CURATORIAL NOTE:		INGE MORATH, MARILYN & THE MISFITS
					TR1 17.6. – 30.7.2006

In navigating systems two crossing signals are in use for orientation. In TR1 two photography exhibitions might help for orientation in the live of the Great Personality and Hollywood Star Marilyn Monroe. (1926-1962)

Many things have been written about M.M. Just let me give here a few notes on a Hollywood Cinderella Blues, one possible background-story of this extraordinary exhibition:

Actors: 	
Marilyn Monroe: 	The False Bride, visible On-Stage, in the bright light.
			A tragic character!
Inge Morath:	The True Bride, invisible but present as active observer.			Behind her camera documenting her perspective and 			position in the beginning of the drama.
Arthur Miller:	The Prince, slightly visible but a renowned personality.
Bert Stern:		The Agent Provocateur (yllyttäjä) who had instigated			witnessed and documented the tragic personality of the 			False Bride shortly before she died.
Data:
Inge Morath (1923 – 2002):
1923		born in Graz / Austria
1940th  	Journalism and Language studies in Berlin / Germany
1949 		Aged 26 she went to Paris with Henri Cartier-Bresson where 		she has written texts for MAGNUM publications.
1951 		With 28 she is in London for Photo-Studies, becoming
		well-trained in Reportage and Documentary Photography.

CRITICAL MINDS:
MAGNUM PHOTO founded in 1947
Members like Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa etc. have been engaged in humanism and objective reports in beginning of Cold War era. Reportages have been done on the Racial Conflicts in USA, Martin Luther King; Black Muslims; French - Algerian War; Korea-War; Africa etc.

Magnum photographers, like many other critical minds, have had 
Hard Times in the USA in the beginning of the 1950th. McCarthy and the scare of communism had created an atmosphere in which journalists and many artists have been suspected for un-American activities.

This has also affected Arthur Miller (1915-2005):
In 1952, aged 37, he had written THE CRUCIBLE, a critical play based on historical events (surrounding the 1692 witch trials) in Salem/Massachusetts.

Miller wrote about the event as an allegory for McCarthyism and the Red Scare in USA.
					Page – 2 - 

Arthur Miller was also a member and for a period of time the director of International PEN's Writers in Prison committee.

In 1956, the year of his marriage with Marilyn Monroe, Arthur Miller had to appear before the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

In May 31, 1957 Miller was found guilty because he did not give names of so-called communist writers in the literary circle.   => Communist affiliation
At court his wife Marilyn Monroe accompanied and stayed for him.

She has shown reliability for her Prince Lover: for the marriage with Arthur Miller she even had given her religion and converted to Judaism, 

Three years later the political situation in USA had changed, the ice was broken and Arthur Miller as play writer could become deeply involved in the Hollywood production of The Misfits.

Arthur Miller had written the play especially for his wife Marilyn Monroe.
In the age of 35 and at the side of a renowned poet, she should grow out of the clichés of Blondie and Sex Bomb.

MAGNUM photographers, a larger group, have been invited to document the shooting in 1960 in Reno, the US-American Wild West Desserts.

Everything appeared to be very well planned and it did indeed work fine, it should become a success-story for all participants!

…and here the CINDERELLA LOVE STORY begins:
In June 1960, Inge Morath, the Magnum journalist and photographer from Austria appeared at the Set of The Misfits in Reno together with Henri Cartier-Bresson. 

What happened in Reno?
Inge Morath met her Prince and Arthur Miller recognized his true Princess. Indeed, Reno was the beginning of the eternal love story between Inge Morath and Arthur Miller.  It became a marriage lasting 40 years with family life and two children.
In other words: Meanwhile Marilyn Monroe in the Wild West of Reno was hunting The Misfits, Inge Morath was hunting a husband.
As Magnum-Photographer she has had legal access to all spaces in Reno: to the locations of the Set, to the Hotels and to the rooms of the Stars. For Inge Morath RENO became an indeed personal story.

It’s hard to imagine how Marilyn Monroe experienced this?
Inge Morath arrived in late June; End of August M.M. was brought to hospital with a nervous breakdown.

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Already Beginning November the divorce of the famous couple was announced to the public.

1961
20 of January 	Official Divorce Monroe-Miller in Mexico
31 of January	Premiere of The Misfits. After the premiere M.M. was   			in a clinical therapy for three months.
3 of March		At the Funeral of Millers´ mother, Inge Morath, the new 			woman in his life, became visible at Arthur Millers side.

1962
20 of January: 	exactly one year after the divorce, the marriage Morath 			and Miller was celebrated. According to friends of A.M. 			Inge Morath was “…the first grown-up he had married”.

AND THIS: At the same time when the production of The Misfits started in Reno in summer 1960, Stanley Kubrick had decided to realize his movie based on the Nabokov story LOLITA. The production of this movie indeed can be seen as inspired by the Hollywood-Couple Monroe+Miller. LOLITA had premiere in the cinemas in January1962, parallel to the new marriage.
Bert Stern has photographed the Poster of the movie. Unfortunately for Kubrick the premiere was a bit too late to hit the nerve point!

February 62	M.M. moved to her new house.

May 62:		M.M. did Nude shootings for “Something´s Got to Give”.
´
01st of June		36. Birthday of Marilyn Monroe

23-25th of June	Bert Stern has shot 2700 images (!) for VOGUE, the  			images of “The Last Sitting” partly presented in this show

		 	At that moment, Inge Morath was visibly pregnant in 			her 7th months;   …the “False Bride” had finally lost!

20 of July:		M.M. in Hospital Cedars of Lebanon  (Endometriosis)

04 of August:	Death of Marilyn Monroe (over-dose of barbiturates)

15 of September:	Birth of Rebecca Miller. (In bible-approach “Rebecca” is 			a synonym of “The Right Bride”).

Reality and Fiction, in Art and in Media they can meet each other!
Wish you enjoying this fairy-tale of an exhibition!

Ulrich Haas-Pursiainen / Curator		Photographic Center Nykyaika							www.backlight.fi
							backlight@backlight.fi