Born in Jerusalem in 1940, Ben Lam began his career as a fashion photographer in Tel Aviv following his 1967 graduation with Honors from the Regent Street Polytechnic – the first photography school in London (now part of the University of Westminster). Infused with cultural experiences and state-of-the-art technological knowledge, he quickly made his mark on the Israeli photography scene, which was then dominated by the legendary photographer Peter Herzog, who had established the country’s first fashion section of the flagship newspaper Haaretz in the 1960s. In those days, responsibility for visual representation – the product of a complex web of connections and contexts – rested entirely with the photographer: he was involved in every aspect of the photograph’s production, from initial concept to implementation; and the choice of subject, site, style and photo shoot direction were the mainstay of his work. Over the years, Lam photographed for the leading magazines in Israel (At, Monitin, Olam Ha’Ishah), as well as for the fashion sections of the daily and weekly press (the Galeria section and the weekly supplement of Haaretz; Ma’ariv’s Signon supplement). [2]
As Roland Barthes points out, a photograph is the object of three practices or intentions: the photographer (the Operator), the Spectator (ourselves), and the Spectrum (the photographed subject, as seen in the photograph).[3] The multilayered experience conjured by Lam’s photographs ranges anywhere between early twentieth-century modernism to late twentieth-century postmodernism. Lam’s career as a fashion photographer in Israel began at a time of rapid change on the local scene – the 1967 War and the ensuing War of Attrition (1969–70). These gave rise to an increase in the standard of living, and the beginnings of the cult of the individual as opposed to the collective. The lifestyle, which until then was marked by simplicity and an aspiration for equality, also changed. The functional clothes produced by the local firm Ata gave way to overtly “ethnic” clothing that conveyed prestige with a nod to the notion of a cultural Melting Pot. Thus was born the Desert Coat designed by the legendary designer Finy Leitersdorf for the fashion chain Maskit; the keffiyeh dresses (“petro-dollars”) by Rojy Ben Yosef for Rikma; and the swimwear designed by Lea Gottlieb for Gottex, inspired by Israeli light and sea.
As a great admirer of classic films, Lam always looked up to French photography, which he learned about from photography books. In particular, he found inspiration in the works of Jeanloup Sieff, who visited Israel in the late 1960s on behalf of French Vogue, and Jacques-Henri Lartigue. Lam was struck by their leanings toward “old school” photography, with its emphasis on the aesthetics of the single frame. As he put it, “They both photographed in black-and-white. Lartigue did not photograph fashion, but documented a period in the environment that he lived in; Sieff was more modern, and used natural lighting in dimly-lit rooms that were illuminated by a weak light through one window.” [4]
While photography gradually gained recognition as an art form,[5] the rise of fashion photography to respectability in the world was particularly slow – and even more so in Israel. In the 1960s and 1970s, photographers used to evoke a pastoral atmosphere in their images by using a 35-mm camera that produced grainy images, and softening filters, or by smearing Vaseline on the lenses. For studio shots, more sophisticated cameras were preferred, such as Hasselblad. In the late 1970s, however, the romantic approach was abandoned, and, in response to the challenges of color images in the daily press and new technology, Israeli photographers began using Polaroids and high-speed film to achieve their desired images. Their local clients or consumers, like themselves, were eager to catch up and savor the world of affluence, conspicuous consumption, and personal empowerment. The photographer was required to convey the global, almost luridly extravagant, spectacle through the printed medium. [6]
Lam played a key role in making the local fashion experience accessible to the public. He chose to remain faithful to his own agenda, maintaining tongue-in-cheek restraint and expressing intimacy and elegant aesthetics in an understated body language while steering clear of eccentricity. At the same time, his work bore an affinity to the surrealistic works of artists such as Man Ray and René Magritte, who in the 1920s and 1930s had collaborated with fashion designers, including Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli.[7] This affinity was evident, for instance, in his photographs of evening dresses in an upside-down room (inspired by Fred Astaire dancing on the walls in the 1951 film Royal Wedding), which he produced in the mid-1970s for the magazine At, and in his 1974 Magritte-inspired photographic collage of coat images.
Lam’s photographer’s eye conjured up short narratives, like a carefully staged painting or cinematic still. For example, his photographs for an article titled “Cinema in Color” for the magazine At in the mid-1970s contained references to the films of the Marx Brothers and Charlie Chaplin. In all his photographs, the setting, lighting and composition all play a key role – at times, even at the expense of the appearance, color and materiality of the photographed garment. The long time span of his work enables us to track the evolution of visual representation in Israel in all its aesthetic, social, economic, and geopolitical aspects. At the same time, his photographs invite a new reading of all of these, by highlighting “the phenomenon and faculty of memory,” as John Berger put it,[8] and prompting us to explore the context in which we examine them.
Most of the archival materials presented in the exhibition are from Ben Lam’s archive and the curator’s archive, which comprises magazines that she co-edited in the 1980s: Olam Ha’Ishah; Monitin; and the Galeria monthly supplement of Haaretz (which, after seven issues, including one fashion issue, became a daily section), which she founded and edited from 1989 to 1991.
[1] Sara Chinski, art critic and scholar, in conversation with her son, Yotam Feldman, “The Life of Sara,” Haaretz weekly supplement, 4 September, 2009, p. 26 (in Hebrew).
[2] Noted graphic editors that Lam worked with include Yaki Molcho at the Monitin monthly magazine and Amram Prat at At magazine.
[3] See Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, transl. Richard Howard (New York: The Noonday Press, 1981), p. 9.
[4] Ben Lam in conversation with the author, November-December 2016.
[5] Typical in this regard is Charles Baudelaire’s reference to photographers as “peintres manqués,” whom he urged to train in the natural sciences, or tourism. See Charles Baudelaire, Œuvres complètes (Paris: Gallimard, La Pléiade, 1975-76; Reprint 1985-87), vol. 2, p. 618.
[6] Fashion photography in Israel in the 1980s was broadly divided into several styles, each represented by a different photographer: Ben Lam’s poetic aesthetics; Micha Kirshner’s explicit political angle; Avi Ganor’s conceptual outlook; Menachem Oz’s intensive, colorful palette; Yaki Halperin’s precise cleanliness; and Miri Davidovitz’s urban avant-garde.
[7] The Surrealists saw fashion as a value marker, a source of inspiration, and a means of enhancing their social critique. See Richard Martin, Fashion and Surrealism (New York: Rizzoli, 1987).
[8] John Berger, About Looking (New York: Vintage, 1991), p. 64.
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