The film Paris Calligrammes was completed in December 2019 and scheduled to be released in New York City in March 2020. Happily, a virtual re-release begins this Friday April 23, 2021 in Film Forum’s Virtual Cinema (possibly other virtual cinemas). https://filmforum.org/film/paris-calligrammes The film is written, directed and photographed by Ulrike Ottinger, who writes, “I was 20 years young, and I’d come to Paris to become an important young artist. In my euphoria, I wanted to convert all of my experiences into art … How could I make a film from the perspective of the very young artist I remember with the experience of the older artist I am today?”

“In Paris Calligrammes, the artist Ulrike Ottinger casts a highly personal and subjective gaze back to the twentieth century. At the heart of her film is Paris: its protagonist is the city itself, its streets, neighborhoods, bookstores, cinemas, but also its artists, authors, and intellectuals. It is a place of magical appeal, an artistic biotope, but also a place where the demons of the twentieth century still confront us.” – Bernd Scherer

From the Librairie Calligrammes, a meeting place of exiled German intellectuals, to the Cinémathèque française, which sparked her love of film, she charts a city and its utopias.

Richard Brody wrote in the February 25, 2020 New Yorker, “The film is an extraordinary sort of aesthetico-political nonfiction bildungsroman, in which Ottinger fuses her self-portraiture and her reminiscences with the life of the city and the ideas of the times, as she encountered them. She retraces the personal and intellectual influences that formed her artistry and her personality—starting with her childhood in Konstanz, which was occupied by France in the wake of the Second World War, allowing her to see a steady run of already classic French movies that were screened there for the troops and staff.” https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/paris-calligrammes-the-berlin-premiere-of-ulrike-ottingers-personal-and-political-masterwork

German avant-garde filmmaker Ulrike Ottinger immerses us in her Paris of the 1960s – a vibrant community of European artists, writers, philosophers, and activists (Max Ernst, Marcel Marceau, Paul Célan, Walter Mehring, Hans Arp, Jean Genet, Camus, Juliet Greco, et alia), and the constellation of sites where they converged: Franz Picard’s eponymous antiquarian bookstore, Johnny Friedlaender’s atelier de gravure, fashion photographer Willy Maywald’s studio, Henri Langlois & Lotte Eisner’s Cinémathèque Française, Brasserie Lipp.

Presented with support from the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Fund, and the Helen Frankenthaler Endowed Fund for Films on Art. 2019 129 mins. Germany / France in German with English subtitles Icarus films Virtual Cinema program supported by the Robert Gore Rifkind Foundation. Trailer courtesy of Icarus Films.

 One year ago, Princeton students, faculty, and staff stayed home and classes went virtual. Today, we are back on campus although most classes remain virtual. Besides being a grey day not much has changed except parking lots are full again.

2020 above, 2021 below.

2020 above, 2021 below

2020 above, 2021 below

2020 above, 2021 below

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2020 above, 2021 below

Please join us for the annual Gillett G. Griffin Memorial Lecture with Raina Lampkins-Fielder, curator of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, as well as a program officer of the Foundation’s parent organization, the Souls Grown Deep Community Partnership, which supports the communities that gave rise to the 160 artists represented in its collection.

“The mission of Souls Grown Deep is twofold,” writes Lampkins-Fielder. “First, we have the foundation, established in 2010 to document, preserve, and promote the work of African-American artists from the southern states of the USA. Second, the Community Partnership Program, which focuses on supporting the communities that nurtured these artists, by fostering economic empowerment, racial and social justice, and educational advancement.”

This virtual event will be 12:00 noon on Friday, March 5, 2021 and is open to the public but you must register: Here

The Gillett G. Griffin Memorial Lecture Series was being established in honor of our former colleague Gillett Good Griffin (1942-2016), who served as graphic arts curator within Special Collections from 1952 to 1966. Although officially the collection’s second curator, he was the first to establish a place for the graphic arts collection inside Firestone Library, along with galleries and study rooms where students were regularly and warmly welcomed.

Gillett’s passion for collecting began almost 70 years ago while he was a student at Yale University School of Art. His personal collection of Japanese prints, for instance, was begun as an undergraduate and later, when Gillett generously donated them to Princeton University Library, formed the basis for the department’s collection.

When we received the sad news of Gillett’s passing in June 2016, we wanted to find a way to not only commemorate the man but also his passion for bringing objects in the collection directly to the public and the public to the collection. To that end, we decided to select one of the great treasures acquired by Gillett for an in-depth investigation presented in a public memorial lecture.

To request disability-related accommodations for this event, please contact pulcomm@princeton.edu at least 3 working days in advance.

You might also enjoy this recent conversation with Raina Lampkins-Fielder and the artists Loretta Pettway Bennett & Mary Margaret Pettway organized by the Alison Jacques Gallery:

Loretta Pettway Bennett & Mary Margaret Pettway in conversation with Raina Lampkins-Fielder from Alison Jacques Gallery on Vimeo.

Kyle Lukoff and Luciano Lozano, Call Me Max (New York, NY: Reycraft Books, 2019). Cotsen Childrens Library.

It is a coincidence that our upcoming webinar at 2:00 EST on Friday, February 26, 2021, comes just as the Murray School District in Utah has suspended their diversity book program due to the inclusion of an LGBTQ+ friendly title [above]. We hope you can join us for a timely conversation entitled Acrobatics: Moving Through the Trans Archives, meant to be a scholarly look at resources here in the Princeton University Library and elsewhere. Register here: https://libcal.princeton.edu/calendar/events/transarchives

We are thrilled to be joined by RL Goldberg (they/them), English Department and Associate Director, Behrman Undergraduate Society of Fellows, in dialogue with queer book dealer, collector, and historian Gerard Koskovich (he/him); along with Sara Howard (she/her), Librarian for Gender and Sexuality Studies and Student Engagement, and Julie Mellby (she/her), Graphic Arts Curator.

Our title refers to the celebrated career of the 19th-century gender-fluid acrobat Mademoiselle Lulu (Sam Wasgott), with whom we begin our discussion. From there we will move through 20th and 21st century materials that define the trans archive, with an emphasis on race as well as gender.

From anonymous photo albums to publications both global in scope and origin, we will discuss our collections and the history of writers and publishers within the field of Trans Studies. What are the larger stories behind these materials that share with us lives as they were lived in the past and might be lived in the future?

As always, these monthly webinars are free and open to the public using Zoom but registration is required, here again is the link: https://libcal.princeton.edu/calendar/events/transarchives

Read more about what is happening in Utah:

https://lithub.com/this-utah-school-district-says-a-childrens-book-about-a-transgender-boy-is-inappropriate-and-we-have-questions/

https://www.fox13now.com/news/local-news/murray-school-district-suspends-diversity-book-program-over-complaints

Photographs top to bottom:

Unidentified photographer, Photograph of Lulu (El Nino Farini) as a child in costume, late 19^th century. Guy Little Theatrical Photograph collection, V&A Museum.

E[dward] Gregson, Photograph of Lulu (El Nino Farini) as a man, late 19^th century. Guy Little Theatrical Photograph collection, V&A Museum.

Claude Cahun (1894-1954), “I am in training, don’t kiss me,” Self-Portrait, ca. 1926.

You might be interested in listening to several Princeton oral histories here, such as Nancy Lamar’s recording: https://findingaids.princeton.edu/collections/AC465?v1=transgender&f1=kw&rpp=10&start=0
or a Princeton Alumni Weekly article: https://www.princeton.edu/~paw/archive_new/PAW05-06/12-0419/features_nadeau.html

Please join us at 2:00 EST on Friday, February 26, 2021, for a live webinar highlighting Transgender Studies, past and present, in Princeton University Library collections and private archives. We are thrilled to be joined by RL Goldberg (they/them), English Department and Associate Director, Behrman Undergraduate Society of Fellows, in dialogue with queer book dealer, collector, and historian Gerard Koskovich (he/him); along with Sara Howard (she/her), Librarian for Gender and Sexuality Studies and Student Engagement, and Julie Mellby (she/her), Graphic Arts Curator.

Beginning with the celebrated career of the 19th-century gender-fluid acrobat Mademoiselle Lulu (Sam Wasgott), we will move through 20th and 21st century materials that define the trans archive, with an emphasis on race as well as gender. From anonymous photo albums to publications both global in scope and origin, we will discuss our collections and the history of writers and publishers within the field of Trans Studies. What are the larger stories behind these materials that share with us lives as they were lived in the past and might be lived in the future?

As always, these monthly webinars are free and open to the public using Zoom but registration is required, here is the link: https://libcal.princeton.edu/calendar/events/transarchives

Photographs top to bottom:

Unidentified photographer, Photograph of Lulu (El Nino Farini) as a child in costume, late 19^th century. Guy Little Theatrical Photograph collection, V&A Museum.

E[dward] Gregson, Photograph of Lulu (El Nino Farini) as a man, late 19^th century. Guy Little Theatrical Photograph collection, V&A Museum.

Claude Cahun (1894-1954), “I am in training, don’t kiss me,” Self-Portrait, ca. 1926.

You might be interested in listening to several oral histories here, such as Nancy Lamar’s recording: https://findingaids.princeton.edu/collections/AC465?v1=transgender&f1=kw&rpp=10&start=0
or a Princeton Alumni Weekly article: https://www.princeton.edu/~paw/archive_new/PAW05-06/12-0419/features_nadeau.html