Mount Braddock, PA At A Glance
Ever a master of the conceptual punchline, photographer Kenji Nakahashi plays with our interpretation of time and its assumed objectivity. His longstanding interest in the documentary value and, again, assumed objectivity of photographya time-based mediumis also at play, and clearly inextricable. In his characteristically understated way, Nakahashi tackles the subjectivity of both time and photography in one fell swoop. SAM expresses deep compassion for those seeking justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. We share in the grief, anger, and frustration that their friends, families, and Black communities are feeling, which has spread across the country and the world. SAM is committed to doing our part in the necessary work of creating racial equity. Art can play a critical role in creating structural change and equity; it deepens empathy, asks tough questions, and offers new visions for collective responses to our world. We must create that new world together. Along with Weems, it [the kitchen table] is a recurring figure in the photographs. The tables symbolic significance is a direct reference to the structures that shape and reinforce the intersection of the concepts of race, gender, and class that are at the center of Weemss art.[1] Rebekah went one evening to fill her water-jar at the well. As she was returning, a stranger in charge of a string of laden camels stopped the comely young girl and asked for a drink. She gave it to him and offered to draw water for his camels as well. He bestowed upon her a gold earring and two gold bracelets. The man was [Eliezer,] Abrahams trusted servant, sent to find a wife for his masters son Isaac from among his kinfolk. Having earlier enlisted the help of an angel, he knew that this was the girl he sought.[1]
This examination of Stieglitzs Camera Work and the photographers involved in that publication act as the focal points of the 1985 exhibition at SAM. Of the works displayed, Clarence H. Whites Drops of Rain, Adolf de Meyers Still Life, Hugo Hennebergs Villa Falconieri, and Alfred Stieglitzs Spring Showers, New York are the works I find the most compelling. Water is prominently featured in all these works, whether it takes the form of rain, a glass of water, or a shimmering river. The water either distorts and obscures aspects of the work or is itself distorted. Far from being a direct representation of fact, the water provides a medium through which the artistic intent becomes clear. The fact that it is raining outside is not the point of the image in Whites Rain Drops; instead, the simplicity, the lighting, and contrast between the smoothness of the glass ball compared to the pattern of rain drops on the window pane combine to make this work beautifully compelling. The emotional response that these images evoke transcends time and, like other forms of art, is subjective. Though this 1957 photograph is by Imogen Cunningham, its subject is Bay Area artist Ruth Asawa (19262013). For decades Asawa has been little known beyond the West Coast, and is all too belatedly finding herself rewritten into the history of American art.
Rather than concentrate on photographer Cunningham, this post focuses on Asawa, her diaphanous wire sculptures, and her complex identity as a Japanese-American woman artist. These are very specific books subject matter-wise and politically. So I knew that she was kind of challenging me with an assignment: to connect these three bodies of work. When someone hands you three books like that, you know its going to be a long journey. I dedicated my book partly to Kathe. Thats when it hit me. I may have thought that I was an innocent teenager making work about my mother and grandmother. But it was really a foreshadow that Id be writing Braddocks history. It made me realize that my work was bigger than me. The Notion of Family testifies to the ominous consequences of rejecting this idea. The ascendance of neoconservatism in the 1980s ushered in an era of brazen self-interest, one that defined the notion of family as more a matter of blood than social responsibility. Braddocks decline was exacerbated during Reagan-era policies favoring trickle-down economics, union busting and diminution of social welfare programs, which foreshadowed the ever-widening gap between rich and poor Americans. It wouldnt be too difficult to argue that we live in a youth-obsessed culture.
Braddock pa photo essay - Which brings me to one of the most remarkable images in the series, one in which youre sitting next to your grandmother, wearing pigtails. Your face is so bright and youthful and hers is world-weary. How did that image come about?
Im a Black American Vet and a Former Police Officer. I Decided to Speak Up With My Camera - If you value the ways SAM connects art to your life, considermaking a donationorbecoming a membertoday! Your financial support powers Stay Home with SAMand also sustains us until we can come together as a community and enjoy art in the galleries again.
The Art of Documentary Photography: Dorothea Lange Reconsidered
The Mount Braddock, PA Info Booth
If we only take a moment to look around, we can see it everywhere. It pops up in advertisements, in movies, and in TV. It works its way into our minds with anti-ageing skin creams and anti-graying hair dyes. It settles into our society and fills us with the irrefutable fear of getting older. To be youngor so our culture seems to suggestis to be wild, uninhibited, and free. And, conversely, to be old is to be slow, sidelined, and ignored. The experience working on the Community Portrait Project has been really uplifting and grounding at the same time. First, I love any excuse to work with Zorn. We have taught together and supported each others work for a few years, and I really appreciate the love and openness he brings into the work. Yet as I approach my second year of living in Seattle, I too, have become consumed by thoughts of the dreary weather so consumed by these thoughts that I seem to have neglected my blog and the ever-present hope that sun is just around the corner. However, it was the weather that inadvertently led me to the exhibition Camera Work: Process & Image held at SAM from November 26, 1985 to February 2, 1986and focused on the early pioneers of photography including Julia Margaret Cameron, Edward Steichen, Clarence H. White, Paul Strand, Alfred Langdon Coburn, and Alfred Stieglitz.
Maurice Berger is a research professor and the chief curator at the Center for Art Design and Visual Culture at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and a consulting curator at the Jewish Museum in New York. Born and raised in Tennessee, Eggleston largely focused his attention on the rural South but has traveled across the United States documenting post-war American life and culture. His compositions are unmistakablethey embody a slowness and stillness that, despite the certainty suggested by their documentary quality, grows more complex and complicated over time. Landscapes, buildings, signage, trash, restaurants, the contents of a freezer or ovenall is fair game for Eggleston. Peter Schjeldahl once wrote that to view Egglestons work was to be pummeled by eccentric beauty, and to wonder about it.[1] Ms. Frazier reimagines the tradition of social documentary photography by approaching a community not as a curious or concerned outsider but as a vulnerable insider. But like other trailblazing works about poverty in America James Agee and Walker Evanss Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, for example, or Mr. Parkss Moments Without Proper Names The Notion of Family is both a cautionary tale and a force for educating the public and motivating reform. Blue Slide Playground, located in Pittsburgh's Frick Park, is so well-known that rapper Mac Miller named an album after it. Kids love the playground and can also take advantage of the Frick Read More