Page 6-Sunday, October 9, 1977-The Michigan Daily
ART/karen boi'n stein
The Michigan Daily-Sunday,
Imogen Cunningham: 75 Years
as a Photographer.
Sponsored by the University's
Institute of Gerontology and
supported by the
Michigan Councilfor the Arts.
Union Gallery, Oct. 10-15.
I N 1910, WHEN THE woman's place
was in the home, Imogen Cunning-
ham's place was in heroWn commer-
cial portrait studio. In 1915, when a
woman would turn crimson at the
thought of exposing the human body,
Imogen Cunningham's husband was
poising nude in full view of her camera
lens. And in 1976, when many senior
citizens were passively, quietly with-
drawing from society according to the
script, Imogen Cunningham wus
energetically, pursuing her life's
-career, creating images with all of ther
characteristic ingenuity and precision.
Seventy-five years of this remarkable
woman's work decorates the walls of
the University's Union Gallery and not
a photograph should be missed.
The collection of 40 Cunningham
prints on display comprises a neat
retrospective of the major movements
in photography during this century,
from soft focus, romantic pictorialism
to a progressive photo essay depicting
the elderly as active participants in
society.
Before her death last year, the 93-
year-old master was working on a book
she would call After Ninety in which she
would capture her contemporaries in
their roles as doctors, farmers and
"hausfraus." "And also, I will have a
few Communists," she once announced
in an interview.
The exhibit is arranged
chronologically beginning with some
rather primitive photographs done in
the early 1900s when the art form was a
mere 62 years old. The earliest works
have a hazy, ethereal quality, having
been shot in soft focus, a fitting effect
for a series of nudes against enchanting
pastoral settings.
By the 1920s, Cunningham was
-producing ,clear, clean-cut, highly
Klan j am:
Burning
the cross
angular and- realistically detailed
images of plants. And still, her acute
sensitivity to curve and contour is ap-
parent.
Even Cunningham's still life plants
take on human qualities. Two Callas, a
portrait of two flowers, is engineered
with such attention to the detail in the
petals that every meandering vein
suggests the vesselwork of the human
body.
HE MASTER'S EYE for line and
oblique angles in the plant world
carried over to a later study in the nude
human form. Cunningham manipulates
light and shadow to effectively
illustrate the geometric quality of body
segments Juxtaposing one body against
another, arms and legs are inter-
twined creating abstract designs as in
Triangles.
In Triangles Plus One, appendages
appear to creep out of the darkness,
each limb illuminated in a way that sets
it off as an organism all its own. This
isolation of forms is enhanced by Cun-
ningham's liberal cropping.
Spencer Tracy, Cary Grant and Mar-
tha Graham are displayed in all their
youthfulness of the 30's, their faces
marked with dramatic expressions true
to their art.
"In Hollywood I told them I only wan-
ted to photogr~aph ugly men," Cun-
ningham once said, "because first of
all, they would look better in a picture
than they really are. Theyaren't as
vain, they don't complain . . . Well,
Cary Grant wasn't exactly ugly..."
The collection of Cunningham por-
traits also includes those taken of her
colleagues in the F-64 group-a society
of photograohers who advocated pure,
straightforward and finely detailed
photography.' It is in her portraits of
Minor White, Judy Dater, Ansel
Adams, Edward Weston and Alfred
Stieglitz that Cunningham best imprints
the soul on film.
And most important, Cunningham's
magical way with her subjects works to
draw the viewer into her photographs,
which emanate warmth, command
respect and leave one in awe.
Irish brew and howling, "0, won't we
have a merry time, drinking whisky,
beer and wine?"
Finally, in the kitchen, tripping over
his cat-, Bloom w9uld be preparing our
meal: the inner organs of beasts and
fowls, thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards,
a stuffed roast heart, liver slices fried
with -crusterumbs, fried hencod's roes
and grilled mutton kidneys.
And the entire restaurant would
smell like burnt kidneys and I would
love it.
The restaurant failed me.
"How come the name Leopold
Bloom's?" I asked the hostess, won-
dering how this place of prim, pretty
order could possibly represent Bloom.
"Are you familiar with James
Joyce's Ulysses?" she sniffed.
The question landed like a dagger in
my heart. Didn't I look like someone
who knew of Ulysses, like someone who
sang the Sirens section of the novel as if
it were a sonata, someone who ...
"Yes,' I said, "Yes I have, yes,"
came my answer.
. .s.°: See FOOD,Page8'
in
Tarna
This was a gathering
-symbol of the Old
city characteristic
South's vitality:
of the KKK
South-in a
of the New
By David Goodman
J
FOOD/ann marie lipinski
T WAS ALMOST 8 p.m. and the rain had been fall-
ing' since mid-afternoon. Amid the blur of head-
lights, it was easy to miss the small red-painted sign
along the highway which said "UKA Rally" and had
an arrow pointing to the left.
Down the weaving two-lane, blacktop road, another
sign-even larger-came into view. It bore the same
message and pointed to the left again. This time the
path followed a narrow gravel road.
Floodlights from the East Bay Raceway stood out
ahead. A grassy field was visible. Lines of cars were
parked on the grass.
Outside the drizzle had failed to check the Florida
summer heat, and the humidity made it feel even
warmer.
At the raceway gate stood two uniformed guards.
Their pants, shirts and broad-brimmed hats were
Confederate grey. They carried whistles, walkie-
talkies and oversized flashlights which double as
billy-clubs.
Each had a Confederate flag patch on one sleeve
and on the front of his shirt the white cross of the Ku
Klux Klan.
This was a gathering of the KKK-symbol of the Old
South, along with the cotton bole, the plantation and
the "whites only" sign on the drinking fountain. But
this was July, 1977, in a suburb of booming Tam-
pa--an industrial center which epitomizes the
sweeping progress and dramatic change taking place
in the New South.
Inside, a small crowd stood under the shelter of a
concession stand, which was doing a healthy business
peddling soft drinks and snacks.
Some 200 people had turned out for the rally and
ceremonial cross-burning, despite the rain and
threats of disruption from the University of South
Florida-based Revolutionary Student Brigade.
John Paul Rogers, the 36-year-old Florida grand
dragon of the Klan, stood in front of the wooden
bleachers, fielding questions from a small group of,
reporters.
"I don't guess it's- too bad, considering the
weather," Rogers responded, when asked about the
turnout. Dressed in blue pin-stripe suit, pants and
vest, Rogers answered all queries in a friendly, in-
formal manner. He presented a new PR-conscious
image for the Klan-a sharp contrast to the media-
hostile attitude of an earlier day.
The rain finally let up and the crowd began to drift
out from under the shelter and onto the bleachers.
Their feet turned the wet clay paths into a mucky ob-
stacle course.
A truck pulled a 30-foot wooden cross into the cen-
ter of the track. The audience applauded as the cross
was pulled upright.
Daily staff writer David Goodman attended
this Klan rally last summer ps .qreporter for the
Tampa A /'4.a1:, w m ,a
'Some
Jesus
T HE BOOK IS BETTER than the
T restaurant.
It's not that the eatery is without the
immortality of James Joyce's
Ulysses-we waited one hour and 15
minutes to get a table, and 45 minutes to
eat once we had ordered. Nor did the
chef display any more expertise than
Ulysses' Leopold Bloom, who practiced
his culinary arts on, and burned, a pot
of kidneys. One of our party ordered
chicken cordon bleu that arrived close
to raw. And as a student of English 433,
leaping to Bloom's in search of the
spiritual treat provided by the original
Bloom, I was miserably disappointed.
Surely, had Joyce known that a
restaurant such as the gne in Ann Arbor
would someday parade under the name
of his grandest protagonist, lie would
have loudly endorsed this country's
original ban on the book.
For weeks I waited in wild an-
ticipation for the opening of the Liberty
Street restaurant. Tables perfectly set,
their crystal glistening in the windows
of the storeront, and discree' ads
saying simply "leopold bloom's is
Above: Two guards stai
rally near Tampa. Left
circles a burning cross
Photos courte
The speaker platfor
trailer, sat on the track
was decorated with red,
flanked with U.S. and Con
"I think it's great wh
teenage boy who was ch
ters and Klan members
track.
"I think it's about tin
white people's rights. If s
wca
" f .f.- .. ...'.'. "'.4"," c.-.. ... ps,~_° ",t . . . .. r. . " r~. r..r._ "" :" *. ....l.
Leopold Bloom'
S
t ain'tlike the book
: Y...4:::"..". *4:::....:.*.*4S ..:".l..*t** .fl*s, .."..!.. . ff...."s. "".. fv... " . ". ... .
..... .. ......... ~4....... . b******. O.**,** *~ .
There 'sr
the Bible s
a jew. MY
he was t
God, born
the white people, the blac
in the schools," he added.
T HE YOUTH SAID h
but hoped to be son
it's hard to get in," he said
His mother walked ov
was talking to a reporter,
in print. She said she als
but supported its ideas."
home and take care of my
Almost an hour after it
got underway. The audie
"The Star Spangled Banr
public address'system. A
an elderly man identified
"Lord, if anyone in this
may they come to kno
savior," he intoned to the
Rogers was the first s
one most in tune with t
smooth speaking style k
He peppered his talk with
the stands echoing with Ia
"They say 'black is bey
but white is still the color
4'fm. ,* 44i & m AeeLA
coming" taunted me for days. I
imagined a dinner there to be as adven-
turesome (only shorter) as lappifig up
'the 800 page novel. One, lunch at
Leopold Bloom's, I was sure, would
save the delinquent student from a
feverish memorization of the Cliff
Notes the day before a Ulysses
exam-one bite of a Bloom burger
would inoculate you th all the wonder
of the novel. y r
I wanted Molly, dark and seductive,
her hair long and wild, to greet us at the
door, our hostess, passing out porn
along with the menus. She would be
singing "La ci darem" and her garter
would show above her knee. Boylan
would stand behind her, our maitre de,
with one hand on the reservation. list
and the other on Molly's behind.
STEP HEN' DEDAUS, young and'
troubled, would be our waiter, and
at a nearby table, stately, plump'Buck
Mulligan would be drinking too much