Laurence Salzmann Explained

Laurence Salzmann
Birth Date:4 January 1944
Birth Place:Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US
Occupation:Photographer
filmmaker

Laurence Salzmann (born January 4, 1944) is an American photographer and filmmaker based in Philadelphia.[1] His work, mostly documentary photography, focuses primarily on the lives of little known groups in America and abroad.[2]

Early life and career

Salzmann was born January 4, 1944, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[3] He describes himself as being "of that generation which thought that photography could bring about socially beneficial change."[4] Educated in Philadelphia schools, he acquired photographic skills along the way, often from older photographers.[5] Much of his career has involved using photography to preserve the history of groups of people in danger of being ignored and forgotten and encouraging his subjects to retrieve memories and tell their stories. Edward Sozanski, the late Philadelphia Inquirer art critic, wrote of Salzmann's work, "Cross a visual anthropologist with a talented photographer and you get Laurence Salzmann" and goes on to say that Salzmann's deep immersions in local cultures are "what give his photographs exceptional resonance and poignancy."[6]

Salzmann's first documentary project, "Family of Luis" (1966-67), came out of his assignment as a Peace Corps trainee in a barrio humilde of Ciudad Juarez.[7] It attracted the notice of the Photography Curator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Kneeland McNaulty, who bought several prints for their Museum Collection. The "Family of Luis" essay led to Salzmann's being hired as a participant observer and photographer by St. Luke's Hospital Department of Community Psychiatry for a joint project with Columbia University.[8] Again, he lived among his subjects, this time in a Single Room Occupancy hotel, on New York's Upper West Side. documenting the lives of its residents. His work, Neighbors on the Block, was published by the New York State Council on the Arts. A grant from the American Film Institute for documentary film making enabled him and filmmaker Peter Barton to complete two films about residents of the hotels.[9]

Salzmann took courses in Sociology at the New School of Social Research and earned a Master of Arts in Visual Anthropology from Temple University (1971-2). [10] This training, in addition to his photographic experience, led to work with Tim Asch as editor for several of the films (Children's Magical Death, New Tribes Mission, Tug of War, Weeding the Garden) in Asch's Yamomoto film series (1971)[11] and as an editor on Alan Lomax's Choreometrics project.

Romania and Turkey

A Fulbright grant enabled Salzmann to spend 1974 – 1976 in the small Romanian town of Radauti, documenting the lives of the remaining members of its Jewish community who had survived the Holocaust.[12] Again, Salzmann learned the language of his subjects and lived among them. His pictures were published in the book: The Last Jews of Radauti with text by Ayşe Gürsan-Salzmann, (Doubleday, 1983).[13] [14] His film, Song of Radauti was broadcast nationwide by PBS. At the invitation of Cornell Capa, Director of the International Center of Photography, a large selection of the Radauti pictures was shown at the International Center of Photography.[15]

A grant from the International Research & Exchanges Board allowed Salzmann to live for a year documenting the lives of Transhumant (migratory) shepherds in the Transylvania region of Romania.[16] That work was published in book form under the title of Miortiza and shown in the Bucuresti Peasant Museum.[17] At the invitation of the 500 Years Foundation, Salzmann was invited to Turkey to produce a photographic essay on the country's jewish community. This project took 5 years to complete and culminated in an exhibit, Anyos Munchos I Buenos, that was shown in museums in Israel, the Netherlands, Germany, France, and the United States, in addition to two books, and a documentary film.[18] [19]

Latin America

More recently, Salzmann has worked in Cuba, Mexico, and Peru.[20]

From 1999 to 2004, he documented the lives and work of artists and wrestlers in Fidel Castro’s Cuba in photo series and films. His study of young wrestlers, titled La Lucha/The Struggle,[21] were accompanied by gouache paintings by Cuban artist Luis El Estudiante.[22] Writing of the work, Miles Orvell wrote, "Salzmann's photographs constitute an aesthetic and social document of great power...and are a tribute to his generous vision of cross-cultural understanding.” [23]

Salzmann also published more experimental, abstract photographs from Cuba in Imagining Cutumba, which takes as its subjects one of Cuba’s oldest dance companies, the Ballet Folklórico Cutumba. [24]

Between 2005 and 2008, Salzmann photographed the life that some Mexican immigrants in Philadelphia left behind in the Sierra Norte de Puebla, a mountainous, rural region of Mexico. He also interviewed residents about the changes that increasing emigration had brought to the region for a documentary film.[25]

The resulting project was Échele Ganas (Do Your Best), published as a book in 2012[26] and exhibited at a six-week celebration of Mexican culture in Philadelphia[27] that year.

Salzmann has also traveled extensively in Peru’s Sacred Valley.[28]

After meeting speakers of Quechuan, an indigenous language family used by the Inca Empire, he was inspired to study the language and document the ways in which pre-Hispanic culture continues on in the region. He was granted a Fulbright Fellowship for this work in 2015 and returned multiple times between 2016-2020. During this period, he produced Mish’I Kachi Runakuna/Sweet Salt People and Salt People, which shows the use of ancient salt harvesting practices by the people of Maras, Peru and neighboring communities.[29]

Legacy

In 2018, Laurence Salzmann and his wife Ayşe Gürsan-Salzmann gifted to a large collection of Salzmann’s work to the Kislak Center at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries.[30]

Summing up Salzmann's work, Jason Francisco, Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies at Emory College, has written “”The core intelligence of Salzmann's [work] is his non-didacticism, his unwillingness to forsake the suggestive for the merely explanatory ...”[31]

In 2023, the University of Pennsylvania Libraries hosted a retrospective exhibit of Salzmann’s life’s work, titled “A Life With Others.”[32]

Publications

Collections

Salzmann's work is held in the following public collections:

Films

External links

Notes and References

  1. https://collections.mocp.org/info.php?s=laurence+salzmann&t=objects&type=all "Museum of Contemporary Photography - Collection - Search"
  2. https://www.cfeva.org/laurence-salzmann "cfeva.org"
  3. Book: Francisco, Jason . Laurence Salzmann: A Life With Others . 2021 . Philadelphia . University of Pennsylvania Libraries . 9798985300543 . 372.
  4. Book: Salzmann, Han . Several Weeks of Searching for a Lost Dog in Winter . 2013 . Philadelphia . Blue Flower Press.
  5. Book: Francisco, Jason . Laurence Salzmann: A Life With Others . 2021 . Philadelphia . University of Pennsylvania Libraries . 9798985300543 . 372–3.
  6. News: Sozanski . Edward . Art: An intimate view of the Diaspora . 29 October 2023 . The Philadelphia Inquirer . 28 December 2008.
  7. Book: Francisco, Jason . Laurence Salzmann: A Life With Others . 2021 . Philadelphia . University of Pennsylvania Libraries . 9798985300543 . 49–59.
  8. Book: Francisco, Jason . Laurence Salzmann: A Life With Others . 2021 . Philadelphia . University of Pennsylvania Libraries . 9798985300543 . 375.
  9. Book: Francisco, Jason . Laurence Salzmann: A Life With Others . 2021 . Philadelphia . University of Pennsylvania Libraries . 9798985300543 . 60–73, 375.
  10. Book: Francisco, Jason . Laurence Salzmann: A Life With Others . 2021 . Philadelphia . University of Pennsylvania Libraries . 9798985300543 . 375.
  11. Web site: Archived copy . March 27, 2018 . https://web.archive.org/web/20080515091258/http://www.der.org/films/yanomamo-series.html . May 15, 2008 . dead .
  12. Book: Francisco, Jason . Laurence Salzmann: A Life With Others . 2021 . Philadelphia . University of Pennsylvania Libraries . 9798985300543 . 106–29.
  13. Book: Gursan-Salzmann, Ayse . The Last Jews of Radauti . 1983 . Dial Press . 9780385278089 .
  14. Book: Francisco, Jason . Laurence Salzmann: A Life With Others . 2021 . Philadelphia . University of Pennsylvania Libraries . 9798985300543 . 382.
  15. Book: Francisco, Jason . Laurence Salzmann: A Life With Others . 2021 . Philadelphia . University of Pennsylvania Libraries . 9798985300543 . 106.
  16. Book: Francisco, Jason . Laurence Salzmann: A Life With Others . 2021 . Philadelphia . University of Pennsylvania Libraries . 9798985300543 . 130–45, 377.
  17. https://visitbucharest.today/national-museum-of-the-romanian-peasant/ "Visit Bucharest: The National Museum of the Romanian Peasant"
  18. Web site: Photographer discusses being 'In Search of Turkey's Jews' . . 18 April 2018 . Laurence Salzmann .
  19. Book: Francisco, Jason . Laurence Salzmann: A Life With Others . 2021 . Philadelphia . University of Pennsylvania Libraries . 9798985300543 . 146-66, 382, 384.
  20. Book: Francisco, Jason . Laurence Salzmann: A Life With Others . 2021 . Philadelphia . University of Pennsylvania Libraries . 9798985300543 . x.
  21. Web site: LAURENCE SALZMANN "LA LUCHA" SANTIAGO DE CUBA . . 2011-11-09 . Robin Rice Gallery . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230920141722/https://robinricegallery.com/exhibitions/2011/11/9/laurence-salzmann-la-lucha-santiago-de-cuba . 2023-09-20.
  22. Book: Francisco, Jason . Laurence Salzmann: A Life With Others . 2021 . Philadelphia . University of Pennsylvania Libraries . 9798985300543 . 276–288.
  23. Laurence Salzmann . Orvell . Miles . The Photo Review . 2009 . 28 . 3 . 22–23.
  24. News: . 2002-09-23 . Photographer Laurence Salzmann will Discuss Williams Center Exhibit at Brown Bag . dead . Lafayette College News . https://web.archive.org/web/20190914190851/https://news.lafayette.edu/2002/09/23/photographer-laurence-salzmann-will-discuss-williams-center-exhibit-at-brown-bag/ . 2019-09-14.
  25. Book: Francisco, Jason . Laurence Salzmann: A Life With Others . 2021 . Philadelphia . University of Pennsylvania Libraries . 9798985300543 . 181–199.
  26. Web site: Echele Ganas: Do Your Best . Salzmann . Laurence . 2023-09-21 . Laurence Salzmann Archives.
  27. News: Matza . Michael . 2012-04-24 . A Lively Look at Area's Mexican Culture . live . The Philadelphia Inquirer . https://web.archive.org/web/20220702011432/https://www.inquirer.com/philly/living/20120424_SFEST24_tx_sss_xxxxxxx_xxxxx__x.html . 2022-07-02.
  28. Book: Francisco, Jason . Laurence Salzmann: A Life With Others . 2021 . Philadelphia . University of Pennsylvania Libraries . 9798985300543 . 201.
  29. Book: Francisco, Jason . Laurence Salzmann: A Life With Others . 2021 . Philadelphia . University of Pennsylvania Libraries . 9798985300543 . 201–220.
  30. Web site: Kiron . Arthur . Library Acquisition: Laurence Salzmann Photography Collection . Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Jewish Studies at the University of Pennsylvania . https://web.archive.org/web/20230329231431/https://katz.sas.upenn.edu/resources/blog/library-acquisition-laurence-salzmann-photography-collection . 2023-03-29 . 2018-12-03 . live.
  31. Book: Francisco, Jason . Laurence Salzmann: A Life With Others . 2021 . Philadelphia . University of Pennsylvania Libraries . 9798985300543 . 187.
  32. Web site: Laurence Salzmann: A Life with Others . Penn Libraries . University of Pennsylvania . 2023-09-20 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230920153050/https://www.library.upenn.edu/events/laurence-salzmann-life-others . 2023-09-20 . live.
  33. Web site: Past Exhibitions . . 26 January 2024 . ANU Museum of the Jewish People .
  34. https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/artists/6542/objects "brooklynmuseum.org"
  35. Web site: Collections . Laurence Salzmann . 26 January 2024 . Laurence Salzmann .
  36. Web site: Collections . Laurence Salzmann . 26 January 2024 . Laurence Salzmann .
  37. Web site: Photographs from La Baie/bath and Vent series / Laurence Salzmann . . 26 January 2024 . ARCHIVE GRID .
  38. https://www.high.org/collections/mr-thaus-funeral/ "High Museum of Art"
  39. Web site: Collections . Laurence Salzmann . 26 January 2024 . Laurence Salzmann .
  40. https://thejewishmuseum.org/collection/artist/laurence-salzmann-american-b-1944 "The Jewish Museum"
  41. https://www.jstor.org/action/doBasicSearch?Query=creator%3A%22Laurence++Salzmann%22&efqs=eyJjdHkiOlsiWTI5dWRISnBZblYwWldSZmFXMWhaMlZ6Il19&groupefq=WyJjb250cmlidXRlZF9pbWFnZXMiXQ%3D%3D&searchkey=1689783346068 "JSTOR"
  42. https://www.mahj.org/fr/collections/recherche?collection_fulltext=&f%5B0%5D=field_obj_personnes%3A10367 "Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme: Collections"
  43. https://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/188014.html?mulR=981072900 "Philadelphia Museum of Art"
  44. https://know.freelibrary.org/Record/184450 "La Baie, Bath Scenes"
  45. https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/12/resources/3642/collection_organization "Laurence Salzmann Photograph Collection"
  46. http://id.lib.harvard.edu/aleph/003808717/catalog "Harvard Library"
  47. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rf1nAJLxHjM "Tales of the Inca"
  48. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whWHY4GyM8Y "Revisiting Turkey's Jews, Vol. 1, 2011: Habib"
  49. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2nW_c84ZRc "El Rayo"
  50. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGQ1EuxC88E "Imagining Cutumba - 2001 - Photographs by Laurence Salzmann"
  51. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKQgejn8qhI "Willy's Blessing (Excerpt)"
  52. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2Z41fxdha0 "Turkey's Sephardim: Chapter 3"
  53. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX6aKjpNlIE "Who's Havin' Fun? (1980 Philadelphia Mummers Documentary)"
  54. Web site: Song of Radauti. www.youtube.com.
  55. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FCz22rotpU "Alfred (from S.R.O.)"
  56. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtQwqUSZwwY "Eddie (from S.R.O.)"
  57. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJVkS6yNvKY "Ragman"

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