The Perfect Medium
WARNING
You are viewing an older version of the Yalebooks website. Please visit out new website with more updated information and a better user experience: https://www.yalebooks.com
Photography and the Occult
Clément Chéroux, Andreas Fischer, Pierre Apraxine, Denis Canguilhem, and Sophie Schmit; With contributions by Crista Cloutier and Stephen E. Braude
View Inside
Format: ClothPrice: $75.00
The mesmerizing photographic history of occult phenomena, from levitations and apparitions to spectres, ghosts, and auras.
In the early days of photography, many believed and hoped that the camera would prove more efficient than the human eye in capturing the unseen. Spiritualists and animists of the nineteenth century seized on the new technology as a method of substantiating the existence of supernatural beings and happenings. This fascinating book assembles more than 250 photographic images from the Victorian era to the 1960s, each purporting to document an occult phenomenon: levitations, apparitions, transfigurations, ectoplasms, spectres, ghosts, and auras. Drawn from the archives of European and American occult societies and private and public collections, the photographs in many cases have never before been published.
The Perfect Medium studies these rare and remarkable photographs through cultural, historical, and artistic lenses. More than mere curiosities, the images on film are important records of the cultural forces and technical methods that brought about their production. They document in unexpected ways a period when developing photographic technology merged with a popular obsession with the occult to create a new genre of haunting experimental photographs.
Exhibition Schedule:
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (September 26 – December 31, 2005)
CLÉMENT CHÉROUX is a historian of photography and assistant editor-in-chief of the review Études photographiques. ANDREAS FISCHER is the Curator of Photographs at the Institut für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene in Freiburg, Germany. PIERRE APRAXINE is director of the Howard Gilman Foundation in New York. DENIS CANGUILHEM is an art dealer living in Paris. SOPHIE SCHMIT is a film editor and screenwriter.
EXHIBITION SCHEDULE
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (September 26 – December 31, 2005)
"Many rare and seldom seen photographs from both private and public collections make this an important contribution to the history of photography."—Art Times
"A spectacular compendium. . . . These experimental, documentary and promotional pictures of supernatural practices . . . are accompanied by informative essays . . . providing essential context, yet even the most colorful history is but a footnote to this arresting imagery. . . . No matter how cleverly they’re explained, or how thoroughly their occult origins are discredited, the pictures are no less beguiling to see. At once perfectly specific and perfectly vague, they are in fact some of the first experiments in photographic abstraction, and remain some of the most compelling to this day."—Jonathon Keats, Artweek
'The absolute runaway triumphs of the year were the levitations, apparitions, ectoplasms, spectres and mediums featured in The Perfect Medium. Utterly unputdownable, and guaranteed to haunt you for weeks.'---Lucy Davies, Daily Telegraph
"An intriguing new book. . . . Besides photographs, the Yale book contains fascinating stories."—David Bowman, Free New Mexican
"Thorough and fascinating. . . . Generously illustrated. . . . This book is as entertaining as it is enlightening."—Library Journal
"Here's a tome no cloak-wearing rogue taxidermy enthusiast should be without. . . . A spooky yet hilarious record of the Victorian era's obsession with auras, spirits, mediums, and those hard-to-get-out "ectoplasmic residue emissions." All, of course, the result of some unintentionally funny but oddly cool-looking double-exposure work."—Tim Gideon, Men.style.com (Online Home of Details & GQ)
"An amazing compendium of historical photos. . . . The scholarly text puts it all into fascinating perspective."—People
"[This volume is] substantial—as opposed to sensational. . . . Thankfully, it is nevertheless full of freaky stuff. . . . One can also delight in the sheer beauty and incomparably spooky clarity of faces rendered on glass-plate negatives. . . . This body of work becomes more poignant, though, when we consider the human hopes invested in these endeavors."—Joanna Lehan, Photo District News
"The Perfect Medium is an excellent work about a slice of photographic history that is alternately intriguing, ridiculous, disgusting, astonishing and touching. The essays get to the point; the reproductions are the 'must-see' variety. If you ask the magic 8-Ball whether you should check out this volume, it would say, 'Signs point to yes.'"—James Kaufmann, Photographer's Forum
"This massive volume is more than a little spooky. . . . Focusing primarily on images from the late Victorian era through the 1930s [to] . . . explor[e] the long relationship between the photograph and occult phenomena. . . . A fascinating perspective on the photographic medium’s early formal and technological development. . . . The final section . . . provides genuine visceral impact and aesthetic depth."—Publishers Weekly
"...beautifully printed... The articles accompanying the photographs are detailed and well researched... This is what makes this book more a reference work than a mere catalogue... [A] valuable volume to possess." - Maurice Gross, Journal of the Society for Psychical Research
Publication Date: October 1, 2005
Publishing Partner: Gallimard
280 color illus.
