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Cairo: Second Glances

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  • Cairo: Second Glances

    SECOND GLANCES

    Al-Ahram Weekly, Egypt
    Sept 29 - Oct 5, 2005

    An American University in Cairo exhibition presents rare photographs
    from the collections of KAC Creswell and Van Leo. Amina Elbendary
    reports

    For AUCians, Creswell is a special collection of books, or a library.

    For historians and specialists in Islamic architecture worldwide,
    Creswell is a main reference. To check Creswell is to look up what KAC
    Creswell had to say about a particular monument in one of his published
    works: Early Muslim Architecture (1931) or Muslim Architecture of Egypt
    (1951). For artsy Cairenes, Van Leo is a late, eccentric photographer
    of glamour shots. You say Van Leo and people in the know immediately
    think of the photo of the famous belly-dancer Samia Gamal in action
    and under spotlight. The exhibition currently on show at the American
    University in Cairo's Rare Books and Special Collections Library
    (RBSCL) offers a tantalisingly-limited selection of photographs by
    both Creswell and Van Leo.

    The idea might seem strange at first glance. What on earth did
    these two men have in common? Born in 1874, Sir Keppel Archibald
    Cameron Creswell is one of the generation of traditional, British
    Orientalists, a scholar of Islamic architecture, who lived in Cairo
    for most of his adult life until 1974, shortly before his death. He
    was professor of Islamic Art and Architecture at Fuad I University
    (later Cairo University) until 1951 and at AUC from 1956 onwards,
    and was active in the Comite de Conservation des Monuments de l'Art
    Arabe. The photographs he took were part of his work documenting and
    studying Islamic architecture.

    Leon Boyadijan (Van Leo), on the other hand, is of a later
    generation. Born in 1921, he was a Cairene Armenian who photographed
    people -- including celebrities -- for a living. His photo collection
    dates back to the 1940s; he shared a studio with his brother Angelo
    until 1974 when he established his own studio where he continued to
    work until his death in 2002. As Steven Urgola, AUC's university
    archivist, explained, Van Leo bequeathed a legacy of some 13,000
    photographic negatives and 12,000 prints to AUC.

    The current exhibition doesn't delve much into the backgrounds of the
    men, but as the archivist of the Creswell photographic collection and
    the curator of the Creswell section of the exhibition, Simone Bass,
    explains, "the idea was to show so far unseen images of the Van Leo
    and Creswell collections and also to show the Creswell collection
    in a new light not only as a document for the architectural history
    of Cairo but also to show vignettes of social life in Islamic Cairo
    from the 1920s to the 1940s." Creswell documented the state of the
    city walls before the clearance work undertaken by the Comite and in
    these photos one often sees scenes of everyday life literally at the
    margins; they are natural shots of unobserved Egyptians. One example
    is of a group of pedestrians standing on the side of Bab al-Futuh,
    obviously waiting for Creswell to finish his work before crossing
    through the gateway; a little boy with them can't stand still for
    that long: he moves resulting in a double face. On the wall behind
    the group is clearly legible graffiti reading: al-ikhwan al-muslimun :
    du'at al-qur'an (The Muslim Brothers: Preachers of the Qur'an).

    Out of some 10,000 photographs that the Creswell collection comprises,
    at least about 400 show some aspect of city life -- against their
    taker's wishes. Indeed in some photographs one finds signs of the
    lengths to which Creswell went to remove the people from his shots
    to get the best possible unobstructed view of a monument.

    Sometimes people left traces in spite of Creswell's best efforts. A
    series of photographs of the interior of the mausoleum of Sultan Pasha
    also suggest that the keeper had made his lodging in the mihrab :
    one image shows a bed and personal belongings while the second shows
    a perfectly orderly interior; brushstrokes are even visible on the
    floor suggesting a recent sweep. "Creswell was not really interested
    in people," Bass muses, "for him people were only interesting as
    patrons of monuments or as builders, but after this people should
    stay away from a monument because anything else they could do would
    only cause damage. He liked to see his buildings without people."

    A pioneer in photographing Islamic monuments in Cairo in the early
    20th century, Creswell was particularly interested in early Muslim
    and mediaeval architecture but his collection also includes Ottoman
    buildings -- contemporary urban architecture did not interest him
    -- and he often returned to the same monument after restoration to
    document its altered state. Creswell's photos "are a very important
    source [for the history of art and architecture], and they become
    more important as time passes", explains George Scanlon, professor of
    Islamic Art and Architecture at AUC, "because many of the monuments
    have themselves disappeared and the ambiance around the monuments
    has certainly been eclipsed." Creswell also travelled widely in the
    Arab and Muslim world and took his camera along: "His photographs
    of cities like Samarra are of great importance today because these
    centres are in the eye of the storm. There are even some from Iran
    that are of interest because the monuments have changed so much today,"
    adds Scanlon.

    This is where the interest of the Creswell photographic collection
    primarily lies. However, at the risk of sounding glib, the photos
    can only be of use to scholars if they have access to them. AUC has
    had the collection at least since 1956, when, on the eve of the
    tripartite aggression, Creswell donated his collection of books,
    notes and photographs to the university to ensure their safety. With
    time the books have found a home in the RBSCL; little has been done --
    yet -- with the photographs, papers and notes.

    More importantly, the photographs need first to be catalogued and
    made accessible to scholars. "Getting all of this catalogued would
    be more like a national endeavour," says Scanlon, "now we are trying
    desperately to raise money so that we can have all the photographs
    properly catalogued and made more quickly available to the professional
    public." Indeed, as Bass explains, an 18-month project funded by
    the Getty Foundation to catalogue and conserve the photographs alone
    will come to an end in October 2005, at which point the catalogue --
    though not the images themselves -- will be available online. While
    AUC Press, we are told, indicated an interest in publishing some of
    the unpublished photographs, more work is needed to make full use
    of them. In this age of digital technology, a digital archive should
    seem the best possible option.

    Van Leo, on the other hand, is known for his "artistic" photographs and
    his glamour photographs of the rich and famous. The exhibition here
    juxtaposes some of his recognisable glamour shots with other unknown
    images of the same celebrities. It thus offers a curious insight into
    the making of an image, and the manipulative role that the photographer
    played in the process. Like many professional photographers, Van Leo
    would usually take a series of photos in a particular session yet only
    one would leave the studio. And it is rather jerking to see some of
    the photos of celebrities that have become almost iconic placed in this
    pluralistic context. Doria Shafik's famous portrait has her all serious
    and intellectual. To see another image of her as playful and smiling,
    on display here, offers a more human idea of her character. Van Leo's
    prints also show how he artistically manipulated images to produce
    the perfect photograph: cropping repeatedly, playing with light and
    shadow, and sometimes hand-colouring the photo.

    The exhibition, curated by Kristen Gresh, who also headed a cataloguing
    project of the collection over the past year, also displays photos of
    non-celebrities -- the everyday kind of work at Van Leo's studio. Since
    many Cairenes and even foreign visitors went to his studio to get their
    portraits or wedding photographs taken, Van Leo's collection offers an
    interesting insight into Cairo's social history. The photos are mainly
    of upper middle-class Cairenes who were not famous in their day, but
    other less privileged faces were also snapped by him. On display is a
    photograph of Van Leo's own bawwab (doorman) which was part of a series
    on Cairene bawwabs. Once can't help wondering what conversation --
    if any -- the two men exchanged as the pose was taken. An endearing
    series shows children posing in costumes, professional or national,
    in a tradition that has all but disappeared from Cairo today. After
    the revolution, for example, many children had their photos taken in
    miniature army uniforms.

    Although primarily a studio photographer, Van Leo's collection does
    include street scenes, among which is a series from the neighbourhood
    of Muski. In contrast to Creswell's focus on one particular monument
    per photograph, Van Leo's offer overviews of streets including the
    tradesmen, buyers and sellers and children, yielding a rare insight
    into "unposed" Cairene life.

    Van Leo has so often been reduced -- or elevated -- to the status of
    glamour photographer that it is refreshing to look at his photographs
    from the point of view of social history. Yet it is an endeavour that
    hasn't quite borne fruit here; this sample only suggests possible
    uses for the collection. But it might soon be easier to do things
    with the Van Leo collection; a cataloguing project is well underway.

    Over the past year the collection has been organised according to over
    15 series or categories, and the photographic prints and negatives
    have been rehoused in archival-quality polyester sleeves, albums,
    and boxes. "In addition, detailed narrative descriptions and a list
    of album and box contents have been prepared and are currently being
    edited. Van-Leo's personal papers (correspondence, business records,
    magazine collections, etc.) have also been organised and are being
    described," explained Urgola. The catalogue will be available through
    AUC's library catalogue online later this year thus opening up numerous
    possibilities to researchers.

    This rather small exhibition is refreshing in that it tries to place
    the photos of Creswell and Van Leo in a different light from the one
    they are usually seen in. Creswell is often consigned to history of
    architecture buffs that the uniqueness of his photographs of Cairo
    is ignored. Similarly, Van Leo's photos of non- celebrities, which
    were by necessity the majority of his clients, are rarely placed in
    the limelight. The change of perspective is exciting for the many
    possibilities it suggests.
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