CCA News
Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts Presents the Exhibition: More American Photographs
Posted on Thursday, September 1, 2011, by Allison Byers
See also: Wattis exhibition Painting Between the Lines
San Francisco, Calif., September 1, 2011--The CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts will present the exhibition More American Photographs from October 4 through December 17, 2011, in the Logan Galleries of California College of the Arts, 1111 Eighth Street, San Francisco. The exhibition is curated by Jens Hoffmann, director of the Wattis Institute. It is free and open to the public, with an opening reception on Tuesday, October 4, from 6-8 p.m.
As the United States slowly recovers from its most significant economic downturn since the Great Depression, the Wattis Institute reexamines the well-known 1935-44 photography program of the Farm Security Administration (FSA), which employed such iconic artists as Walker Evans, Ben Shahn, Dorothea Lange, and Marion Post Wolcott. Inspired by their example, the Wattis commissioned 12 contemporary photographers to travel the United States, documenting its land and people. In the exhibition, the new images will be presented alongside a number of photographs by the FSA photographers.
The FSA was implemented as part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, a program that sought to create relief, recovery, and reform after the devastating years of the Great Depression. Over a period of almost nine years, headed by Roy Stryker, director of the Historical Section, the FSA employed a number of photographers, tasking them with bringing to light the “third of a nation” that President Roosevelt defined as “ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.” Many of the 250,000 FSA photographs have endured and become iconic. Stryker prepared the photographers with shooting scripts, listing all of the subjects he wanted pictures of for his famous “file”: “chicken dinners,” “18th Amendment,” “corner drug store.” These notes led to incredibly thorough and engaging photographic documentation of American culture and habits in the 1930s and 1940s. The Wattis Institute employed Stryker’s scripts and borrowed from his methodology to brief the contemporary photographers.
The FSA introduced a never-before-seen style of photographic realism that would change the aesthetic of documentary photography forever. The photographers traveled mostly to the rural areas of the United States that were most affected by the Depression: the Southeast, the Southwest, and the West. Today, the “Great Recession” has again heavily affected the rural South and the Midwest. Among the hardest hit are the states of Arizona, California, Florida, and Nevada.
The photographs taken over the past year for this Wattis exhibition reflect the diverse impacts of the recent financial downturn, capturing both rural and urban America and speaking to issues of migration, gentrification, environmental negligence, and multiculturalism. More American Photographs hopes to update Stryker’s “file,” showing how some parts of America have floundered while others have flourished. The new pictures show environmental disasters, factory-ghost towns, the collapse of the housing boom, the general lack of economic mobility, and the increasing gulf between the rich and the poor.
To capture the disparities of wealth among Americans, Walead Beshty traveled to the richest (Fisher Island, Florida) and poorest (Allen, South Dakota) communities in America. Alec Soth found the migrant mothers of today in a labor camp in southern Minnesota. Katy Grannan traveled along California’s Highway 99, photographing areas that Dorothea Lange visited 75 years ago. Catherine Opie took a cue from Stryker’s instruction “Looking down my street” and photographed local shopkeepers in her neighborhood in south Los Angeles. Stephen Shore photographed the changing face of the East Village and Lower East Side in New York.
The title of the exhibition refers to Walker Evans’s American Photographs, one of the most powerful photography books ever produced, originally conceived as a catalogue to accompany Evans’s solo show at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1938. The publication accompanying the present exhibition takes cues from Evans’s book in its layout and design. It will feature a number of FSA photographs together with the new commissions, as well as an essay on the history of the FSA photography program and the parallels between the Great Depression and the recent economic crisis.
More American Photographs will travel to the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver in spring 2012, and to the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio, in spring 2013. Subsequent tour venues to be announced.
FEATURING NEW PHOTOGRAPHS BY Walead Beshty, Larry Clark, Roe Ethridge, Katy Grannan, William E. Jones, Sharon Lockhart, Catherine Opie, Martha Rosler, Collier Schorr, Stephen Shore, Alec Soth, Hank Willis Thomas
AND HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS BY Esther Bubley, Marjory Collins, Jack Delano, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Carl Mydans, Gordon Parks, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn, Marion Post Wolcott, John Vachon
About the CCA Wattis Institute
The CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts was established in 1998 in San Francisco at California College of the Arts. It serves as a forum for the presentation and discussion of international contemporary art and curatorial practice. Through groundbreaking exhibitions, the Capp Street Project residency program, lectures, symposia, and publications, the Wattis Institute has become one of the leading art institutions in the United States and an active site for contemporary culture in the Bay Area. For more information about the Wattis Institute, visit wattis.org.
About California College of the Arts
Founded in 1907, California College of the Arts (CCA) is noted for the interdisciplinarity and breadth of its programs. It offers studies in 21 undergraduate and seven graduate majors in the areas of fine arts, architecture, design, and writing. The college offers bachelor of architecture, bachelor of arts, bachelor of fine arts, master of architecture, master of arts, master of fine arts, and master of business administration degrees. With campuses in San Francisco and Oakland, CCA currently enrolls 1,850 full-time students. Noted alumni include the painters Nathan Oliveira and Raymond Saunders; the ceramicists Robert Arneson, Viola Frey, and Peter Voulkos; the filmmaker Wayne Wang; the conceptual artists David Ireland and Dennis Oppenheim; and the designers Lucille Tenazas and Michael Vanderbyl. For more information about CCA, visit cca.edu.
CALENDAR EDITORS, PLEASE NOTE:
October 4-December 17, 2011
The CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts presents the exhibition
More American Photographs
California College of the Arts, San Francisco campus
1111 Eighth Street (at 16th and Wisconsin)
Opening reception: Tuesday, October 4, 2011, 6-8 p.m.
Gallery hours: Tues.-Fri., noon-8 p.m.; Sat., 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; closed Sun. and Mon.
Cost: Free
Info: 415.551.9210, cca.edu/calendar, wattis.org
PRESS CONTACTS:
Brenda Tucker 415.703.9548 btucker@cca.edu
Allison Byers 415.703.9541 abyers@cca.edu
PUBLIC CONTACT: cca.edu/calendar, wattis.org