#Exhibit of the Month

The main parts of the camera include the body, bellows, lens, and viewfinder system. The body consists of two lacquered walnut wood frames, joined by a folding black textile bellows that allows the necessary extension for focusing. On the front panel is the Agfa anastigmat lens, mounted in a Compur-type shutter produced by F. Deckel in Munich. It features a foldable "brilliant" viewfinder for both portrait and landscape orientation. It uses glass photographic plates coated with a photographic emulsion, mounted in walnut wood holders, with a frame size of 9x12 cm.
The walnut wood model, considered the flagship "Agfa Isolar Luxus," was designed by the A.H. Rietzschel factory in Munich, acquired by AGFA in 1925, which continued producing this type of camera under its own name until the late 1920s.
The piece was restored by Mihail Culașco, Restoration Department of NMHM.
Brief History of the Camera
The history of the camera spans 200 years, evolving from the camera obscura to today's digital devices. Key milestones include: the first permanent photograph in 1826 by French physicist Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, using a wooden box and a plate coated with bitumen of Judea; the invention of the first photographic process - daguerreotype - in 1839 by Frenchman Louis Daguerre, marking the official birth of photography; the invention of calotype, based on the negative/positive principle, by British physicist and chemist Fox Talbot; the invention of wet collodion plates by Englishman Frederick Scott Archer and dry glass plates by Richard Leach Maddox and John Huds Bennet; the introduction of flexible roll film and the launch of the first Kodak camera by American inventor George Eastman; the release of the first 35 mm film camera by German company "Leica"; the launch of the first instant camera "Polaroid," invented by American Edwin Land. Finally, starting in 1975, this path led to the digital photography revolution. Each successive step made cameras smaller and faster, significantly improving image quality.
The first photographic studio in Chișinău was opened in 1854 by Eduard Glewski, and before World War I, there were already about 100 photography studios in Bessarabia.
The collection of the National Museum of History of Moldova includes over 30 cameras, made in Austria, Germany, France, USSR, Japan, and China, dating from the late 19th century to the 2000s. Among them are folding bellows cameras, BOX-type cameras, single-lens reflex (SLR) and twin-lens reflex (TLR) cameras, as well as digital (DSLR) cameras.

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Exhibitions

„POSTER X POEM”

15 June - 26 July 2020

The POSTER X POEM exhibition in Chisinau is the first international exhibition within the framework of the POSTER X POEM project, which displays 30 posters inspired by contemporary poetry. The exhibition includes both the posters from the first POSTER X POEM exhibition held in Bucharest and works by Bessarabian artists and can be seen from June 15, on 31 August 1989 Street, no.121 A, on the fence of the National Museum of History of Moldova.

Started in Bucharest in March 2020, POSTER x POEM is an interdisciplinary project that brings together contemporary poets and artists. POSTER x POEM arrived in Chişinău on the initiative of AA +, which invited 14 contemporary poets and 14 artists from Bessarabia to participate.

The posters show poetic texts and their visual interpretation, their authors are the following creative duets: Alexander Vakulovski x Aliona Ciobanu, Moni Stănilă x Veronica Gorii, Paula Erizanu x Maks Graur, Veronica Ştefăneţ x Cristina Halp, Dan Negară x Anna Vasina, Hose Pablo x Sandul, Artur Cojocaru x Alex Escu, Anastasia Palii x Adrian Gavriliuc, Artiom Oleacu x Ecaterina Şălaru, Iulia Iaroslavski x Mihaela Mândru, Ion Buzu x Veronica Belous, Cristina Dicusar x Ana Grigorovscaia, Victor Tzvetov x Cristian Menumortu, Alexandru Cosmescu x Denis Foca.

The POSTER x POEM project was enthusiastically taken by Bessarabian poets. "I was very happy to participate in this project. I think that the interactions between artists of different genres of art are always welcome because they inspire new visions and perceptions", poet Veronica Ştefăneţ mentioned. Based on the concept of "carte blanche", each artist was offered a poem by a contemporary poet as a theme for creating a poster. The only requirement for the work was that the poem and name of the poet were on the poster. "I always thought that poets should be friends with artists, because it depends on them how poetry collections will look like. The next step is posters. Of course, I am glad that a poster will be created by a poem of mine. I can't wait to see it! I saw how a meeting of two artists created a spark. And it's even more beautiful that poetry begins from the street, and returns back to the street. Enjoy it!", poet Alexander Vakulovsky added.

POSTER x POEM started with a first online and offline exhibition on the fence of the National Art Museum of Romania in Bucharest. The first 16 posters of the project were presented in this exhibition, among the invited poets being Tara Skurtu, Dan Coman, Vasile Leac, Andrei Dosa, Mina Decu, Răzvan Ţupa, Teona Galgoţiu and Svetlana Cârstean.

POSTER X POEM believes that poetry must reach as many people as possible and for that it must come out of books and appear on walls and fences. The poster is the perfect medium to take poetry to the middle of the city, among people.

The project is initiated by GLITCH, a communication studio for cultural projects in Bucharest and arrived in Chisinau in collaboration with AA +, a non-formal initiative from Moldova, which focuses its activity around local and foreign visual culture.

#Exhibit of the Month

Folding bellows camera, “Agfa Isolar Luxus”. AGFA Company, Munich, Germany, 1928

„POSTER X POEM”

15 June - 26 July 2020

#Exhibit of the Month