see Page 2 - Boston Photography Focus

12insightJim DowAn Interview withA dedicated educator and all-around humanist/ humorist, Jim Dow has taught photography and its historyfor over two decades. He is a full-time faculty member of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts anda regular lecturer at the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University.Receiving both his BFA and MFA from RISD, Jim worked with Harry Callahan and printed for WalkerEvans. Supported by many grants ranging from NEAs to Guggenheims, he has been granted numerousone-person shows and his work included in major collections worldwide, including the George EastmanHouse and the J. Paul Getty Museum. Once the subject of a Smithsonian traveling solo exhibition, Jim’simages of major and minor leaguer baseball stadiums will be featured in a show at the University ofMassachusetts at Amherst this spring. Best of all, Jim has been the exclusive installation photographer forthe PRC’s exhibitions since 1985.Why photography?I got into photography to get out of the army.When I was at RISD, I took graphic design, andwe had to take photo as part of our requirements.I absolutely hated it, but it was one of thefew classes that I got a good mark in. When Ibecame a senior in graphic design, the draft wasreally kicking in for Vietnam. I was desperate totry to figure out what I was going to do next. Allmy friends were either going to go to graduateschool in graphic design, which I clearly wasn’tqualified to do, or were going to work in a designfirm, which I clearly wasn’t qualified to do. Iasked my teacher (Harry) Callahan, “Can I go tograduate school?” He said, “Sure.” That’s how Igot into graduate school. [laughter]Six weeks into the program, a friend of minefrom Yale said, “You should come down here andmeet this Socialist photographer who uses glassplates.” So, we drive down to Yale. At that time,there was this old funky hotel called the HeidelbergHouse that had this Germanic restaurant inthe cellar. And, there were all the faculty of theYale Art and Architecture School, drinkinglunch. [laughter] The drunkest one was this fascinatingolder guy who was obviously the centerof attention. I was just completely blown awayby this guy. I drove back to RISD that night andasked a friend, “Who is this guy Walter Evans?”He took me across the street to the library andshowed me Walker Evans’ American Photographs.Literally overnight, I realized the kindof photography that I was interested in doing—pictures that were as clear, straightforward, andunderstandable as Walker Evans’. I haven’tchanged.Did you begin working with Walker Evansright after grad school or during grad school?I asked Callahan if it would be okay to have himcome and visit. He came and was really interesting,fun, and all that stuff. I kept up an associationwith him because I wanted to try and writea thesis about him, which failed miserably.When I graduated, I didn’t know what I wantedto do to make a living. I heard from Peter Bunnelthat they needed somebody to print theWalker Evans show. I did it, and actually nevergot paid, but it was okay because the idea wasthat I would have my name on it and wouldmake a living doing that. I had an inheritancefrom my parents that was enough to live on, butI knew that after a couple years I was going tohave to have a job. At that point, I got a smalljob teaching at Harvard, and got a NEA fellowship.Those two things changed everything.Each of your photographs seems like its ownlittle event. What comes first, the photographor the experience?That’s a great question because in the individualcase, I look for it, but in the overall case, I gowhere I feel comfortable. I try to make picturesabout that atmospheric sense of comfort, whichis not just that I want to feel groovy all the timeor any of that crap, but more about a metaphorfor needing to find your own place in the world.I might take an occasional picture of somethingspectacular, but for the most part, that’s what it’sabout. I would rather be here than in a four-starrestaurant.Are there any particular images that standout in your mind, places that you want to goback to?I was photographing this beautiful place inArgentina out on the very edge of Buenos Airesin 1986. It was what we would call an Italian deliand had been in business for a generation or two.They had done very well because they not onlysold their stuff over the counter, but they had asort of packaging business as well. But what theyhad done very consciously is keep the place theJim Dow. Photograph by Terrence Morash.way it was in their dad’s generation. There wasthis sort of sawdust on the floor funky quality toit. It wasn’t museum-like, but it allowed you togaze. When we took the photos, I lit the store bypopping a flash. We took about two hundredflashes for two negatives. Afterward, we sent theguy some prints. When we went back in 1997,everybody was older, but the place smelled andtasted just as good. I asked if I could take anotherpicture. They said yes and told me to come backat five o’clock. When we came back, one of thebrothers remembered that I shot all those flashes.He said, “You shot a whole bunch of flashes didn’tyou? Why didn’t you give us a couple hundredpictures?” We tried to explain, but the more wetried to explain, the worse it got. Our explanationmade no sense. So we just packed up ourbags and left. I guess the thing to remember isthat whenever you make a representation ofsomething, you always run the risk that the thingthat you’re representing may change. You have totake that risk. On one hand, I would love to goback and look at every single place that I’ve evertaken a picture of, but I realize that doing so isfraught with all the risks that are endemic tobeing in the representation business.What are you working on now?I’m doing this one project photographing privateclubs in New York. We just decided on the titleof the show, which I think is really nice—Establishments:Clubs, Libraries, and Associations inNew York City. That work is going to go up inMarch at Janet Borden’s.Thank you.Thank you.book reviewsThomas Struth: 1977 – 2002With essays by Douglas Eklund,Ann Goldstein, Maria Morris Hambourgand Charles Wylie.Published by the Dallas Museum of Art. Distributedby Yale University Press, 2002, 189pages, 67 color plates, 34 duotones.Very often, the first thing noted about ThomasStruth’s photographs is their mammoth size. Seenin person, they are as large as 8 x 13 feet, a scalethat can have the effect of enveloping, and evenoverwhelming the viewer. While not nearly solarge as the objects it represents, Struth’s book,too, is oversize, measuring approximately 15 x 16inches. Struth himself laid out the images in thiscollection and as such it must be considered as anextension of his artistic production. Through hischoices in sequencing, Struth makes a case for thecontinuity and similarity between seeminglydiverse bodies of work included in the fifteen-yearsurvey.The sequence of plates in the book opens with agritty and bleak urban landscape, Manhattan’sSoho in 1978. The streets are littered with trashand devoid of human life. Seen from the middle© R.of Crosby Street, our view recedes rapidly into thedistance as the buildings narrow into a centralvanishing point. 137 plates later, the book closeswith a lush and verdant image of a Brazilian forest,taken in 2001. The seemingly impenetrableweaving of foliage is distributed from edge toedge, leaving the viewer hovering at the surface.The two photographs, in many ways, could notbe more different, and as opening and closingimages, they are appropriately drawn from thefirst and the last series represented in the exhibition.What unfolds in between, however, is asequencing structure that otherwise disrupts a linearchronology.In addition to the series mentioned above,Struth’s subjects range from individual portraits toclose-ups of brightly colored flowers to the wellknownmuseum interiors to highly populatedurban areas around the globe, such as Shanghai,New York, and Tokyo. One becomes highly awareof the images as containers of visual information;what we filter out on a daily basis is given back tous here in a more digestible form. Where the realworld can be overwhelming, chaotic, and random,Struth’s sensibility consistently gravitatestoward finding a stillness and calm in which onecan process this complexity. On the flip side, theworld can also be essentially bland and forgettable,and Struth takes on seemingly mundanesubjects such as parking lots, unspectacular architecture,and the ubiquitous family portrait in sucha way as to command attention towards thatwhich is easily overlooked. That the imageswithin the publication are not even remotely onthe scale of the photographs as objects might beseen as a challenge to preserving the viewer’s experience.Here, however, Struth effectively shifts thereader’s focus away from the spectacle of size andtoward a conceptual continuity among a diverserange of subjects.Thomas Struth 1977 – 2002 accompanies anexhibition organized by the Dallas Museum ofArt. It is currently on view at the MetropolitanMuseum of Art through May 18, 2003, afterwhich it will travel to the Museum of ContemporaryArt, Chicago (June 28-September 28, 2003).Struth recently spoke at Harvard University’s CarpenterCenter.Kate Palmer, Ph.D. Candidate in Art History,Boston UniversityS I N G E R E D I T I O N SFine Art Digital Printmakingcollaborative printing archival inks color and b & w naturalpapers13