The Uncanny Tale of Shimmel Zohar

[Scott Davis]

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.

Given the depths of invention exhibited by Berkman, the journals may well (probably? are) be as fake as the rest of the story, and aside from the name on the trunk and on the sign in the photograph of the 19th century New York streetscape, have no more bearing on reality than a fish on a bicycle.

I could tell by looking at the plates being shown in the article that they were modern images - the clean ones were TOO clean, and the rough ones were too rough for the 19th century. No self-respecting 19th century photographer would have allowed a plate to be printed or shown that had corduroy or oysters. The clean plates had a 21st century sense of contrast to them - there was something TOO sharp, with too much tonal range.

[Vaughn]

Thank you!

[alan_b]

Love it - thanks for sharing!

[hsandler]

Fascinating read and good photos, thanks Ari.

[Jody_S]

Amusing story and photographs. Makes one think about historical re-enactment, what we're all basically doing shooting LF and those who do wet plate in particular. How far are we willing to take things? How much is performance and how much is 'art' or is there any distinction between the two?

[paulbarden]

I fail to understand why someone's photographic FICTION (its obviously storytelling) should have to suffer the indignity of being labeled FAKE.

[Dan Fromm]

I fail to understand why someone's photographic FICTION (its obviously storytelling) should have to suffer the indignity of being labeled FAKE.

Paul, the perpetrator presented the work as that of an historical figure, not as his own.

[sanking]

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.

Hi Ari,

Thanks for sharing the link. I thought the work of Berkman was fabulous, as was the writing of Weschler. As you say, it seems not hoax or fake but more a tribute to an unknown photographer, Zohar (or was it a tribute to early Jewish philosophy, The Zohar, and its possible author, Moses de Leon.

Such an intriguing account with many just on time deaths, and so much left unsaid. As Wescher writes at the end.

So that’s all I’ve got—and yes, I realize that it doesn’t entirely hang together. Sometimes things are like that, and what are you going to do?


Sandy

[paulbarden]

Paul, the perpetrator presented the work as that of an historical figure, not as his own.

That is not at all how I interpreted it. It seemed obvious to me what was going on there.

[Dan Fromm]

That is not at all how I interpreted it. It seemed obvious to me what was going on there.

You read selectively. From the first paragraph of the story:

the inaugural exhibition of a recently discovered trove of work by Shimmel Zohar, a Lithuanian immigrant photographer (and contemporary of Mathew Brady), who had done for the Jewish community of Manhattan’s Lower East Side what, generations later, August Sander would do for Weimar-era Berlin: create a complete photographic inventory of professions and types.