we moved to Beirut, Lebanon. My parents lived there until fall 1972; I stayed on until January 1976.

The last time we were at my parents, my brother and I went through some of the many slides that my father took over the years, selected a number and had them scanned professionally. My dad was an amateur, but he was a quite accomplished photographer. I've started to post the photos on flickr, and assembled them in an album called Swedenburg Family, Middle East. You can access them here. I will continue to add 3-5 per week, so if you find them of interest, you can check back to find more in future. I have received very positive feedback when I've also posted the photos on Facebook, and I may do something further with the photos in future. At the least, hopefully, publish a photo essay. The photos are varied, all from the nineteen sixties: you'll find shots of Tahrir Square, Abu Simbel in the process of being raised, Jericho refugee camp, Aqaba, Sinai, Damascus, the Cedars...Please have a look. Feedback appreciated.

Walls of Freedom - Street Art of the Egyptian Revolution

This looks like a terrific book.

 

According to the publisher: 

This book is a crowd-sourced and crowd-funded collaboration of 100 Photographers, 50 Artists and 20 Authors.

“Walls of Freedom” is a powerful portrayal of the first three years of the Egyptian revolution that began on January 25, 2011.The story is told through striking images of art that transformed Egypt's walls into a visual testimony of bravery and resistance. Created in close collaboration with artists on the frontlines of the battle, the book documents how they converted the streets into a dynamic newspaper of the people, providing a much needed alternative to the propaganda-fueled media. 

Go here to purchase and for a preview. The visuals really are stunning. This is one of my favorites. It dates from January 2012, when the SCAF (Supreme Council of the Armed Forces) was in control, and it says "The Army Above All." In the rubble with the skulls is a poster with one of the chief slogans of the revolution: "Bread. Freedom. Social Justice." The piece was very apt at the time of production and it was also very prescient, considering the political direction that Egypt is currently headed.

 And here is a vid about the project.

Elliott Erwitt, 'Amsterdam 1982' : kufiya spotting

© Elliott Erwitt /Magnum Photos

This is quite random -- I found this via an article in the latest New York Review of Books. This is the source. The photographer is the well-known Elliott Erwitt, who is known for photographing absurd, but at the same time 'everyday,' black-and-white photos. Here's wikipedia on Erwitt, and you can also check out his Magnum site. I don't know exactly what to say about this photo. What's this guy doing with a bunch of topless girls in a hot-tub in Amsterdam in 1982. Is he supposed to represent the stereotypical rich Arab? Is this a rendering of free-wheeling Amsterdam? What is it?

Anyway, you know why it's here. It's that kufiya.