Myth, Manners and Memory - Walker Evans et al

The above titled exhibition showing photographers of the American South, is currently to be seen at the rather splendid art deco De La Waar Pavilion in Bexley-on-Sea, until 3rd January 2011.

The photographic exhibition, features Walker Evans, William Eggleston, William Christenberry, Susan Lipper, Alec Soth and Carrie Mae Weems. As well as the photographs, the exhibition is supported by a series of morning documentary films about the photographers and the American south as well as afternoon classic films like 'A Streetcar Named Desire', 'Gone with the Wind' , 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' and many others. It really is an impressive programme at a surprising location (the next Brighton?) and deserves support.

All the photographers either lived, or spent considerable amounts of time, in the American south but their approach to the subject was very different. The earliest work on show was that of Walker Evans (1903 - 1975) who spent 3 years between 1935 and 1938 working for the Farm Security Administration, an organisation set up by Franklin D.Roosevelt as a means of bringing aid to the rural communities hit by the Depression. Evans was able to travel widely from New Orleans all across the Deep South. I found his portraits of sharecroppers and their families to be particularly poignant.

Another of the photographers, William Christenberry (born 1936 in Alabama), was said to have been deeply influenced by the work of Walker Evans. Each summer since 1960 he returned to a particular location in Alabama to photograph the same buildings. One exhibit shows a collection of about 30 photographs of the same green warehouse from different distances and (presumably) in different years. It reminded me of an OCA project!

It is said that William Christenberry influenced William Eggleston's shift to using colour rather than black and white. I reported on an exhibition of the work of William Eggleston (born 1949 in Memphis) in February of this year when I noted that he was considered "the father of colour photography". So what does this make William Christenberry?

Carrie Mae Weems (born 1953 in Portland, Oregon) is seen more as a political photographer who is quoted as saying that her "primary concern in art, as in politics, is with the status and place of Afro-Americans in our country". The photographs exhibited (from The Louisiana Project (2003)) all include herself in various "politically charged" locations "as witness to the African American experience" in and around New Orleans (a plantation, cemetery, railroad crossing etc). The quotations are taken from the official guide to the exhibition.

The photographs of Susan Lipper (born 1953 in New York) are even more contrived. She spent several months each year (over a 20 year period) living in the same mountain community in West Virginia "not to document their lives - but to take pictures in collaboration with her neighbours". I found this collection of photographs (taken in black and white) a little disturbing in their subject matter whilst, at the same time, their staged nature reduced their dramatic impact.

Finally, the youngest of the six photographers, Alec Soth (born 1969 in Minneapolis) took a series of photographs along the Mississippi, capturing both locations and the people that he met. I like these photographs as they seem to try to get to the heart of how the South is today 
by acute observation.

All in all, this is a very rewarding exhibition and one I would recommend.