Last Friday, I had the chance to hear Jacob Holdt (he being the Danish vagabond who traveled the most poverty-stricken, racist parts of the United States in the 1970s with $40 in his pocket and created the book American Pictures) talk at the New York Photo Festival in DUMBO. He talked of many topics: his love affairs, joining the Ku Klux Klan, living amongst the impoverished black communities in America, touring with his book, bringing about change through love, his involvement in fighting global racism, and the many friends of his who during his life have been murdered or gone to jail. He has lost and loved and laughed often, and his stories share his complete lack-of-fear and penetrating idealism in trying to understand broken and violent communities, and the ways he has perennially lived with the idea that people who have endured pain early in their lives should have another opportunity to live—with less pain (and less hatred).
Holdt’s journey through the United States is in and of itself remarkable, but what caught my attention most, was the way he has visited recurring persons throughout his life–people who have become friends and his subjects, an extensive cast of characters that includes former lovers, a young boy with a proclivity for leaning on one arm, or a Klan member, and a man who went to jail for murder who Holdt helped get out and later became one of the directors of the American Pictures documentary (video and sound).
Many photographers make a single strong portrait of a person they only meet once, but I think many stronger and more intimate portraits are often born out of subjects photographed over a long period of time. I think of Wolfgang Tillman’s images of his then-boyfriend, the painter Jochen Klein, of Annie Liebowitz’s images of Susan Sontag, of Tierney Gearon’s photographs of her mother (The Mother Project), and of Mary Ellen Mark’s ongoing relationship with Erin Blackwell (aka Tiny), a woman she first met as a 14-year old homeless street kid in Seattle while making the documentary Streetwise in the early 1980s. Whether it is the photographer’s investment in the person (most of the examples above being significant others or family-members), having a collection of portraits of a single person—taken by a single person—nearly always translates into a surprising store of memories for recounting how both parties lives have had weaving paths that intersected again and again during moments the photographs were snapped.
Holdt’s series is most surprising, however, because there is always a power struggle happening between the photographer and subject, and here one could easily see his images as exploitative or humiliating as he captures many in their decrepit shacks, laying drunk, naked or caught in sexual acts. What makes it not feels exploitative is that he shows commitment to the people by participating in their lives over the course of sometimes 30 or 40 years, revisiting these same shacks and same people, with an outward dedication towards seeing who they have become and how they are doing. I recommend taking a long look through his website (and go hear him speak if you ever get the opportunity). I, myself, am on a hunt for a copy of his book, which has been out of print since 1977 when the KGB revealed they were trying to use it in a battle to cease humanitarian aid programs in the United States. If you find one, let me know.
N.B.
1. I suppose this is where I’ve been.
2. Two good shows opening this week: Christian Chaize’s Praia Piquinia at Jen Bekman Gallery (5/20, 6-8 p.m.) and Drawing Contemporaries @ Eyebeam (5/21, 6-8 p.m.)
3. Do not miss the excellent collection of American Museum of Natural History diorama scans from the early 1900s that are now available online.
4. The work of Estelle Hanania
