As obsessed and competitive as American culture is with success, it is perturbed by the ruin within. People avoid the homeless, the poor. More than half of the wealth is held by a select few. If those few were willing to share… they could seriously change the economic status of many. They might even shift the economy. When people have deeper emotional issues, or something disastrous happens, many people pull away from that. It’s not pretty, but it’s important for us to care about it. Unfortunately the primitive aspect lies in their tenant status, a system of the days of castles and kingdoms. The tenants are forced to live off of whatever they can get- maybe their landlord does not provide them with what they need. As if the slavery aspect was expanded to include impoverished people of Northern European descent as well.

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men is all about showing what is not pristine. Daily lives that are not “picture perfect” are interesting because of their contrast and textures and patterns that accompany them. They are not the things that you would take pictures of on your vacation. They are not what people travel long distances to see. The houses are reminiscent of the homesteads of the original move west. They are simple, practical to their use of sustaining the lives of a family. In comparison the houses in the exhibit appear quite similar, yet unkempt by our standards.

Not every American of Northern European descent was affected- as my great grandmother told me. Ida Mae Kufalk lived from 1900 – 2006, through both World Wars, changes in technology, and changing gender roles. She lived humbly as a school teacher from the early 1900’s until the 60’s or 70’s, so she was never rich. Whenever I asked her about those events and what it was like to live through them- she said nothing interesting had ever happened to her or her family. She did not live in or near the Dust Bowl so she never experienced the people Walker Evans sought to elevate. This is one of the most admirable things about Photography (and other forms of Art), that unseen parts of people or society can be revealed or expressed.

Chelsea Kufalk