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untimelygamer's review against another edition
5.0
Link: https://readstoodamnmuch.wordpress.com/2017/06/07/review-walker-evanss-american-photographs/
American Photographs begins on a pointedly metaphorical note. The first picture displays a photo shop with a photo booth. The words “Photos: 5 Cents” appear all over. The viewer’s eyes are drawn to a pair of fingers surrounding the darkened entrance of the phone booth. “Come on in, enter, and experience some photography” the opening image tantalizes. I bring this initial image up because a casual Google search would make you think Walker Evans’s work mostly consisted of his portraits for the Farm Security Administration. You might think Evans’s work is no different than other portraiture of the poor in the era like Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother. What I found was a much more complex photographer, dedicated not just to capturing the faces but the world of those he photographed. And as the opening picture indicates, Evans’s has a commitment to the photobook format, making one loaded with symbolic value and meaning.
I came to Walker Evans out-of-order after reading Robert Frank’s The Americans, and the intertextual relationships between the two are apparent. Both have pictures of empty barber shops; Frank’s version is shot through the window, the image of the barber’s chair criss-crossed with screens. The ecstasy of a Confederate monument in Vicksburg in Evans’s parallels the ecstasy of the person at a political rally in Chicago in Frank. Like Robert Frank, candid photography does not hide the presence of the photographer; often there is someone who is looking at Walker Evans with suspicious eyes. And like Frank, Evans often opts for photographs with open-ended, incomplete narratives. People in a car stare towards something not pictured. We can only guess what. We see a room in disrepair, and in the back a door leading to another room trashed with clothes and furniture parts. A sign saying “The Lord Will Provide” hangs crookedly in the front. What is its meaning? It’s unclear.
Walker Evans has a fascination with architecture, showing the relationship between person and structure. In many photographs store and store owner become part of the entity. This is also the case with what may be Evans’s most famous photograph, the portrait of an unnamed Alabama Cotton Tenant Farmer Wife. The straight line of her mouth in grim determination becomes one with the straight lines of the building behind her. Many other photographs show houses slanted, as if the very infrastructure of American capitalism is buckling under pressure.
One key difference between Robert Frank and Walker Evans that benefits Evans is his key appreciation of what would now be considered “street art.” Torn and folded posters, elaborate and dilapidated murals, a row of advertisements along the street, and even graffiti are given equal attention to the houses and the people. It is a surprisingly progressive perspective, and one I don’t know if it has parallels in other media of the time (I would love to be proven wrong).
American Photographs begins on a pointedly metaphorical note. The first picture displays a photo shop with a photo booth. The words “Photos: 5 Cents” appear all over. The viewer’s eyes are drawn to a pair of fingers surrounding the darkened entrance of the phone booth. “Come on in, enter, and experience some photography” the opening image tantalizes. I bring this initial image up because a casual Google search would make you think Walker Evans’s work mostly consisted of his portraits for the Farm Security Administration. You might think Evans’s work is no different than other portraiture of the poor in the era like Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother. What I found was a much more complex photographer, dedicated not just to capturing the faces but the world of those he photographed. And as the opening picture indicates, Evans’s has a commitment to the photobook format, making one loaded with symbolic value and meaning.
I came to Walker Evans out-of-order after reading Robert Frank’s The Americans, and the intertextual relationships between the two are apparent. Both have pictures of empty barber shops; Frank’s version is shot through the window, the image of the barber’s chair criss-crossed with screens. The ecstasy of a Confederate monument in Vicksburg in Evans’s parallels the ecstasy of the person at a political rally in Chicago in Frank. Like Robert Frank, candid photography does not hide the presence of the photographer; often there is someone who is looking at Walker Evans with suspicious eyes. And like Frank, Evans often opts for photographs with open-ended, incomplete narratives. People in a car stare towards something not pictured. We can only guess what. We see a room in disrepair, and in the back a door leading to another room trashed with clothes and furniture parts. A sign saying “The Lord Will Provide” hangs crookedly in the front. What is its meaning? It’s unclear.
Walker Evans has a fascination with architecture, showing the relationship between person and structure. In many photographs store and store owner become part of the entity. This is also the case with what may be Evans’s most famous photograph, the portrait of an unnamed Alabama Cotton Tenant Farmer Wife. The straight line of her mouth in grim determination becomes one with the straight lines of the building behind her. Many other photographs show houses slanted, as if the very infrastructure of American capitalism is buckling under pressure.
One key difference between Robert Frank and Walker Evans that benefits Evans is his key appreciation of what would now be considered “street art.” Torn and folded posters, elaborate and dilapidated murals, a row of advertisements along the street, and even graffiti are given equal attention to the houses and the people. It is a surprisingly progressive perspective, and one I don’t know if it has parallels in other media of the time (I would love to be proven wrong).
davygibbs's review against another edition
5.0
It's easy to see why this body of work was so influential but hard to believe someone had this kind of photographic vision as early as the mid-30s -- people are still creating images just like this. But somebody had to do it first, I suppose. Profoundly moving, yet impassive. The cliche "a picture is worth a thousand words" is a grotesque understatement when applied here. A thousand books, maybe.