Neighborland

Revolutionary Color Photography and William Eggleston and Me

By Liz Chilsen, June 24, 2012 at 12:15 pm

In the 1970's, William Eggleston made a photograph in Memphis Tennessee containing the small details of a home's front door and a basketful of posies. Dappled light flitters across the surface revealing textures of paint and rust. The image stops me in my tracks. The details so revealing of social class and expectation, of design and decoration; an ordered life within. One morning walking the dog, I was seized by a reincarnation of that moment before me. And I made my own picture in homage.

In Eggleston's picture, there's a scalloped shadow at the top, an embellished mailbox, layers of paint, color patterns and accent trim... In my own picture, the door is new, the mailbox brassy and thin. Like Eggleston's door before it, this door is a common style, ubiquitously available. The elements are evidence of aspirations and expedience, and I appreciate the way Eggleston draws us to them, encapsulating in his frame a host of elements of place and time.

Wm Eggleston's picture appeared on page 17 of his ground-breaking book William Eggleston's Guide, published in 1979 by the Museum of Modern Art. The book cataloged MOMA's first one-person exhibition of color photography; Eggleston's photographs made around his southern 'neighborland' of Memphis.

It's nearly impossible to grasp what that exhibition meant; the deep suspicions trained upon color in photography at the time.  Read a review on PhotoEye about the book. And this post on Slate by Jim Lewis. To the discussion, I add a small experience of my own. Nearly a decade after The Guide, the Walker Art Center organized "On the Line: The New Color Photojournalism" an exhibition that wrestled with color in photography. I visited the show with my then two-year-old niece. The presence of her young eyes beside mine as I viewed the images contextualized their questions -- questions with which we still wrestle -- about war and violence and poverty. The issue of whether these questions can be contended with in color just never came up.

Chicago Photographs: The Emotional Quality of Place

By Liz Chilsen, Monday, January 16, 2013 at 11:15 pm

The emotional quality of a place can be hard to put a finger on, or can sometimes come at unexpected moments - especially in a vast urban environment like Chicago. Last week I found myself thinking about this as I went about my days.

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Historic Chicago – Michigan Avenue

By Liz Chilsen, Monday, June 6, 2012 at 9:30 am

I'm often on South Michigan Avenue, and on a recent morning as I walked to my office I noticed an historic landmarker posted on the street. It got me thinking, and took me down this path connecting Columbia College Chicago, the Spertus Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the International Harvester Corporation, the McCormick Reaper Company, Cyrus McCormick, the Wisconsin Historical Society, Wirt Dexter and Louis Sullivan, Krueck+Sexton and Dream Town.

Join me on this exploration of buildings and places -- and see how you can get from glittery historic Michigan Avenue to utilitarian farm implements in Wisconsin. That's how buildings are. They surround us and support us. We create them as places to pursue our ambitions and as embodiments of our dreams. We rest in them, and play and plan. We change them to fit our new uses and needs. They nurture our spirit, and they survive us as evidence of and contribution to our time on this planet and community.