The Journals of Jacob Mandeville

The Journals of Jacob Mandeville
i urval av Albin Biblom
På Stockholms Fotoantikvariat kommer Albin Biblom sammanställa ett urval ur utställningen
“The Journals of Jacob Mandeville”. Ett uppslag från 4 rikligt illustrerade journaler (Journal I,
III, IV, V) gjorda 1957-71 av Jacob Mandeville visas upp tillsammans med uppförstoringar
Biblom gjort från Mandevilles orginalnegativ.
På Galleri Örhänget kommer ett uppslag från Journal II, “Aerial Photographs of Possible Gates
to Paradise” att visas med tillhörande installation bestående av Jacob Mandevilles flygfotografier.
Tid och plats:
29:e Okt-23:e Nov: Stockholms Fotoantikvariat, Torkelknutssonsgatan 31
13:e Nov-17:e Dec: Galleri Örhänget, Höga Stigen 3, (Nedanför Mosebacke terass)
För mer info om Jacob Mandeville: www.albinbiblom.com
The Journals of Jacob Mandeville
Introduction
Jacob Mandeville, born 1926 in York, England (his father was a book-binder, his mother
a prostitute), met his future wife Helga, the daughter of one of his mother’s friends, at the age
of fourteen. Running away from home, the two travelled to Würzburg, Germany, where Jacobs’s
grandfather worked at the Department of Geology at Würzburg University. For the next twenty
years, Jacob assisted his grandfather. Eventually, he became on bad terms with the head of the
department, Professor Sebastian Zanger, who was also Director of the city’s Zoological Garden.
Mandeville was fired after having tried to set Professor Zanger’s house on fire, following a dispute over some fossils that he had found and claimed to be petrified sinners. Helga pleaded with
the local authorities not to put her husband in prison or hospital, although his mental condition
was deemed unstable. Shortly thereafter, Mandeville left Helga and Würzburg, claiming that
“conspiracies” kept him sleepless.
In 1962, Mandeville arrived in Berlin, where he found part-time work as a window cleaner at
the Swedish General Consulate. At the time, the Consulate was located in Rauchstraβe 25, a
building that now houses the Syrian Embassy. He carried out his work fastidiously. Curiously,
in letters to his wife Helga, Mandeville claimed to have received a prominent position at the
Consulate as a “consultant on environmental issues.” The secretary of the General Counsel,
Anne Marie Vogelsang, had her offices on the second floor, with a window overlooking the ruins of the former Swedish Embassy which had been bombed on November 22, 1943. For over a
year, Jacob paid extra attention to her window panes. Eventually, the two became close and regularly strolled through the Zoological Garden as well as the Tiergarten. In 1966, it was discovered that one of the Consulate’s employees had falsified official letters, signing them as General
Counsel Sten Lindbeck and even as Will Brandt, then mayor of the city of Berlin. Addressed to
the Director of the city’s Zoo and to the Minister of Environment, these missives recommended
strongly that the Zoo be transformed “into a natural habitat, not for imported animals, but exclusively for squirrels, birds, and wild boar” — thus serving as a “civilized example” for “the rest
of Europe.” The incident was duly investigated. Mandeville could not to be found for questioning. He was later believed to have drowned in the Landwehrkanal with Anne Marie Vogelsang
as his only witness.
As far as is known, Jacob Mandeville began keeping a journal in 1957. These documents
consist of texts and photographs taken by himself. Helga Mandeville and Anne Marie
Vogelsang have kindly put them at my disposal. I came in contact with Helga in 1997, through
her granddaughter. Generously, she showed me her husband’s chaotic archive of photographs,
texts, and objects, which led me on a journey from Würzburg to Berlin and on to Groningen,
The Netherlands, where Jacob seems to have spent three interim years, before he disappeared
entirely in 1971. In Berlin, Anne Marie Vogelsang shared with me stories from her turbulent
relationship with Jacob and also granted me access to photo albums from the time.
In this exhibition with selected works, I have made enlargements of some of Mandeville’s
negatives. As to the arrangement of the material, however, I have allowed myself personal
interpretations. Also, I have excluded some of the more explicit material from Mandeville’s
stay in Berlin. Nonetheless, I have made every effort to remain loyal to the inner logic of his
mind. My heartfelt thanks go to Mrs. Vogelsang, who reminded me that the “smallest things
are secret mirrors of the greatest.”