IN REVIEW
ORLANDO THOMPSON:
I AM THERE The diptychs Orlando Thompson creates by placing two 35mm photographs together have become his personal tarot deck. Tarot cards provide spiritual and symbolic meaning using numerology and color, and can be interpreted through emotional feeling and intuition. I am There speaks to the viewer through this same sense of introspection and self-awareness as it presents a series of photographs taken during the past two years of Thompson’s life. The diptychs were not compiled chronologically after the photos were developed. Thompson selected each grouping for the purpose of conveying a more complex narrative than each has on its own. This presentation of the photos in sets of two prompts the viewer to consider what connection the artist has drawn between them.
The possible meanings provided by interpreting the linked images that are set against each other adds an ambiguity similar to that provided by a tarot card. I am There, curated at The Dark Room in St. Louis’s Midtown Grand Arts Center by Gina Grafos, tells the story of Thompson’s adventures through deserts and desert-like cities. The photos have a dry, hot atmosphere. Industrial factories occupy many of the shots. There is something to be said for the emotion that rises when we view vast industrial scenes. The effect is compounded, or at least changed, by placing these industrial images beside natural landscapes. Thompson draws special attention to his own hands, which reach up into the foreground of
Orlando Thompson, Landscape (image courtesy of he Dark Room) 07 ALLTHEARTSTL.COM SPRING 2019
IN REVIEW
THE DARK ROOM several photographs. This is to say: I am black. I am the American romantic. I am the American poet. From a wall of striking black and white diptychs, one draws me in: a silhouetted woman holds a cigarette up to her lips—she is black, confident, elegant and happy. She is dressed in casual work clothes, and she smiles coyly while facing away from the camera as if turning away to conceal her identity. She drags on her cigarette. The partner photo in this diptych is an octagonal street pole with a heavily duct-taped flyer proclaiming, “LOST” above a gaping hole where the flyer’s other text has gone missing. We don’t know what has been lost: we’ve lost the notation of what was lost. And this woman doesn’t know what is lost either, although the juxtaposition of the two
