The iconic American photographer Walker Evans is so well known for his photographs of Depression Era America in the 1930s that it is hard to believe he died in 1975. He seems to be from a much earlier time.
I got a new library card and perused the Grantham library for things of interest. Back in my days as a student at Boston University I used to wallow in the photography monograph collection that stretched 20 feet, four or five shelves high. Here in this little rural library the pickings were a few books dedicated to photographers including “Walker Evans Decade by Decade”.
So much of Walker Evan’s celebrated work involves his early work in the poor, downtrodden, vernacular part of the south that it is a revelation to learn more about his work in later periods.
In the foreword by Aaron Betsky, director of the Cincinnati Art Museum, the ones behind the show, Betsky points out that:
“…artistic careers do not just appear out of nowhere. However brilliant an artist may be, he or she must show their work somewhere. Art museums and galleries construct the meaning and worth of artwork in collaboration with, or sometimes in contradiction to, the artist. Critics pick up this task by either elaborating what the themes and messages of an artwork might be, or constructing their own meanings through and over the images.”
So the audience of the work is typically seeing it through these filters that stand between the artist and the viewer. This guards of the art world inject their personal preferences not only in choosing the artist shown and collected but the way in which their work is cataloged, curated and exhibited.
The presentation of the work is not solely the artists and often is more the result of these collaborators.
Walker Evans legacy and the emphasis on his early work at the expense of his later work, was shaped by the curators who brought his work to the world.
In the book’s introduction, James Crump the curator of photography at the Cincinnati Art Museum, lays bare the path of Evans work and it’s relationship with The Museum of Modern Art which first brought Evans to fame with “American Photographs” and Evans and John Szarkowski’s symbiotic career paths. Szarkowski’s own personal preference towards the earlier work, gave Evans photography a wider audience but at the same time kept his later work hidden.
Not unlike a music group being asked to play their old number one hits instead of their new material. Success is great. Exposure is great. But it seems to come at a cost of never escaping one’s earlier works.
This exhibit aimed to give each decade of Walker Evans lifetime of photographer it’s due and the book is an interesting read.