JERUSALEM.- For the first time, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, is bringing together works by pioneering photographers of the 19th- and 20th-century featured in “Little History of Photography” (“Kleine Geschichte der Photographie”) (1931) by the German-Jewish thinker Walter Benjamin (1892–1940), a groundbreaking essay that forged our modern understanding of the photographic medium. On view August 8, In Pictures: Walter Benjamin’s Little History of Photography unites more than 80 photographs and 10 portfolio books drawn from the Israel Museum’s collection, one of the few in the world to represent all the photographers that inspired Benjamin’s seminal essay, including Eugène Atget, Karl Blossfeldt, Julia Margaret Cameron, Nadar (Gaspard-Félix Tournachon), David Octavius Hill, Germaine Krull, and August Sander. One of the first theoretical studies of visual culture, Walter Benjamin’s “Little History of Photography” laid the foundation for the field of cultural criticism, shifting focus from the artwork as a unique object toward the political and artistic potential of a new technology based on endless reproduction.

“Benjamin’s insights from nearly a century ago into the cultural impact of photography’s emergence takes on new relevance in today’s society, where an unprecedented percentage of the population has ready access to a camera,” said Dr. Gilad Reich, Horace and Grace Goldsmith Curator in the Israel Museum’s Noel and Harriette Levine Department of Photography. “The connections he draws between aesthetics and a culture’s shifting social and psychological dynamics continues to be a touchstone for the entire field and beyond.”

“The exhibition invites visitors to become immersed in the images and ideas that motivated Benjamin, whose insights into the implications of endlessly reproducing visual information foreshadowed our current cultural moment,” said Denis Weil, the Anne and Jerome Fisher Director of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. “As a museum that has dedicated more than 50 years to collecting and deeply researching the trajectory of photography, we are in a unique position to illustrate Benjamin’s essay, engaging audiences in deeper understanding of how photography developed and more critical thinking around the images we consume in our daily lives.”

“Little History of Photography” was originally published in the German literary journal Die Literarische Welt as three short essays reviewing several books dedicated to early photography. In this text, Benjamin introduced concepts that remain central to critical theory of the medium: the aura, optical unconscious, reproducibility, among other topics. Benjamin’s analysis of the aura and optical unconscious, concepts

first introduced in “Little History of Photography,” were elaborated on in his most iconic essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1935), developed just several years later. Benjamin never saw original prints of the photographs he discussed in “Little History of Photography,” but only mass reproductions in books. The Israel Museum exhibition allows viewers to experience what Benjamin was not able to during his lifetime.

In Pictures: Walter Benjamin’s Little History of Photography is organized into three sections that follow the essay’s structure, each featuring works by the photographers and outcomes of the technological developments that Benjamin describes:

Part One

The exhibition opens with an exploration of the period following the invention of the medium, an achievement Benjamin attributes to Louis Daguerre (1787-1851), whose process for creating daguerreotypes was first announced at a meeting of the Academy of Sciences in 1839. In his essay, Benjamin focuses on portrait photography of the era, which he perceived as possessing a special aura typically associated with traditional artistic mediums.

Much of his discussion focuses on the Scottish painter and photographer David Octavius Hill (1802-1870), whose work is represented in the exhibition through portraits of distinguished individuals such as The Marquis of Northampton (1844) and Sir Francis Grant, P.R.A. (1845). Reflecting on Hill’s poetic and melancholic images, Benjamin asserts that the photographic portrait is the product of an encounter: on one side, the photographer’s aims and techniques, and on the other, the first human subjects, who lacked awareness of what it meant to be photographed.

Part Two

The second section follows Benjamin’s writings on the tension between the medium’s commercial possibilities and its potential to reframe reality. By the 1850s, photography could be replicated in large quantities and was accessible to more than just a select group of inventors and artists. These conditions led to such developments as André Disdéri’s (1819-1889) invention of visiting cards, small, mass-produced portrait photos exchanged on social occasions; and coincided with the rise of artificial studio settings and costumes.

As an antidote to these developments, which caused many of the first practitioners to abandon photography, Benjamin discusses Eugène Atget (1857-1937), who at the turn of the century created a vast portfolio devoted to Paris, including works such as Saint Étienne du Mont (1912) and Boulevard de Strasbourg (ca. 1907), among more than 25 Atget works featured in the exhibition. Benjamin saw Atget’s photographic practice as a precursor to Surrealism in his destabilization of conceptual, spatial, and temporal boundaries, which liberated the gaze from the genuine aura of the first photographic images and from the phony aura of commercial photography.

Part Three

The exhibition closes with an examination of the political, social, and scientific potential of photography. Benjamin contrasts this with what he dismissively terms as “creative” photography, work that follows the fashion of the day and conceals or prettifies reality. In his opinion, photographic art should not accentuate beauty, nor should it aspire to “objective” documentation.

In this section, Benjamin focuses on August Sander (1876-1964), who in 1929, published the photographic album “Face of Our Time,” the first installment of his monumental “People of the 20th Century” project. Sander ambitiously sought to document every “type” of person in German society, as illustrated in the exhibition through portraits Pastry Cook (1928), Bricklayer’s Helper (1928), and Pharmacist (1929). According to Benjamin, this typological photography makes it possible to analyze society in a way that is as critical as academic research while almost prophetically acknowledging the dangers inherent in this kind of classification.

Walter Benjamin

Born in Berlin in 1892, Walter Benjamin is considered one of the most influential cultural thinkers of the twentieth century, best known for his post-Marxist and original interpretations of concepts such as history, modernity, and authorship. A literary critic, philosopher, and cultural sociologist, he was associated with the interwar Frankfurt School, which formulated new critical social theories.

As Nazism became more powerful, Benjamin left Germany in 1932 and eventually settled in Paris. After Germany invaded France in September 1940, he and a number of others fleeing Nazi-occupied France crossed the Pyrenees into Spain. When they reached the border town of Portbou, they were halted and told that they would be sent back. Benjamin tragically died by suicide at age 48 on the French-Spanish border, leaving behind the unfinished “Arcades Project,” written between 1927 and 1940, an immense collection of writings on life in 19th century Paris. His other writings include “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1935) and “Theses on the Philosophy of History” (1940), written while in exile; as well as “The Task of the Translator” (1923), and “The Author as Producer” (1934).

Exhibition Organization and Programming

In Pictures: Walter Benjamin’s Little History of Photography is curated Dr. Gilad Reich, Horace and Grace Goldsmith Curator in the Israel Museum’s Noel and Harriette Levine Department of Photography. A series of lectures by Benjamin scholars and photography experts will be offered throughout the duration of the exhibition. For more information, please visit imj.org.il/en.

Publication

In conjunction with In Pictures: Walter Benjamin’s Little History of Photography, a new edition of the Hebrew translation of “Little History of Photography” is being published by the Israel Museum and Babel Publishing. The publication features an introduction by Dr. Gilad Reich and is richly illustrated with works from the Israel Museum’s collection.

The Noel and Harriette Levine Department of Photography at the Israel Museum
Since opening in 1965, the Israel Museum has maintained a focus on the exploration and exhibition of photography. Its comprehensive collection marks the Museum as a leader among encyclopedic museums in holdings of this medium. Over the years, through selected acquisitions, as well as gifts from key donors such as Arnold Newman, Arturo Schwarz, and Noel and Harriette Levine, the department’s collection has grown to comprise more than 100,000 works from the earliest days of photography to contemporary times. Areas of expertise include pioneering 19th-century practitioners and photography of the Dada and Surrealist movements, as well as in-depth representations of such historically significant artists as Manuel Álvarez Bravo, André Kertész, and Man Ray. The department also promotes contemporary Israeli photography through an active program of acquisitions as well as through individual and group exhibitions dedicated to the work of Israeli photographers. In addition, the department awards three photography prizes, the Gérard Lévy Prize for a Young Photographer, the Kavlin Photography Prize for life achievement, and the Shpilman International Prize for Excellence in Photography.

Israel Museum, Jerusalem

The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, is Israel’s foremost cultural institution and one of the world’s leading encyclopedic museums. Founded in 1965, the Museum’s terraced 20-acre campus houses a wide-ranging collection of art and archaeology of world-class status. Its holdings include the world’s most comprehensive collections of the archaeology of the Holy Land, and Jewish Art and Life, as well as significant and extensive holdings in the Fine Arts, the latter encompassing 10 separate departments: Israeli Art; European Art; Modern Art; Contemporary Art; Prints and Drawings; Photography; Design and Architecture; Asian Art; the Arts of Africa and Oceania; and the Arts of the Americas. The campus also includes the Shrine of the Book, which houses the 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls, the world’s oldest biblical manuscripts; an extensive model of Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period; the Billy Rose Art Garden; and a dynamic Youth Wing for Art Education whose educational programs attract over 100,000 children every year. In just over 50 years, the Museum has built a far-ranging collection of nearly 500,000 objects through an unparalleled legacy of gifts and support from a wide circle of friends and patrons throughout the world. The Museum also embraces a dynamic program of some 20–25 new exhibitions a year, and a rich annual program of publications, educational activities, and special cultural events that reach out to every sector of the population.

The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
In Pictures: Walter Benjamin’s Little History of Photography