Walker Evans Art Exhibit

When I first attended the opening of the Walker Evans exhibit at the Foster Art Gallery I was very intrigued by the detail of the photography. And after listening to Baldwin Lee, Walker Evan’s assistant, speak on Friday morning I was looking at the photographs in a new way.
I realized that Evans was an artist; however, I still thought he was simply documenting the Great Depression in the images he took during the summer of 1936. But Lee said that Evans positioned the pictures he took and as an artist he had the ability to put his own interpretation into a photograph.
I think Evans pictures still served a great purpose in the history of the United States. It showed the hardships the people of the south had to go through during that time period. Although Evans had the ability to position his photographs the way he wanted, I still think it was a wonderful documentation.
The pictures show the “terrible conditions brought on by the Great Depression,” Lee said.
There is one photograph that stuck out at me in the exhibition. It was the photograph of a sharecropper’s wife. There is so much detail in the picture and it shows so much emotion in the eyes of the woman. The interesting thing about this photograph that I did not know or notice until Lee said it is that the image has been published in two different ways. The woman looks to be happier in one of the pictures more so than the other. Lee said that Evans used a flash bulb in the happier picture to bring out her features. It amazes me how completely different a picture can be yet I probably would not have noticed if Lee had not said something. This could be one example of the way Evans manipulated his photographs to show his own interpretations.
Another image that caught my eye was the image of the silverware on a wall. Why would someone keep silverware on their wall? It is not something that most people do. It made me think about the conditions these people must have been living in. It is sad to think that they didn’t have something as simple as a drawer to put their silverware in. The wall itself did not look homely either. It looked dirty and as if it was falling apart. But that was life during the Great Depression for the people living in this home.
In comparing the photographs of the difficulties these people had during the Great Depression and the difficult economic times our country is going through right now I think there would be similar images. I think the emotion depicted through a person’s eyes and body language today would be very similar to that of the people in 1936.
I thoroughly enjoyed this art exhibit and I was extremely impressed by the immense detail and emotion portrayed through the images. Lee’s lecture was very interesting as well and it was a wonderful treat to listen to him talk about Walker Evans from his perspective as someone that knew him quite well.

-Michelle Enger-