City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2-2020 The “Olympiad of Photography”: FIAP and the Global Photo-Club Culture, 1950–1965 Alise Tifentale The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/3537 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] THE “OLYMPIAD OF PHOTOGRAPHY”: FIAP AND THE GLOBAL PHOTO-CLUB CULTURE, 1950–1965 by ALISE TIFENTALE A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Art History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2020 © 2020 ALISE TIFENTALE All Rights Reserved ii The “Olympiad of Photography”: FIAP and the Global Photo-Club Culture, 1950–1965 by Alise Tifentale This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Art History in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Date Siona Wilson Chair of Examining Committee Date Rachel Kousser Executive Officer Supervisory Committee: Romy Golan Anna Indych-López Karen Strassler THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT The “Olympiad of Photography:” FIAP and the Global Photo-Club Culture, 1950–1965 by Alise Tifentale Advisor: Siona Wilson This dissertation examines the global photo-club culture of the 1950s through the work of the International Federation of Photographic Art (Fédération internationale de l'art photographique, FIAP), founded in 1950. By 1965 FIAP united national associations of photo clubs in fifty-five countries across Western and Eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The regular exhibitions and publications of FIAP provided a unique platform where photographers living in the “second” and “third worlds” were welcome to present their work on equal grounds with their peers from the “first world.” FIAP, I posit, created a nonprofit, egalitarian, and open system of image production and circulation among photo clubs that aspired to align with the idealism of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Moreover, I contend that the photo-club culture of the 1950s overlapped remarkably with the field of professional magazine photography and photojournalism. Thus FIAP, I argue, succeeded in mobilizing a transnational and heterogeneous community of photographers by appealing to a shared idealism that transcended geopolitical and professional boundaries at a time of deep political and socioeconomic crisis. The work of these photographers, documented in seven FIAP yearbooks published between 1950 and 1965, offers a cross-section of postwar photography consisting of multiple regional perspectives and idiosyncratic visual styles that resist applying one unified periodization or single stylistic hierarchy. My analysis of this cross-section, with a focus on examples from Argentina, Brazil, iv East and West Germany, India, and Taiwan, aims to disrupt the established narrative of the Eurocentric art history of photography. Instead, I propose a global and decentralized history comprising several coexisting narratives, each of them relevant within their local and regional context independently of whether they fit into the storyline of Western art history or not. Relying on the sociology of art and postcolonial theories, I emphasize the cultural diversity and local specificity of the multiple photographic practices that coexisted in photo-club culture. The systemic power imbalance in the field of photography during the 1950s, I posit, was one of the reasons why the efforts of FIAP and most photo clubs had been forgotten as we look back on that decade from our vantage point. Among the dominant forces in the field were the influence of Life magazine, the monopolization of photojournalistic production by Magnum cooperative, and the worldwide circulation of the exhibition and photobook The Family of Man. Operating in this context, FIAP and photo clubs offered “second” and “third world” photographers an alternative and more accessible avenue toward advancing their social standing and elevating the cultural role of photography within their societies. The dissertation opens with a panoramic view on the profound influence the UN had on FIAP. It proceeds with a sequence of gradually closer middle shots, first focusing on magazine photographers as a professional group and then identifying humanist photography, which also had a notable presence in FIAP yearbooks, as the leading visual style of the time. The next close- up is the international photography trade fair in Cologne, Photokina 1956, which gave an unprecedented public platform for photo-club exhibition design, strategies, and politics. The narrative concludes with macro-level close-ups of two outstanding advocates of photo-club culture and FIAP: Lang Jingshan, a Chinese refugee photographer working in Taiwan, and the São Paulo-based photo club Foto Cine Clube Bandeirante. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My gratitude goes to my advisor, Siona Wilson, who helped this project take shape, supervised it with integrity and commitment, and provided guidance and support throughout the writing process. Likewise, I am thankful to Romy Golan for her knowledgeable insights and encouragement to think unconventionally from the early stages of my research. Anna Indych- López opened a window to works, artists, and theoretical discourses previously unknown to me and inspired me to consider photographers from Latin America. My research has benefited from numerous and intense discussions with Lev Manovich, a most generous mentor who motivated me to keep looking for new theoretical perspectives on photography in the twentieth century. For their help at different stages of the project, I am grateful to Pool Andries (collection of Cercle Royal d'Etudes Photographiques et Scientifiques d'Anvers, Fotomuseum Antwerp, Belgium), Josefine Barcia (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, Argentina), Tamara Berghmans (Fotomuseum Antwerp, Belgium), Fernando Bruno (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, Argentina), Todd Gustavson (Technology Collection at the George Eastman House, Rochester, New York), C. C. Marsh (University of Texas at Austin), Peter Pfrunder (Fotostiftung Schweiz, Switzerland), Thy Phu (Western University, Ontario, Canada), Marly T. C. Porto (Porto de Cultura, São Paulo, Brazil), and Markus Schürpf (Fotobüro Bern, Switzerland). The community of students and alums of the Art History department at the Graduate Center offered invaluable and immediate help every time I reached out with a question in person or via email. I would like to extend special thanks to Liz Donato, Cara Jordan, Karen Dale Shelby, Gillian Sneed, Danielle Stewart, and Luisa Valle. I am grateful to Chelsea Haines and vi Gemma Sharpe, organizers of the conference “Art, Institutions and Internationalism, 1933– 1966,” and Abigail Lapin Dardashti, who together with Sarah Hermanson Meister (Department of Photography, Museum of Modern Art, New York) organized the conference “In Black and White: Photography, Race, and the Modern Impulse in Brazil at Midcentury.” Presenting parts of my dissertation at these two conferences in 2017 was helpful in formulating my arguments. For friendship and conversations, which inevitably have touched upon my dissertation at one point or another, my thanks go to Anne Barlow, Theodore Ward Barrow, Viviana Bucarelli, Sooran Choi, Elizabeth Cronin, Nadine Helm, Yusuke Isotani, Ksenia Nouril, Antra Ramos, Cory Rice, Katrīna Teivāne-Korpa, and Hyewon Yi. My warmest thanks go to Hon Sun Lam, most understanding and caring husband, who created comfortable conditions for my research and writing. For their support, I am grateful to my godparents in Riga, Laima Eglīte and Augustīns Delle. My parents, Zenta Dzividzinska and Juris Tīfentāls, prepared me for the challenges of writing about art, but sadly they did not live to see my achievements. It is to their memory that I dedicate my work. vii CONTENTS List of Figures . ix Introduction . 1 Chapter One: FIAP, The Family of Man, and the United Nations . 37 The “United Nations” of Photographers 39 Photographers from India in The Family of Man and FIAP 60 The Power of Stereotypes 84 Chapter Two: Overlaps between Photo-Club Culture and Professional Photojournalism 96 Establishment of Hierarchy 97 Escape to the Photo Club 108 Elevating Photography to the Status of Art 123 Chapter Three: Hegemony of Humanist Photography . 130 The Seductive Style 132 Life Through the Lens of Life-Fotografie 141 Humanist Photography in FIAP, the UN, and The Family of Man 147 Chapter Four: Photography as “Universal Language.” The FIAP Biennial in the International Photography Trade Fair Photokina 1956 . 157 Life-Fotografie as “Universal Language” in Photokina 1956 160 FIAP Biennial in Photokina 1956 175 The Solitary Image Format 180 Antimarket Politics of FIAP 188 Chapter Five: Photography as “National Language.” The photographic Practice of Lang Jingshan in Taiwan . 195 Nationalism and Internationalism in FIAP 197 Chinese Nationalism and the National Language of Photography 204 Making and Reading “Chinese” Photography Outside China 212 Chapter Six: The Ideals of Photo-Club Culture. Foto Cine Clube Bandeirante in São Paulo . 223 Facilitating Transnational Exchange 225 Creating an Independent System of Image Circulation