"WE ARE FIXED AND CERTAIN ONLY WHEN WE ARE IN MOVEMENT." AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHY AND MARK STEINMETZ

There is a style of photography which is American in every way. It quietly exalts the small, finds beauty and strength in the unheralded and common moment, and enthralls in a sort of poetry of everyday life. (An accomplishment, I would add, for which photography is particularly adept.) I'm not certain where this tradition began. I would think it came directly from the tens of thousands of iconic images produced by the photographers of the FSA in the 1930's; Walker Evans, Dorthea Lange, Marion Post Wolcott and others. They helped define through photography an essential vision of this country, and showed America to itself. From there it continued with Robert Frank and the requisite compendium of 1950's America, "The Americans", which led to Larry Clark and "Tulsa" and onto Lee Friedlander, William Eggleston and Gary Winogrand (not in that order). This is a deep American tradition, and it refers to American ideals; tenderness for small things of everyday life, and everyday people. I recently discovered the sublime Mark Steinmetz, who works perfectly in this tradition, more contemporarily. Everything posted here was done by him, in technically dazzling black and white, through the 1980's and 90's.
By the way, the quote I used to title this entry is by Thomas Wolfe and reads, in its entirety, "Perhaps this is our strange and haunting paradox here in America-that we are fixed and certain only when we are in movement." For some reason I found it relevant. Possibly because this is what photographs quite literally acheive-out of the freight train of time, fixed, frozen moments.

ONLY THIS TODAY

BRINGING THE WAR HOME, MARTHA ROSLER

In 1999 there was a show at the Whitney. It was called, something like, Art of the 20th Century, and they divided it into 2 fifty year periods. I didn't live in New York yet and was only visiting, so I only caught the second half. At the time, despite being in art school, I wasn't nearly as conversant or even all that interested in art as I later became. But the thing I do remember, after looking at the show, was being struck, and totally enamored with Martha Rosler's series, "Bringing the War Home". Stylistically it appealed to me, as it was made in an era I was interested in, but once again the use of profoundly simple gestures to convey complex and brutal realities to me seemed really smart. The juxtaposition of ideal American home environments, our banal cultural aspirations of the good life, contrasted with imagery of brutalized suffering, somehow tacitly justified by that very ideology of the good life we sought, and seek. Horrifying. And brilliant.