Blackout Leica Museum 1913–1973. Sarkis

1913. Ur-Leica

1914. Leica

1923. “0” Serie Type 1

1923. “0” Serie Type 2

1925. Leica I

1925. Leica I

1925. Leica I

1925. Leica Compur

1927. Leica I

1929. Leica Compur

1930. Leica I Luxus

1930. Leica I

1931. Leica I “0”

1932. Leica Standard

1932. Leica II

1932. Leica Standard

1933. Leica Standard II

1933. Leica III

1933. Leica III

1934. Leica II

1934. Leica 75

1934. Leica 250

1935. Leica 250

1935. Leica Doppel

1935. Leica IV

1935. Leica IIIa

1938. Leica IIIb

1939. Leica X Ray

1940. Leica IIIc

1940. Leica IIId

1942. Leica IIIc “K”

1948. Leica IIc

1949. Leica Ic

1950. Leica IIIf

1951. Leica IIf

1952. Leica IIf

1952. Leica If

1952. Leica If

1952. Leica IIIf

1954. Leica IIIf

1954. Leica 72

1954. Leica 72

1954. Leica M3

1956. Leica M3

1956. Leica MP

1957. Leica IIIg

1957. Leica Ig

1958. Leica M2

1958. Leica M2

1959. Leica M1

1959. Leica M1 Post

1965. Leica MD

1967. Leica M4

1967. Leica M4

1967. Leica M4 MOT

1967. Leica MDa

1971. Leica M5

1971. Leica M5

1973. Leica CL

Courtesy Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris

Many thanks to Melanie Pocock for the translation of the text

Image on front cover is available under a Creative Commons

License (CC-BY SA 2.0), courtesy of pumpkin pie and Flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/silhouettepies

Image on page 3 under a CC License (CC BY SA 2.0), courtesy of

Dr Froehlich and Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/happyhgw

CONTENT

60

Grunewald, 2011

On Blackout Leica Museum

My Blackout Leica Museum is a response to the collection of the Leitz Wetzlar Factory Museum that created and produced Leica cameras from 1913. The 59 models found in the Wetzlar Museum’s cabinet are fixed like images. Their collection only retraces the technical evolution of Leica models and not the life lived by this camera throughout the 20th century; neither its silent testimony of the Great War (1914–1918), neither its use by the German army between 1938–1945, neither the help given by the Leitz family to the Jews by giving them Leicas as war treasures (kriegsschatz) that they would sell in order to survive, neither its use by the American army and other armies...

In summary, this camera, invented in 1913 by Oscar Barnack, a former engineer at the Leitz Factory, retraces, accompanies and captures a military history of the 20th century (similar to how the Winchester 73 shotgun retraces American history, seen in Anthony Mann’s Western film of the same name).

In 1975, I went to the Leitz Factory to ask their permission to photograph all the models in their collection using the light of their factory. I came equipped with a Leica M4 fitted with a visoflex and 65mm lens. To show that I was a real connoisseur of the camera as well as its history, I had trained myself to recognise 30 or so models with my eyes closed and I succeeded in recognising certain models by listening to the noise of their release, still of course with my eyes closed!

After passing my exam(!), they left me to photograph their 59 models in a setup that I had prepared. I placed one Leica model on a piece of fabric of military camouflage; I placed a mirror opposite it; I photographed the camera from the back and its reflection in the mirror. The Leica looked at its reflection as if it were looking at its own history.

Each wall panel of the work consisted of 59 panels, showing two colour photographs. The photograph on the left showed the photo of the Leica looking at itself in the mirror. On the right was a photograph of a landscape (with an aesthetic similar to post-romantic painting). The photograph of the landscape was taken at the edge of the Grunewald lake in Berlin with a 200mm lens. It’s as if the light washes and clouds the landscape; one doesn’t quite know if the photograph was taken in 1913 or 1972. The treatment of the two photographs is different; the one on the left is very fixed, whereas the other one of the landscape is deliberately unfixed, in other words, with time, its image will slowly disappear.

As you probably (maybe) well know, the word ‘blackout’ has several meanings:

– Blackout is a military term synonymous with ‘curfew’.

– Blackout also means: the momentary absence of thought.

– Blackout also means: when the diaphragm of a photographic lens is completely closed like a ‘blind camera obscura’.

– Blackout also means the black that is released from a sort of matter, such as a body.

My Blackout Leica Museum takes into account all of that, accelerates and analyses memory, history.

Notes – Two copies of the Blackout Leica Museum

were sent in 1976 to the library of the Leitz Wetzlar Factory. Both copies were returned to the sender with a note marked ‘error’. This incident shows that the Leitz Factory preferred to remain in a Blackout.

– The work Blackout Leica Museum is still accompanied by the book Blackout Leica Museum.