Geneva's Bodmer shows historic newspapers
Geneva’s Bodmer shows historic newspapers
OCTOBER 10, 2014 BY
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GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – “Communism’s Collapse!” “German Spring in the Autumn”. Side by side in a glass case at the Bodmer Foundation, two international newspapers blast the October 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall. An original 1776 edition of Adam Smith’s essay on economic liberalism, “The Wealth of Nations”, is found alongside them.
Here, as elsewhere in the exhibition, a historic moment is matched with literary kin.
Geneva’s Martin Bodmer Foundation opened its exhibit “Histoire à la Une” (front page history) Friday 4 October. It pairs historic newspapers from around the world with relative historic manuscripts and books.
The private Cologny museum, known for its exceptional collection of historic writings, welcomed historic front page newspapers from the collection of Josep Bosch, a spokesman at the World Trade Organization and former journalist.
The exhibit, which covers many major political, social and cultural events of the last century, represents the first time the Bodmer Foundation has displayed newspapers.
A Washington Post front page announcing Apollo 11’s landing on the moon is paired with Jules Vernes’ 1865 publication of De la Terre à La Lune (From Earth to the Moon), while a first edition of the American anti-abolitionist book Uncle Tom’s Cabin is positioned between front pages of human rights crusaders, Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi.
“It is unprecedented to create an experience consisting of a dialogue between first editions and the newspaper front pages”, explained Jacques Berchtold, director of the Bodmer Foundation, at the show’s opening.
Berchtold described the contrast between the Bodmer’s collection, of unique editions, intended to be saved for centuries to come, and newspapers, mass-produced and conceived not to last. “A common denominator” in the exhibit, he says, is to recognize the “creative act” in original manuscripts that defined historic events and in front pages describing those moments.
Bosch, whose collection includes over 10,000 historic front pages, told GenevaLunch that his search for significant newspapers to match Bodmer’s unique array of manuscripts continued even as the exhibit was being set up. World War II propaganda leaflets, which had been parachuted from planes, on exhibit in Cologny, were amongst the most challenging finds, he said.
The Catalan explained that he began collecting in May 1968, when he was moved by a Parisian front page about the student revolt. “I, too, was a student; that’s why I was shocked”.
By collecting front pages, Bosch said he “began an archeology of the press, a systemic archeology, by looking at all the newspapers of the past. It was a fascinating adventure … like travelling through a time tunnel.”
“Histoire à la Une” runs at the Bodmer Foundation until 2 November 2014.
