MOMA: Walker Evans American Photographs

The current exhibit of Walker Evans American Photographs at MOMA is a recreation, on its 75th anniversary, of the museum's first one-person photography show.  In the intervening years, the photos on display have become such a touchstone of American culture that it is difficult to imagine how viewers of the original exhibit must have regarded these now iconic works.  In 1938, the Depression was still a vivid memory to Americans, a scar that had not yet healed.  Evans' FSA photos must have been to most viewers a painful reminder of the economic collapse that had given the lie, at least temporarily, to the promise of the American Dream.

The exhibit, as the museum's website notes, consists of two distinct parts:

"... the installation maintains the bipartite organization of the originals: the first section portrays American society through images of its individuals and social contexts, while the second consists of photographs of American cultural artifacts—the architecture of Main streets, factory towns, rural churches, and wooden houses."

To put it another way, the subject matter of the exhibit could be divided, on the most basic level, into architectural photography and "people" photography.  This is not an arbitrary distinction.  Many of the images seem the work of two different photographers.  Perhaps this is because they employed two very different photographic techniques.  On the one hand, there is the view camera work that captures its architectural subjects in a spare straightforward manner as shown in Negro Church, South Carolina (1936) and in the images of decayed New Orleans residences that were once palatial and now almost reduced to ruin.  The view camera's large format necessitates a studied approach to its subject that is almost contemplative in nature.  There is nothing offhand or spontaneous about it.  Considering the meticulous care with which the image needed to be composed, it's all the more striking that Evans did not print his own work.

On the other hand, Evans used a Leica to capture many of his photos of people.  What he was seeking here was "candid photography."  Looking at these latter photos, one cannot help be reminded of Robert Frank's later work in The Americans.  And indeed Frank was deeply influenced by Evans' work in American Photographs.  This should not be surprising since it was Evans who helped Frank secure the Guggenheim grant that enabled him to travel across the country to take his photos.  There is an excellent monograph by Tod Papageorge that explores the relationship between the two works in depth and finds any number of correspondences between them.  Beyond that, Evans actually wrote an essay in 1958 on Frank's photos and much of what he put down could have referred to his own work as well.  There is an undeniable similarity of vision in each of the two photographers' books.

The exhibit continues through January 26, 2014.