Richard Avedon - American West showing at the Amon Carter

A haunting story written in in beautifully made life-size prints of
subjects that few of us would describe as beautiful--hopeless,
suffering, ordinary, occasionally ghoulish. The fringe of society that
we all know is there but want to forget. The sterile setting, plain
stark white background with natural lighting and the life size scale
of the images, the lack of posing and staging of the subjects, all
come together to show each subject in an intimate, naked, almost
pornographic way. I felt uneasy, as though I were violating the
subject in some way by looking. The detail in the prints makes the
subject come alive. I found myself looking into the eyes then looking
away, as if the subject caught me staring. I was drawn by their
beauty, and repulsed simultaneously. I sobbed when I saw the first few
prints--there was something archetypal about them that stirred me that
I'm not sure I can describe, probably that Avedon himself was not
consciously aware. I had to remind myself that while there is truth to
each image, it's not the whole truth, as we who live in the American
West know--rather, the collection of images together is a story taken
from the West, memorably and artfully told as seen in the mind of a
storyteller.

Well done, Dianna. But I think that you're wrong that Avedon didn't appreciate what he had done. I think that he knew exactly what you were feeling, and planed it that way.

Well Dianna, when I listened to Avedon when he was here, at the Carter, last year I'm pretty sure he knew. He was a bundle of energy that night and it was quite insightfull listening to him talk about the project. Did you by chance get to attend? If you do a search, you will find we have had a few discussions about that night and the show that is up right now.

Oh yeah! Welcome to APUG, there are several of us in the area that get together from time to time.

I've never heard him speak... in fact, other than seeing an interview with his assistant on public TV a few weeks ago, I didn't know about his work. I'll look for the past discussions. I'd love to know others impressions of the project.

Thanks for the welcome!

Dianna, there is a whole book on Avedon's project by his assistant. It's too expensive to buy for a one-time read, but you can have your local library get for you with ILL (Inter Library Loan). "In The American West," by Laura Wilson. ISBN 0810959283.

Bill Mitchell said:

Dianna, there is a whole book on Avedon's project by his assistant. It's too expensive to buy for a one-time read, but you can have your local library get for you with ILL (Inter Library Loan). "In The American West," by Laura Wilson. ISBN 0810959283.

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Since you brought this up Bill, and Dianna is in the area...she has the chance for a real treat ... On Sunday Nov. 13 at 3pm Laura Wilson, Avedons assistant, will be giving a talk at the Carter discussing 'In The American West'.
Check here for more information. I plan to be there...get there early, it will fill up fast.

There is a DVD...

...called "Richard Avedon: Darkness And Light". Among many other things, it shows Avedon talking to some of the "American West" subjects years afterwards....

Dianna (as in Kevin's Dianna?) I have Laura Wilson's American West book and the Avedon: Darkness and Light movie--you're welcome to borrow them.

Mike, don't forget to send a reminder for that talk when it starts creeping closer because I'm not going to miss this one!

Hey Jeremy, yes it's me, as in Kevin's... thanks!, I'd love to borrow your books.

I hope I'll be able to make the talk in November, and also finally meet some of the other APUG shooters. I can't say for sure - I'm about 100 weeks pregnant (as Kevin likes to describe me) and the baby could make an appearance before then. That would be better than during the talk.

dianna said:

Hey Jeremy, yes it's me, as in Kevin's...

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Hi, Dianna

Another "Welcome" from a North Texas member. Hope to see more of you and Kevin! If not on the 13th, there will be other times!

Take care of that baby!!!

David Brown

Hey,

I wanted to let a few replies go by before I gave my impressions so this wouldn't just be a Kevin-&-Dianna-chatting-it-up-in-APUG-thread.

I went to the exhibition with great anticipation, since these were likely to be some of the largest and best executed silver gelatin prints I'd ever seen. Seeing the collection was definitely something that requires some soak time afterward to process all you've just experienced.

I think each of the images was steeped in the dualism of both presenting Avedon's experience of the subject and the viewer's experience of the work. Of course, the two don't exist in a vacuum, so that leads me to believe that there was a 'holy trinity' of perception with the artist as represented by the work, the viewer's experience of the work, and the relationship between the two. Interesting that none of this stuff came to mind when I viewed the even larger (digital) prints of images made along the Lewis and Clark trail. That day, the strongest feeling was that I didn't get my money's worth of the free admission.

The best portraits are a peep show, and these are a peep show of the highest calibre. From time to time, I've met folks who remind me of many of the subjects in the Avedon portraits, but I've never been afforded the indulgence -- the privilege of the kind of intimacy with them that I did when standing toe-to-toe with the larger than life Avedon prints. It was a week day (we played hooky to see the exhibit) and the crowd was light. I was able to stand with each print and look as long and hard as I wanted without inconveniencing anyone, examining every crease in their faces, every pore, trying to decrypt the layers of emotion behind each face.

At first blush, it's very easy to see the objections the exhibition has engendered over the years: that the subjects are shown in the worst possible light; that the west is characterized as an underclass, etc. I think that's not quite it, and certainly I don't see the subjects as a 'lower' or 'under' class, but it is hard for me to escape the impression that they're at the opposite end of continuum than Avidon's usual subjects.

Blansky's comments from a few weeks back reminded me of the filmstrips my family viewed when I was a kid. They were 35mm strips with a vinyl LP soundtrack that beeped when you were supposed to advance to the next image. The overall message of the filmstrips was "Oh, look at these quaint little people from other lands! Don't you want to just patronize then and make caricatures of them?" I was left with the impression that these were portraits by a resin-coated photographer of the fiber-based world. I think there's a certain validity to the approach, but I think only the broadest strokes of the subjects are available to someone with such cultural distance. Conversely, I think if such a project were undertaken by a fellow coal miner, drifter, factory worker, bee keeper or nuclear fallout victim, the subtle details of the subjects would be captured but that the broader strokes would be missed.

Perhaps that's the perennial problem in portraiture -- where to stand.

-KwM-

I am old enough to have seen this show when it opened the first time around. I told someone today that I absolutely hated this show then. I have learned to love it now. What that speaks to me is I was not mature enough to realize I was standing in the midst of greatest. Now 30 years later I realize how wrong I was.

lee\c

Interesting perspective Lee, and very glad you shared it with us. I could have seen this when it opened, but did not for some reason...think I was in the midst of life, and photography had taken a backseat at the time. Did not see it until about 10+ years ago, when by chance was at the LBJ Library in Austin with some friends and just turned a corner to see what was in one section and was face to face with these HUGE prints.....stopped me dead in my tracks. At the time, I was not sure how I felt about them...knew I felt something but did not know if it was the images or the shear size that had me thinking about them over and over. A couple of years ago, when the Amon Carter reopened after the big expansion there were a few of these up then. At that time, I realized what a major work they were. Have now seen the show a couple of times, and plan to go a few more times before it comes down and must say I see the prints with NEW EYES!! Now, more than before I look at each image and feel pulled in to the image. In almost ever image, the eyes draw you into the person that is there...from up close or from across the room, you get the feeling that you are THERE, you could talk with them...and you wonder what ever became of that person. What was the cause of the joy, pain, emptiness in those eyes. As much a cliche as it sounds, you really get a feel for the soul of the person in the image. Maybe it is just that, a cliche, or maybe Avedon gave so much of himself that the subjects were comfortable giving back.....just some personal thoughts.

lee said:

I am old enough to have seen this show when it opened the first time around. I told someone today that I absolutely hated this show then. I have learned to love it now. What that speaks to me is I was not mature enough to realize I was standing in the midst of greatest. Now 30 years later I realize how wrong I was.

lee\c

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Jeremy Moore said:

Dianna (as in Kevin's Dianna?) I have Laura Wilson's American West book and the Avedon: Darkness and Light movie--you're welcome to borrow them.

Mike, don't forget to send a reminder for that talk when it starts creeping closer because I'm not going to miss this one!

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Jeremy, et al...just a reminder that Laura Wilson's talk is THIS Sunday at 3 pm. Plan to make every effort to make this, so hope to see everyone there (Kevin and Dianna - hope you can make it, if not that will mean good news I hope).

drat it... we won't be there. Something came up (as opposed to someone coming out) a few days ago and it conflicts. If the Laura Wilson thing was a couple of hours earlier, we probably could have done it. Ah well. Hopefully, someone will post an event report.

Have lots of fun, guys.

-KwM-

photomc said:

Jeremy, et al...just a reminder that Laura Wilson's talk is THIS Sunday at 3 pm. Plan to make every effort to make this, so hope to see everyone there.

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Thanks for the reminder, Mike, because I would have forgotten. I'm planning on being there and hopefully it pans out.

Dianna, Kevin, Jeremy et al...David, Lee (with his wife and mother) and I made it to Laura Wilson talk today. Sorry you guys did not make it, it was Standing Room Only (about 160 - which packed the room). There was the typical slide show and talk, and then the Q&A afterwords. All in all I found it very interesting from how Ms. Wilson got the job as Avedon's assistant, to her thoughts on 'the man' himself.

Now there was one question that was not answered..(David and I both had) was what happened to the body of work Avedon was working on at the time of his death? does anyone recall if the work was ever published?

Jeremy was not there so he forfeits the 2 empty film boxes I had brought to the Museum.
Too bad big guy...

lee\c

photomc said:

...Now there was one question that was not answered..(David and I both had) was what happened to the body of work Avedon was working on at the time of his death? does anyone recall if the work was ever published?

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Some of it was published in the Nov. 1, 2004 New Yorker Magazine. It includes some color portraits in his usual style (plain white background, 8X10 camera, etc...). I don't know if those pictures were all he had from that project, or just a taste given to The New Yorker, but the theme is "Democracy 2004" and features some of the famous, infamous, and common All-American folk.

Joe

I went to see this show yesterday - with Lee and our respective wives along, too.

The first time I saw an Avedon print (years ago), I thought it was the most spectacularly beautiful print of the ugliest subject I had ever seen. Well, that description is still fitting, but it misses the essence of what this body of work is. It is so much more than great prints of ordinary people.

And that's one thing you may get from seeing the whole show, as opposed to one or two images by themselves. These are, after all, ordinary people, and not freaks. Avedon and Laura Wilson got these people to pose by talking to them and getting to know them a bit. They weren't tricked into it, or paid.

It closes next week!!! Just a reminder; if you haven't seen it and want to, or want to see it again - now is the time! Whether you love it or hate it (it will be one or the other in most cases), it is a "must see".

Cheers, y'all.

David

lee said:

I am old enough to have seen this show when it opened the first time around. I told someone today that I absolutely hated this show then. I have learned to love it now. What that speaks to me is I was not mature enough to realize I was standing in the midst of greatest. Now 30 years later I realize how wrong I was.

lee\c

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The following description is posted in “coming exhibitions” at the Columbus, OH Museum of Art for next June. Is it the same exhibit you are making us all interested in? If so I hope other APUG Midwesterners will join me.

“In the American West: Photographs by Richard Avedon
June 23 - September 17, 2006
In these boldly scaled portraits of truckers, oil workers, and drifters, Avedon created a compelling record of the fiber-hard, caring, frayed, and resilient-of common American characters. Assertive, controversial, and graphically striking, the portraits in the exhibition generated extensive and at times heated discussion about the nature of portraiture, photography and the true identity of the American West. Avedon's oversize portraits of working class westerners have become icons in photographic history, and the project still stands as a definitive expression of the power of photographic art. “

John Powers

jp80874 said:

The following description is posted in “coming exhibitions” at the Columbus, OH Museum of Art for next June. Is it the same exhibit you are making us all interested in? If so I hope other APUG Midwesterners will join me...

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Apparently so. Don't miss the chance to see this work. You may or may not like it, but you must see it.

Cheers,

David