Karsh 100: A Biography in Images.

Anne Havinga, senior curator for the MFA has put together a show attempting to “reveal the humanity with which [Karsh] approached all people”. She is trying, by showing some of his travel photography and private works of family etc… to show the non-iconifying Karsh. Her thesis, unfortunately, was either not adequately proved or is not true. Even Karsh’s pieces of his first wife become ideas of idealized femininity. His lens converts humanity into icons. His travel photography – everywhere from African tribes to a Bishop and his nephew lose their humanity entirely and become timeless symbols. These photos are iconic legacies. The combination of dramatic lighting – which removes the subject from linear time, and the surreal medium of photography makes them far larger than life – life being human.

Yousuf Karsh was a legendary photographer who photographed personalities from different sections of American celebrity society. The exhibit is a fleshed out construction of American cultural identity. Everyone stares out of the photos –Hepburn, Einstein, Eisenhower, JFK and most striking of all – Hemingway. Notice no mention of first names was necessary in this cast list. It was a startling experience. The audience became a part of an impressive tragic legacy – all constructed by Karsh.

The reason this experience was so intense was because Karsh created an American iconography out of ordinary people. He did the Tennessee Williams - you know the one – typewriter, cigarette (in glamorous holder, of course) and an “ever present glass of scotch”, in Karsh’s words. The quintessential play write, mustache and all. But there is no visual definition of a playwright. Karsh made it. He created what we think a playwright is. The power of that is immense. It’s every contemporary (by contemporary, unfortunately for the present theoretical institution, I mean 1970’s) theorist’s wet dream. Not just the chauvinist playwright either. JFK, during his campaign – hands clutched the same way Jesus is often depicted in prayer (fingers interlaced), light shining directly on the his third eye – an identical Christ reference. He’s going to save us – Karsh whispers with this image. Actually, it is not a whisper. It is a direct announcement, and a ballsy one at that. In that photo, he solidified the hope that new presidents hold to our country. The image is not JFK. It is potential president as savior. And even today, given the key words Obama favors, there aren’t many things that get Americans more excited.

Hemingway – the quintessential tortured artist. He stares terrified into the abyss, his eyes black, looking cold and worn by his perpetual pondering. A giant effeminate sweater swells around his throat, making him look all the more pathetic and ruffled. It is disturbing – dejected and too idealistic for reality as his mind was. This photo (as my observations of it are a good illustration) invites projection and application of ideas/emotions. This is because Hemingway has become everything we associate with this stereotype – when Hemingway himself was just a man.

The remarkable thing about Karsh was his ability to not only encompass simple emotions but to define complex separate roles within society visually. The work is stunning.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA. Rabb Gallery 9.23.2008 – 1.19.09