A black-and-white photograph, about thirty inches square, pinned to the wall near the entrance of Rosalind Fox Solomon's exhibition Got to Go at Bruce Silverstein Gallery in New York City (February 25-April 16). 2016), depicts a young boy holding an older woman's bare breasts. The woman in the image looks down at him with a smile, arms calmly at her side, shoulders back. Six other figures of all ages are also pictured some faces just barely visible), crowded around the woman and the boy. Their observance of this gentle, lighthearted interaction mirrors that of the unseen photographer, and, ultimately, of the viewer. All of the figures in the image, Karoo, South Africa, 1990, are black, wear only a piece of fabric around each of their waists, and stand outside a grass structure. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Pinned in close proximity to this photograph was another photograph of the same size, also depicting a woman with a child, Neshoba, Mississippi, 2001. However, the figures pictured in this image are white, blonde, and clothed, and stand on a sidewalk at night. The older woman, casually dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, stands in contrast to the young girl, who is dressed like a Disney princess complete with an updo and makeup. Solomon's flash illuminates the pair at a nervous moment. A small point-and-shoot camera dangles from the woman's arm as she prepares to stick a corsage to the girl's costume. The little girl is fidgeting as she looks away from the adult standing before her. Solomon placed these images among a gallery filled with dozens of others, so that viewers could not consider one without comparing it to the other. This pairing--unclothed South Africans next to clothed Americans--lead this viewer to a second comparison of equal disparateness: Solomon's project with Edward Steichen's 1995 exhibition and publication The Family of Man. Familiar to most people today in book form, the Family of Man project was first shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and included images made around the world by both known and unknown photographers, primarily of American or European nationality. In the publication, over five hundred pictures are organized by greeting card-like themes such as love, birth, and death, and printed in a range of sizes. Sentimental quotes, taken from a variety of sources, are inserted among the images to enhance the exhibition's glossy message of sameness across humanity. However, while Steichen's arrangement of images sings classical, Solomon's screams hardcore. Through her highly personal approach, Solomon's photography provides an alternative to Steichen's notion of what the world looks like, or at least, what photographs of the world look like. When Steichen and his staff first presented their project, Solomon was not yet making art, but she had begun traveling internationally. In 1951, following her college graduation, she started working with the pioneering, volunteer-abroad group, the Experiment in International Living, whose motto is People learn to live together, by living together. Solomon dates the beginning of her photographic practice to a 1968 trip with the Experiment to Japan, where the differences in culture that she was experiencing inspired her to take pictures. At this point, Solomon was married with two children, but looking for an outlet. In 1977. Solomon defined photography as, An excuse for retreating further into myself and my own world because I couldn't live in the world I wanted. (1) That year, Solomon's husband had taken a job in Washington, DC, as part of President Jimmy Carter's administration. Years of what she has called discontent were fueled, in part, by the feminist movement of the era. In response, she began teaching herself how to shoot and print photographs. Considering the criticism that Steichen's project immediately and continuously received, Solomon's wielding of the camera to depict people we are most curious about was brave in a post-Family of Man world. …
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Sep 11, 2019
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