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Of sunshine and shadows
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An oomphy Marilyn Monroe, a gyrating Madonna, macho cowboys in tight jeans... Photographs depicting America, on display at Chitra Gallery, provide a stark contrast to these images of the Promised Land that Hollywood, television, and glossies have fed us.
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"Women Rivet Heaters and Passers On" by an unknown photographer, 1919 (above): "White Angel Breadline" by Dorothea Lange, 1933-34.
As Karl Rossmann, a poor boy of sixteen who had been packed off to America by his parents because a servant girl had seduced him and got herself with child by him, stood on the liner slowly entering the harbour of New York, a sudden burst of sunshine seemed to illuminate the Statue of Liberty, so that he saw it in a new light, although he had sighted it long before.
THE OPENING lines of Franz Kafka's novel, America, come to one's mind as one watches the details of Brown Brothers' black-and-white picture, titled "Immigrants Landing at Ellis Island", shot in 1900. And there begins a journey.
As you riffle through the labyrinth of images at the Chitra Gallery, you too (like Karl) begin to see America in a new light.
Picturing the Century: 100 Years of American Photography, showcases a sampling of more than 100 images on the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of America and its people. The exhibition is arranged chronologically in six sections
- A New Century (depicting a burgeoning populace in times of severe uncertainty and instability), The Great War and the New Era (portraying life against the backdrop of the World War I), The Great Depression and the New Deal (describing the aftermath of an unprecedented economic catastrophe), A World in Flames (reliving the horrors of destruction brought about by the World War II), Postwar America (when the nation and its leaders started flexing their economic muscle), and Century's End (showing prosperity and optimism punctuated with the inevitable question marks).
If one expects to see, in this exhibition, an oomphy Marilyn Monroe, a gyrating Madonna, macho cowboys in tight jeans, just forget it. There isn't going to be the staple diet of sex, action, and arrogance blockbustered by the Time-Newsweek-Playboy conglomerate, either. Even the Baywatch or the Bold-and-Beautiful balderdash can get no closer here. On the contrary, the exhibition deliberately and effectively contradicts and ignores these features of the American blarney as depicted in the Hollywood movies, TV shows, and glossy magazines.
As one goes through the predominantly black-and-white offerings in small format, the viewer observes a heavy-hearted presentation of the dreams and drama of the Promised Land. Even the triumphs and successes are celebrated hesitantly, almost apologetically. Acknowledging the glaring contradictions pervading its society, the exhibition makes clear and convincing visual statements to remind, rejoice, and recreate the life in the Big Apple.
The real images in the exhibition, as one would expect, are those of the people of America.
Power house mechanics, structural workers, poor peasants, grief-stricken soldiers, innocent children, unemployed youth, pilot, postman, farmer, political activist, and the mysterious fliers of Ku Klux Klan - each one of them tell their own stories about the life and times of being the citizen of America.
"Take the beam out of your own eye," screams a poster held by a woman who picketed the White House in support of the right to vote for women (Unknown photographer, 1918). Another picture, "Farmer reading his farm paper" (George W. Acherman, September, 1931), shows a man whose body seems relaxed even while his face appears tense and engrossed. A young marine private waits on the beach during the marine landing (unknown photographer, August, 1965), with a look of anticipation, and fingers (on a bonnet?) almost as if in prayer. A grief-stricken soldier mourns his buddy killed near Korea (Al Chang, August, 1950). The wife of a miner with her two children (or grand children) in her dilapidated dwelling looks without expression at the cameraman (Russel Lee), even as the tattered roof plastered with newspaper appears to give way any time. Then, there is a young migratory mother looking with casual defiance at the photographer (Dorothea Lange, April, 1940) concealing the fact that she and her husband travelled 35 miles each way to pick peas and together earn $ 2.25 for a five-hour job each. A naked Japanese prisoner of war is bathed, clipped, "doused", and issued GI clothing (December, 1944) even as a group of American soldiers watch with interest and curiosity.
Scenes such as these are poignant while some others are dramatic - for instance, the one depicting American soldiers celebrating in Paris with posters that proclaim peace (1945). The final picture of the exhibition, perhaps, sums it all. This is a small colour picture shot by Danny Lyon in New York in July, 1974, whose accompanying text reads as follows: "Boy (leaning) against a yellow platform at the Koscinsko swimming pool in the Bedford Stuyvesant District of Brooklyn in New York City. Inner City residents enjoy themselves at this intelligently located pool. The Inner City today is an absolute contradiction to the mainstream America of gas stations, expressways, shopping centres and tract homes. Populated by blacks, Latins, and the white poor."
A word about the photographers. The exhibition includes six portfolios of photographers, both renowned and lesser known: Dorothea Lange, George W. Acherman, Lewis Hine, Walter Lubken, Fenno Jacobs, and Danny Lyon. Dorothea Lange, for instance, is a well-known chronicler of the "exquisite agonies" during the Great Depression, who once said: "One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you'd be stricken blind." Her description (in 1936) of a good photograph, rings true to this day: "The good photograph is not the object, the consequences of the photograph are the objects. So that no one would say, how did you do it, where did you find it, but they would say that such things could be."
Beyond the lustrous reputation of the portfolio artists, the real heroes are those "unknown photographers" who captured many a stirring moment for posterity but did not bother (deliberately or otherwise) to authenticate their personal signatures on them.
A century is quite a long time, in any nation's history. To document the essence of the collective experience of a large nation, covering a time span of 100 years, and to portray its social, economic and political moods, impressions and sensitivities in a single event, is by no means an easy task. There are bound to be some significant hits but inevitably, some glaring misses as well. Be that as it may, as you traverse through the nostalgic, arresting, and heart-filled images, you might try and sight that "sudden burst of sunshine", which Karl Rossmann beheld in Kafka's delightful third novel.
The exhibition, brought to Bangalore by the US Consulate General's office, Chennai, and Directorate of Kannada and Culture, concludes on November 24.
GIRIDHAR KHASNIS
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