I wouldn't call it a hoax, but rather a well crafted satire. As for elves, 90% of Icelanders believe in gnomes.
Kent in SD
I wouldn't call it a hoax, but rather a well crafted satire. As for elves, 90% of Icelanders believe in gnomes.
Kent in SD
In contento ed allegria
Notte e di vogliam passar!
Mr. Berkman isn't a hoaxer. This is a consummate combination between conceptual art, photography, and literature, all mysteriously and flawlessly crafted to create a surreal and whimsical whole that pulls me out of my sense of reality into a make-believe world where the 19th century ethos and photographic techniques, Jewish mysticism and a Freudian dream world all meet in Alice's Wonderland. I'm in awe.
Best,
Doremus
Ari, Doremus, the man presented the work as not his. Hoax.
How strange it is ... I find it contrived and overdone. The photographs are sort of nice in themselves, but the story ... it lessens the possible impact of the photographs.
Maybe it is because I enjoy the possibility of discovering for myself what the photograph in front of me means to me. Words and photographs together is a tricky business to keep in balance.
"Be still and allow the mud to settle."
OK Dan, you win
I am second gen Norsk
The Mythology of Norwegian Trolls
Tin Can
My reading was he didn't present the work as anything, except as based on the spotty, incomplete translation of Mr Zohar's journals.
I'll re-read the story, but I don't remember a con being part of it.
If anything, it was a very difficult, roundabout way for him to pay tribute to an unknown photographer's work. Yes, there are embellishments and flights of fancy, but these make for a good story.
There was the person of Shimmel Zohar, and the persona as well, the latter being a creation of Berkman's, which was entirely respectful, if not entirely accurate.
I miss Dagor 77 aka Sir Andrew of Glover
as he told greaat stories
Tin Can
The whole thing is a fantasy invention. Zohar exists only as a fictional character. His quirky biography, photography, studio and subjects are all part of the fantasy-novel-in-reality invented by Berkman. I find the combination of media he uses to bring his character and ideas to life a highly-personal invention, which combines stagecraft with visual arts, literature and, yes, a well-executed con job; all part of the Gesamtkunstwerk.
Or, I could be wrong, and Shimmel Zohar was in reality an eccentric 19th-century Jewish photographer...
Zohar Lives!
Doremus
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