Part Two: Perceval Press
In the previous post I discussed the work of the artist, Viggo Mortensen, and mentioned in passing his founding of a small book publishing company, the Perceval Press. Aha, you say, a vanity press. Well, yes and no. Perceval does carry Viggo Mortensen’s published works of his art but it also puts out a small number - about eight a year - of other art books, mostly photography, all edited by Mortensen himself. So how does the actor-artist do as an editor? “I go over the books with a fine tooth comb,” says Mortensen, and if the two Perceval Press books I have looked at are any evidence, Mortensen’s skills as an editor reflect that attention. The books are beautifully designed, the reproductions are excellent, and the results serve the artists well.
Click on photos to enlarge
Supernatural by Lindsay Brice is an example of that curious sub-genre, doll photography. Photographs of dolls are more frequent than you might think; numerous assaults on Barbie dolls have been seen and the genre has even been given a French name, Poupée photography, and an indication that doll photography has more than arrived is the fact there are several web sites on the subject and a even a book ”Doll Photography Made Easy” by Bennet Dawson.
Hans Bellmer. In the center, a portrait of Bellmer with one of his creations
One doll photographer you probably won’t find in Dawson’s book is the surrealist, Hans Bellmer. He is anything but easy. His photographs of sexually provocative dolls still provoke controversy today eighty years after they were made, and if you’re into poupée photography Bellmer’s work is the standard by which you’re judged.
Another surprising devotee of the poupée was Ruth Bernhard although you will rarely find a doll photograph in her published works. I was privileged to see a number of them in a lecture Bernhard gave in the 80s. Along with projections of her doll images, she entertained her audience with accounts of her love affair with Edward Weston. If that wasn’t enough, she also revealed that one of her secrets to successful travel was to include in her luggage a can opener and a tin of tuna fish! You’ll be ready for anything if you remember that, she said. A remarkable woman, and a fine photographer who died at the age of 101.
Lindsay Brice
But we’re here to talk about Supernatural by Lindsay Brice. Her dolls come to eerie life in her color photography. The book includes a short story by Flannery O’Connor and this seems to be a hallmark of the Mortensen editing: along with images, the intelligent inclusion of text : prose, poetry, and quotes which complement rather than illustrate. I’m not sure of the relationship between O’Connor’s tale of a Southern little girl’s impressions of life and Brice’s provocative pictures of dolls but it made for some fine reading.
Lindsay Brice
The other Perceval book I have at hand is Furlough 55, which reveals the sensitive side of Mortensen’s editing. Hugo Milstein is Viggo’s digital advisor and printer and in a casual conversation one day, Milstein revealed he had an album full of his father Stanley Milstein’s photographs of France in the year 1955. Editor Mortensen’s ears pricked up and although he was in the middle of other work, he insisted on seeing the photographs. The result is Furlough 55, one soldier’s photo-diary of a year in cold-war France.
Stanley Milstein
In the conventional sense, these are not great photographs but they illustrate well one of the things photography is great at and that is the unpretentious documentation of a time and a place. France in 1955 comes to life in these photos and a young man’s wide-eyed wonder at what he was seeing energizes every image. One of Mortensen’s best qualities as a photographer is his curiosity and that is what I like best about Stanley Milstein’s work too. At the end I felt I knew Stanley Milstein and the poignancy lies in the fact that it’s only the young Milstein we get to know, a small fragment of a long life, now only retrievable through these once-hidden images.
Stanley Milstein
Another editorial touch that is significant: Milstein had scribbled captions on the photograph in pencil. Mortensen decided to reproduce these penciled notes and the result is we get a feel of the actual images lying in that album all those years. Again, an example of Mortensen’s attention to not only what a photograph shows but what it is: a piece of paper containing a two-dimensional image. Editor Mortensen, Stanley Milstein and Milstein’s son, Hugh, have collaborated to produce a fine book.
A few other comments about Mortensen’s role as the head of Perceval press. Early on, Mortensen came across the stumbling block of most small presses: distribution. Most commercial book distributors require large printing runs which go against a small press’ nature. Mortensen’s solution was to distribute his books online. In other words, he decided to keep the press run small and to rely on printing-on-demand. He also accompanies the proof of every Perceval book to Spain where they are printed and not many editors do that, especially editors who are also movie stars with all the hoopla attendant to that kind of life.
I guess it is obvious by now: Viggo Mortensen, count me in as a fan!