The GRAIN of the PRESENT
April 1, 2017–January 31, 2018
The GRAIN of the PRESENT
Pier 24 Photography Located on San Francisco’s Embarcadero, Pier 24 Photography offers a venue to experience and quietly contemplate photography. In addition to presenting ongoing exhibitions, publications, and public programs, Pier 24 Photography houses the permanent photography collection of the Pilara Foundation.
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RESTROOMS
ENTRANCE
Please note that corresponding gallery numbers are located in the center of each gallery floor throughout the exhibition.
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Family Album
Our Town
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Eamonn Doyle
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10–11 Robert Adams
Prairie
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Stephen Shore
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Diane Arbus
Uncommon Places
A Box of Ten Eleven* Photographs
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Henry Wessel
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Bernd and Hilla Becher
Odd Photos
Typologies and Industrial Landscapes
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Ed Panar
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LaToya Ruby Frazier
Walking Home
The Notion of Family
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Awoiska van der Molen
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Garry Winogrand
Landscapes 2009–15
Women Are Beautiful
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Alec Soth
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Vanessa Winship
Niagara
she dances on Jackson
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Lee Friedlander
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Lewis Baltz
The Little Screens
Candlestick Point
Henry Wessel, Pennsylvania, 1968
These extraordinary, compelling, honest, beautiful and unsparing photographs all have to do with the quality of our lives in the ongoing world: they succeed in showing us the grain of the present, like the cross-section of a tree. The photographs have cut it straight through the center. —Eudora Welty
The GRAIN of the PRESENT The Grain of the Present, Pier 24 Photography’s ninth exhibition, examines the work of ten photographers at the core of the Pilara Foundation collection—Robert Adams, Diane Arbus, Lewis Baltz, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Lee Friedlander, Nicholas Nixon, Stephen Shore, Henry Wessel, and Garry Winogrand—whose works share a commitment to looking at everyday life as it is. Each of these figures defined a distinctive visual language that combines formal concerns with a documentary aesthetic, and all of them participated in one of two landmark exhibitions: New Documents (1967) at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, or New Topographics (1975) at the International Museum of Photography, George Eastman House, Rochester.
Looking back, inclusion in these exhibitions can be seen as both a marker of success and a fore-
shadowing of the profound impact this earlier generation would have on those that followed. Although these two exhibitions were significant, most of these photographers considered the photobook as the primary vehicle for their work. At a time when photography exhibitions were few and far between, the broad accessibility of these publications introduced and educated audiences about their work. As a result, many contemporary photographers became intimately familiar with that work, drawing inspiration from it and developing practices that also value the photobook as an important means of presenting their images.
The Grain of the Present features the work of these ten groundbreaking photographers alongside
six contemporary practitioners of the medium—Eamonn Doyle, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Ed Panar, Alec Soth, Awoiska van der Molen, and Vanessa Winship. This generation embodies Wessel’s notion of being “actively receptive”: rather than searching for particular subjects, they are open to photographing anything around them. Yet the contemporary works seen here do not merely mimic the celebrated visual languages of the past, but instead draw on and extend them, creating new dialects that are uniquely their own.
All of the photographers in this exhibition fall within a lineage that has been and continues to be
integral to defining the medium. What connects them is not simply style, subject, or books. It is their shared belief that the appearance of the physical world and the new meaning created by transforming that world into still photographs is more compelling than any preconceived ideas they may have about it. Each photographer draws inspiration from the ordinary moments of life, often seeing what others overlook—and showing us if you look closely, you can find beauty in the smallest aspects of your surroundings. As a result, the visual language of these photographers resonates beyond each photograph’s frame, informing the way viewers engage with, experience, and perceive the world. 5
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FAMILY ALBUM | GALLERY
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LaToya Ruby Frazier, Momme Portrait Series (Shadow), 2008 8
FAMILY ALBUM | GALLERY
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Our relationship primarily exists through a process of making images together. I see beauty in all her imperfections and abuse. —LaToya Ruby Frazier
LaToya Ruby Frazier, Momme, 2008 9
Top row, left to right: Lee Friedlander, Calvert Barron and Henry Wessel, Point Richmond, California, 2003 Lee Friedlander, Garry Winogrand, 1957 Henry Wessel, Lewis, Santa Monica, 1993 Diane Arbus, Self-portrait, pregnant, N.Y.C., 1945 Stephen Shore, Nicholas Nixon, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, March 13, 1978, 1978 Middle row, left to right: Lee Friedlander, Garry and Eileen Wedding, 1972 Henry Wessel, Lee–East Bay, 1977 Nicholas Nixon, Bob & Kerstin Adams, 1975 Henry Wessel, Garry–Los Angeles, 1983 Henry Wessel, [Lee Friedlander with Camera], 2005 Stephen Shore, Self-Portrait, New York City, 1964 10
FAMILY ALBUM | GALLERY
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Bottom row, left to right: Henry Wessel, Self-Portrait, c. 1968 Lee Friedlander, Boston, 2003 Stephen Shore, Self-Portrait, New York, New York, March 20, 1976, 1976 Bernd and Hilla Becher, [Self-Portrait], N.D. Lee Friedlander, Philadelphia, PA, 1965 Lee Friedlander, Diane and Amy Arbus, 1963 11
Top to bottom: Nicholas Nixon, Bob & Kerstin Adams, 1975 Lee Friedlander, Garry Winogrand, 1957 12
FAMILY ALBUM | GALLERY
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Stephen Shore, Self-Portrait, New York, New York, March 20, 1976, 1976 13
We note the physical manifestations of the passage of time, we speculate on the significance of an expression, a gesture, an article of clothing, we remark on the variety of the pictorial solutions Nixon finds within strict technical and formal parameters, and we marvel at the trust among these participants. In the end, we grow older along with these women, yet we are confronted with four lives we will never know through the eyes of a fifth. And in the space created through that ignorance, we find the potential for understanding the series as a work of art, despite our familiarity with the ritual of standing before a camera with friends or relatives. —Sarah Hermanson Meister
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FAMILY ALBUM | GALLERY
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Nicholas Nixon, The Brown Sisters, New Canaan, Connecticut, 1976 15
Top to bottom: Nicholas Nixon, The Brown Sisters, New Canaan, Connecticut, 1975 Nicholas Nixon, The Brown Sisters, Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts, 1997 16
FAMILY ALBUM | GALLERY
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Top to bottom: Nicholas Nixon, The Brown Sisters, Truro, Massachusetts, 1984 Nicholas Nixon, The Brown Sisters, Boston, Massachusetts, 2012 17
Left to right: Nicholas Nixon, The Brown Sisters, 1975–2016 Alec Soth, Mother and Daughter, Davenport, Iowa, 2002 18
FAMILY ALBUM | GALLERY
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Top row from left: Robert Adams, Colfax Avenue, Lakewood, Colorado, 1970–72 Robert Adams, Longmont, Colorado, c. 1982 Robert Adams, Doll’s House Village, Longmont, Colorado, 1973 Robert Adams, Pikes Peak, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 1969 Bottom row from left: Robert Adams, Eden, Colorado, 1968 Robert Adams, Eden, Colorado, 1968 Robert Adams, Eden, Colorado, 1968 Robert Adams, Untitled View of a Suburban Home, Streetlight at Night, c. 1981 20
OUR TOWN | GALLERY
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What unites them is not style or sensibility; each has a distinct and personal sense of the use of photography and the meanings of the world. What is held in common is the belief that the world is worth looking at, and the courage to look at it without theorizing. —John Szarkowski
Nicholas Nixon, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1979 21
Left to right: Vanessa Winship, Swing on Tree, Franklin, Louisiana, February 2012 Stephen Shore, Second Street, Ashland, Wisconsin, July 9, 1973, 1973 Stephen Shore, Michael and Sandy Marsh, Amarillo, Texas, September 27, 1974, 1974 Awoiska van der Molen, #142–2, 2006 Lee Friedlander, Phoenix, 1973 Lee Friedlander, Nevada, 1970 Lee Friedlander, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 1972 22
OUR TOWN | GALLERY
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Lee Friedlander, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 1972 Right, top to bottom: Lee Friedlander, Nevada, 1970 Lee Friedlander, Phoenix, 1973 24
OUR TOWN | GALLERY
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Left to right: Henry Wessel, Real Estate Photographs, 1990–91 Diane Arbus, Girl with a baseball glove at Camp Lakecrest, Dutchess County, N.Y., 1968, 1968 Diane Arbus, Baseball game in Central Park, N.Y.C., 1962, 1962 Ed Panar, September 2015, 669 Bedford Street, 2015 Garry Winogrand, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1957 26
OUR TOWN | GALLERY
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Henry Wessel, from Real Estate Photographs, 1990–91 28
OUR TOWN | GALLERY
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Left to right: Lewis Baltz, Maryland #21, 1976 Lewis Baltz, Untitled from the series Maryland, 1976 Lewis Baltz, Maryland #14, 1976 Lewis Baltz, Maryland #18, 1976 Lewis Baltz, Maryland #13, 1976 30
OUR TOWN | GALLERY
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But I find it not one thing but many—one printed over another until the whole thing blurs. What it is is warped with memory of what it was and that with what happened there to me, the whole bundle wracked until objectiveness is nigh impossible. . . . This was a little little town, a general store under a tree and a blacksmith shop and a bench in front on which to sit and listen to the clang of hammer on anvil. Now little houses, each one like the next, particularly since they try to be different, spread for a mile in all directions. That was a woody hill with live oaks dark green against the parched grass where the coyotes sang on moonlit nights. The top is shaved off and a television relay station lunges at the sky and feeds a nervous picture to thousands of tiny houses clustered like aphids beside the roads. —John Steinbeck LaToya Ruby Frazier, Edgar Thomson Plant and The Bottom, 2013 31
Left to right: Alec Soth, Brian, 2012 Eamonn Doyle, from the series State Visit, 2011 Bernd and Hilla Becher, Bertreville/Dieppe, France, 2006 Bernd and Hilla Becher, Oeuilly/Reims, France, 2006 Bernd and Hilla Becher, Ally-Sur-Somme/Amiens, France, 2000 32
OUR TOWN | GALLERY
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I wanted to try to just see, “What does looking look like? What is the experience of seeing like?” and use that as a reference for how to put a picture together. Another way of looking at it might be, I think everyone’s had the experience that when they write, they tend to use a language that’s a little more formal and a little more stilted than when they speak, and I think there’s a visual equivalent to that. I wanted a picture that was more the visual equivalent of speaking. —Stephen Shore
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SHORE | UNCOMMON PLACES | GALLERY
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Stephen Shore, U.S. 97, South of Klamath Falls, Oregon, July, 1973, 1973 35
Left to right: Stephen Shore, Conoco Sign, Center St., Kanab, Utah, August 9, 1973, 1973 Stephen Shore, Room 110, Holiday Inn, Brainerd, Minnesota, July 11, 1973, 1973 Stephen Shore, Robert and Lucille Wehrly, Coos Bay, Oregon, August 31, 1974, 1974 Stephen Shore, Second Street, Ashland, Wisconsin, July 9, 1973, 1973 36
SHORE | UNCOMMON PLACES | GALLERY
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Top to bottom: Stephen Shore, Holden Street, North Adams, Massachusetts, July 13, 1974, 1974 Stephen Shore, Trail’s End Restaurant, Kanab, Utah, August 10, 1973, 1973 38
SHORE | UNCOMMON PLACES | GALLERY
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Top to bottom: Stephen Shore, Sugar Bowl Restaurant, Gaylord, Michigan, July 7, 1973, 1973 Stephen Shore, Ginger Shore, Flagler Street, Miami, Florida, November 12, 1977, 1977 39
Left to right: Stephen Shore, I-8, Yuma, Arizona, September 23, 1974, 1974 Stephen Shore, Second Street, Ashland, Wisconsin, July 10, 1973, 1973 Stephen Shore, Room 125, Westbank Motel, Idaho Falls, Idaho, July 18, 1973, 1973 Stephen Shore, Lookout Hotel, Ogunquit, Maine, July 16, 1974, 1974 40
SHORE | UNCOMMON PLACES | GALLERY
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Left to right: Henry Wessel, Nevada, 1986 Henry Wessel, California, 1986 Henry Wessel, Untitled, 1968 Henry Wessel, Walapai, Arizona, 1971 Henry Wessel, Richmond, California, 1989 Henry Wessel, Pink Cup, 2002 Henry Wessel, Nick, Cape Cod, 1986 Henry Wessel, Pico & Tasha, 1987 42
WESSEL | ODD PHOTOS | GALLERY
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Henry Wessel, Pink Cup, 2002 44
WESSEL | ODD PHOTOS | GALLERY
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Henry Wessel, Nick, Cape Cod, 1986 45
The photographs span a period of over thirty years and represent a series of one-liners. Their common quality might be quirkiness. Often these images are discovered on contact sheets between more deliberate pursuits. And just as often, I find myself standing in front of something extraordinary. In either case, they are little gifts from the world, hidden in its chaos, hidden in a piece of time. —Henry Wessel
Right, top to bottom: Henry Wessel, New Mexico, 1968 Henry Wessel, July 4, 1979, Sewickly, PA, 1979 Henry Wessel, Los Angeles, 1995 46
WESSEL | ODD PHOTOS | GALLERY
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Top row from left: Henry Wessel, Valentine’s Day, 1976 Henry Wessel, Untitled, 1982 Henry Wessel, Incidents No. 27, N.D. Henry Wessel, Pennsylvania, 1968 Henry Wessel, Pt. Richmond, 1985 Bottom row from left: Henry Wessel, Leadville, Colorado, 1982 Henry Wessel, Baker Beach, 1987 Henry Wessel, Rodeo Beach, 1987 Henry Wessel, Russian River, California, 1985 Henry Wessel, New Jersey, 1975 48
WESSEL | ODD PHOTOS | GALLERY
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ED PANAR | WALKING HOME | GALLERY
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01 Ed Panar, January 2006, Ferg Street, 2006 02 Ed Panar, June 2001, Brier Avenue & Ferg Street, 2001 03 Ed Panar, April 2011, Killdeer Place, 2011 04 Ed Panar, December 2001, Prospect Hill, 2001 05 Ed Panar, December 2007, Somerset Street, 2007 06 Ed Panar, August 2014, Path to David Street, 2014 07 Ed Panar, June 2005, Swank Building, 2005 08 Ed Panar, August 2014, 1205 Bedford Street, 2014 51
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ED PANAR | WALKING HOME | GALLERY
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01 Ed Panar, September 2007, 560 Bedford Street, 2007 02 Ed Panar, October 2007, Morgan Place, 2007 03 Ed Panar, February 2010, Prospect Hill, 2010 04 Ed Panar, July 2007, Dante Place, 2007 05 Ed Panar, January 2003, Downtown, 2003 06 Ed Panar, September 2007, Steel Street, 2007 07 Ed Panar, November 2008, Franklin Street, 2008 08 Ed Panar, July 2009, Railroad Street, 2009 09 Ed Panar, October 2010, Scott Avenue, 2010 53
Left to right: Ed Panar, November 2008, Franklin Street, 2008 Ed Panar, August 2005, Willow Street, 2005 Ed Panar, July 2007, Dante Place, 2007 Ed Panar, October 2010, Scott Avenue, 2010 54
ED PANAR | WALKING HOME | GALLERY
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ED PANAR | WALKING HOME | GALLERY
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01 Ed Panar, April 2015, Front Porch View, 2015 02 Ed Panar, September 2007, Front Porch View, 2007 03 Ed Panar, February 2010, Front Porch View, 2010 04 Ed Panar, May 2008, Picture Window, 2008 05 Ed Panar, August 2015, Front Porch View, 2015 06 Ed Panar, October 2014, Front Porch View, 2014 07 Ed Panar, May 2012, 1050 Bedford Street, 2012 08 Ed Panar, June 2005, Long Street, 2005 09 Ed Panar, June 2015, Dale Borough, 2015 10 Ed Panar, November 2014, Cliff Street View, 2014 11 Ed Panar, October 2014, Council Avenue, 2014 12 Ed Panar, November 2012, Slick Alley, 2012 57
Top to bottom: Ed Panar, May 2008, Picture Window, 2008 Ed Panar, August 2015, Front Porch View, 2015 58
ED PANAR | WALKING HOME | GALLERY
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I’m mostly interested in simply being wherever I am and being open to the particular configuration of reality in that particular space and moment. It’s not quite as easy as it sounds, and I find this experience to be quite humbling at times. It is very easy to find yourself projecting ideas onto the world and reacting in that way instead of being open to just what is, and that is the zone where I try to operate and explore. —Ed Panar
Ed Panar, February 2010, Front Porch View, 2010 59
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ED PANAR | WALKING HOME | GALLERY
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01 Ed Panar, February 2007, Hickory Street Bridge, 2007 02 Ed Panar, October 2014, Roberts Alley, 2014 03 Ed Panar, November 2014, Arthur Street, 2014 04 Ed Panar, December 2015, Horner Street, 2015 05 Ed Panar, February 2015, Minersville, 2015 06 Ed Panar, August 2005, Willow Street, 2005 07 Ed Panar, December 2016, May Street, 2016 08 Ed Panar, June 2015, May Street, 2015 09 Ed Panar, November 2008, Rodgers Avenue, 2008 10 Ed Panar, May 2008, Lucas Place, 2008 11 Ed Panar, December 2013, Hill Place View, 2013 61
Center image: Awoiska van der Molen, #274-5, 2013 62
VAN DER MOLEN | LANDSCAPES 2009–15 | GALLERY
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Top row from left: Awoiska van der Molen, #245-18, 2010 Awoiska van der Molen, #422-7, 2015 Awoiska van der Molen, #373-7, 2015 Awoiska van der Molen, #214-4, 2009 64
VAN DER MOLEN | LANDSCAPES 2009–15 | GALLERY
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Bottom row from left: Awoiska van der Molen, #256-17, 2009 Awoiska van der Molen, #413-16, 2015 Awoiska van der Molen, #412-9, 2015 Awoiska van der Molen, #311-16, 2011 65
Left: Awoiska van der Molen, #245-18, 2010 Right: Awoiska van der Molen, #413-16, 2015 66
VAN DER MOLEN | LANDSCAPES 2009–15 | GALLERY
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“Thereness” is a sense of the subject’s reality, a heightened sense of its physicality, etched sharply into the image. It is a sense that we are looking at the world directly, without mediation. Or rather, that something other than a mere photographer is mediating. The camera alone perhaps, windowing the world without art or artifice, or that mysterious power itself—reality—given form and shape by the magical conjunction of chemical surface and light. —Gerry Badger 67
Left to right: Alec Soth, Falls #26, 2005 Alec Soth, Would you come home?, 2005 Alec Soth, Jennifer and Terrell, 2005 Alec Soth, Best Western, 2005 Alec Soth, Joy’s divorce party, 2004 Alec Soth, Rebecca, 2005 68
SOTH | NIAGARA | GALLERY
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My whole career in photography has been this sort of battle with text, and with story, and narrative. There’s been the longing for narrative, and at the same time the knowledge that photography often resists it, and functions best when narrative is imagined. —Alec Soth
Right: Alec Soth, Would you come home?, 2005 70
SOTH | NIAGARA | GALLERY
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Left to right: Alec Soth, Cadillac Motel, 2005 Alec Soth, Falls #2, 2005 Alec Soth, Tricia and Curtis, 2005 Alec Soth, Heart, 2005 72
SOTH | NIAGARA | GALLERY
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Left to right: Alec Soth, A-1 Motel, 2005 Alec Soth, David, 2005 Right: Alec Soth, Melissa, 2005 74
SOTH | NIAGARA | GALLERY
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Lee Friedlander, The Little Screens, 1961–70 76
FRIEDLANDER | THE LITTLE SCREENS | GALLERY
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Lee Friedlander, Philadelphia, 1968 78
FRIEDLANDER | THE LITTLE SCREENS | GALLERY
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The pictures on these pages are in effect deft, witty, spanking little poems of hate. They are the work of Lee Friedlander, one of the most accomplished and sharp-minded of the younger American photographers. It just so happens that the wan reflected light from home television boxes casts an unearthly pall over the quotidian objects and accouterments we all live with. The electronic pallor etiolates our bed boards and pincushions, our mute scratch pads and our inglorious pillboxes. It is a half-light we never notice, as though we were dumb struck by those very luminous screens we profess to disdain. That distain is not much mitigated by Friedlander’s selective potshots. What are these faces that moon out from the screen? Taken out of context as they are here, that baby might be selling skin rash, the careful, good-looking women might be categorically unselling marriage and the home and total daintiness. Here, then, from an expert hand, is a pictorial account of what TVscreen light does to rooms and to the things in them. The human denizens of the rooms are purposely left out. In this atmosphere of eclipse, the sense of citizen presence is actually increased. For the thousandth time, let it be said that pictures which are really doing their work don’t need words. Friedlander’s stinging and toughly amusing, bitterly funny observations want no line captions, and in this instance they had better be called just One, Two, Three, Five, and so on. —Walker Evans, Harper’s Bazaar, February 1963
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Top to bottom: Lee Friedlander, Untitled, 1960s Lee Friedlander, Florida, 1963 80
FRIEDLANDER | THE LITTLE SCREENS | GALLERY
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Top to bottom: Lee Friedlander, Atlanta, 1962 Lee Friedlander, Aloha, Washington, 1967 81
Eamonn Doyle, from the series i, 2013 82
DOYLE | i | GALLERY
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Eamonn Doyle, from the series i, 2013 84
DOYLE | i | GALLERY
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Eamonn Doyle, from the series i, 2013 86
DOYLE | i | GALLERY
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It’s exciting to give yourself over to the flow of the street completely and see where it takes you. I love a lot of conceptual and documentary photography, but I think it suits me more to go out into the world without any agenda as such and see what is thrown up. Regardless of what you encounter on the street, what you choose to zone in on or react to, it will always be personal and reflect whatever’s going on inside, consciously or subconsciously. They are all shot at close range, but respectfully, perhaps even reverently. The pictures show only fragments of possible narratives, but for me, every life has weight and drama, even if its meaning is ultimately elusive. I started to look at people in a much more abstract and graphic way. —Eamonn Doyle Right: Eamonn Doyle, from the series i, 2013 88
DOYLE | i | GALLERY
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Top row from left: Robert Adams, Wheat stubble, South of Thurman, Colorado, 1965 Robert Adams, Near Peyton, Colorado, 1968 Robert Adams, Genoa, Colorado, 1970 Robert Adams, Boys in a pickup. Simla, Colorado, 1970 Robert Adams, Catholic church. Ramah, Colorado, 1965–66 Robert Adams, Catholic church. Ramah, Colorado, 1965–66 Robert Adams, Catholic church. Ramah, Colorado, 1965–66 90
ADAMS | PRAIRIE | GALLERY
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Bottom row from left: Robert Adams, Mrs. Rozalind Friedrichs. Calhan, Colorado, 1971 Robert Adams, The main street in Ramah, Colorado, [1970] Robert Adams, Ramah, Colorado, 1965 Robert Adams, Bar and poolroom. Calhan, Colorado, 1970 Robert Adams, Afternoon. Simla, Colorado, [1970] Robert Adams, Late afternoon. Limon, Colorado, [1970] 91
Top to bottom: Robert Adams, Genoa, Colorado, 1970 Robert Adams, Boys in a pickup. Simla, Colorado, 1970 92
ADAMS | PRAIRIE | GALLERY
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We tend to define the plains by what is absent, checking maps to find how far we have to drive before we get to something—to mountains in the West or cities in the East. What, after all, are we to make of wheat fields, one-horse towns, and sky? Herman Melville suggested that our first response should be to smile, presumably at places like Bird City—length, half a block— with its prominent billboard reading “Have you tried to buy it in Bird City?” Much of life is against bad odds, and we have to love people who are good-natured about it. There are times, of course, when the only possible reaction to life on the prairie is to be still. At an otherwise empty crossroads north of Thurman there is a cemetery; a church and adjoining parsonage used to stand opposite the site, but one Sunday a tornado struck the home while it was crowded with women and children. Prairie buildings—spare, white, and isolated—are emblems of our hope and its vulnerability. Even architecture in town finds its reference point at the ends of streets, at the horizon; we sense there an expanse so empty that it can almost seem to spin. Mystery in this landscape is a certainty, an eloquent one. There is everywhere silence—a silence in thunder, in wind, in the call of doves, even a silence in the closing of a pickup door. If you are crossing the plains, leave the interstate and find a back road on which to walk; listen. — Robert Adams, Foreword from Prairie: Photographs by Robert Adams, 1978
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Top row from left: Robert Adams, El Paso County Fairgrounds. Calhan, Colorado, 1968 Robert Adams, El Paso County Fairgrounds. Calhan, Colorado, 1968 Robert Adams, El Paso County Fairgrounds. Calhan, Colorado, 1968 Robert Adams, Spring wind. West of Calhan, Colorado, 1970 Robert Adams, North of Briggsdale, Colorado, 1973 Robert Adams, North of Briggsdale, Colorado, 1973 94
ADAMS | PRAIRIE | GALLERY
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Bottom row from left: Robert Adams, Movie theater. Otis, Colorado, 1965 Robert Adams, John Deere agency. Calhan, Colorado, 1966 Robert Adams, John Deere agency. Calhan, Colorado, 1966 Robert Adams, John Deere agency. Calhan, Colorado, 1966 Robert Adams, Arriba, Colorado, 1966 95
Top row from left: Robert Adams, Church, and storm containing four tornadoes. Thurman, Colorado, 1965 Robert Adams, Gymnasium, consolidated school (closed). New Raymer, Colorado, [1973] Robert Adams, Gymnasium, consolidated school (closed). New Raymer, Colorado, [1973] Robert Adams, Gymnasium, consolidated school (closed). New Raymer, Colorado, [1973] Robert Adams, Ranch. Northeast of Keota, Colorado, 1969 96
ADAMS | PRAIRIE | GALLERY
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Bottom row from left: Robert Adams, Thurman, Colorado, 1969 Robert Adams, Thurman, Colorado, 1969 Robert Adams, Thurman, Colorado, 1969 Robert Adams, An early house in town, Colorado, 1968 Robert Adams, Kerstin and Mrs. Leslie Ross, on the Ross farm. Near Peetz, Colorado, 1973 Robert Adams, Kerstin and Mrs. Leslie Ross, on the Ross farm. Near Peetz, Colorado, 1973 97
Robert Adams, Kerstin and Mrs. Leslie Ross, on the Ross Farm. Near Peetz, Colorado, 1973 98
ADAMS | PRAIRIE | GALLERY
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Robert Adams, Kerstin and Mrs. Leslie Ross, on the Ross Farm. Near Peetz, Colorado, 1973 99
Top row from left: Robert Adams, Thurman, Colorado, 1966 Robert Adams, Summer, early morning; an immigrant cemetery. North of Bethune, Colorado, 1965 Robert Adams, Clarkville, Colorado, 1972 Robert Adams, Schoolyard. Ramah, Colorado, 1968 Robert Adams, Farmstead. South of Longmont, Colorado, 1973 Robert Adams, Farmyard. South of Arriba, Colorado, 1969 Robert Adams, Kerstin enjoying the wind. East of Keota, Colorado, 1969 100
ADAMS | PRAIRIE | GALLERY
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Bottom row from left: Robert Adams, Blanca, Colorado, 1967 Robert Adams, North of Keota, Colorado, 1973 Robert Adams, Methodist church. Calhan, Colorado, 1965 101
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ARBUS | A BOX OF TEN ELEVEN* PHOTOGRAPHS | GALLERY
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Diane Arbus, Colophon for A Box of Ten Eleven* Photographs * especially for R.A. (Richard Avedon) 103
Left to right: Diane Arbus, Identical twins, Roselle, N.J., 1967 Diane Arbus, Boy with a straw hat waiting to march in a pro-war parade, N.Y.C., 1967 Diane Arbus, A family on their lawn one Sunday in Westchester, N.Y., 1968 Diane Arbus, Xmas tree in living room in Levittown, L.I., 1963 104
ARBUS | A BOX OF TEN ELEVEN* PHOTOGRAPHS | GALLERY
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Top row from left: Diane Arbus, A Jewish giant at home with his parents in the Bronx, N.Y., 1970 Diane Arbus, A young man in curlers at home on West 20th Street, N.Y.C., 1966 Diane Arbus, Retired man and his wife at home in a nudist camp one morning, N.J., 1963 106
ARBUS | A BOX OF TEN ELEVEN* PHOTOGRAPHS | GALLERY
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Bottom row from left: Diane Arbus, A young Brooklyn family going for a Sunday outing, N.Y.C., 1966 Diane Arbus, Mexican dwarf in his hotel room, N.Y.C., 1970 Diane Arbus, The King and Queen of a Senior Citizens Dance, N.Y.C., 1970 Diane Arbus, Masked woman in wheelchair, Pa., 1970 107
. . . I really believe there are things which nobody would see unless I photographed them. —Diane Arbus
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ARBUS | A BOX OF TEN ELEVEN* PHOTOGRAPHS | GALLERY
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Diane Arbus, A young man in curlers at home on West 20th Street, N.Y.C., 1966 109
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BECHER | TYPOLOGIES AND INDUSTRIAL LANDSCAPES | GALLERY
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Bernd and Hilla Becher, Gas Tanks (Spherical), 1963–92 112
BECHER | TYPOLOGIES AND INDUSTRIAL LANDSCAPES | GALLERY
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Left to right: Bernd and Hilla Becher, Fachwerkhaüser (Framework Houses), 1959–73 Bernd and Hilla Becher, Fördertürme (Winding Towers), 1972–82 114
BECHER | TYPOLOGIES AND INDUSTRIAL LANDSCAPES | GALLERY
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Above: Bernd and Hilla Becher, Blast Furnace Plant, Duisburg-Bruckhausen, Germany, 1999 Opposite, top to bottom: Bernd and Hilla Becher, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, U.S.A, 1986 Bernd and Hilla Becher, Powerstation with Cooling Towers: Zeche Hanover 1/2/5, Bochum-Hordel, Ruhrgebiet, Germany, 1973 116
BECHER | TYPOLOGIES AND INDUSTRIAL LANDSCAPES | GALLERY
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Left to right: Bernd and Hilla Becher, Coal Mine Tipples, Pennsylvania, United States, 1974–78 Bernd and Hilla Becher, Wassertürme (Water Towers), 1968–83 118
BECHER | TYPOLOGIES AND INDUSTRIAL LANDSCAPES | GALLERY
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We want to offer the audience a point of view, or rather a grammar, to understand and compare the different structures. Through photography, we try to arrange these shapes and render them comparable. To do so, the objects must be isolated from their context and freed from all association. —Bernd and Hilla Becher 119
Left to right: LaToya Ruby Frazier, Home on Sixth Street and Washington Avenue, 2009 LaToya Ruby Frazier, Huxtables, Mom and Me, 2008 LaToya Ruby Frazier, Fifth Street Tavern and UPMC Braddock Hospital on Braddock Avenue, 2011 120
FRAZIER | THE NOTION OF FAMILY | GALLERY
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I choose to make work that expresses how I feel, about the environment and class that surrounds me. These expressions can take the shape of portraits, still lifes, landscapes, or abstractions, but, at the end of the day I am devoted to making pictures about the world in which I come from and live. —LaToya Ruby Frazier Left to right: LaToya Ruby Frazier, Gramps’s Feet, 2002 LaToya Ruby Frazier, Gramps on His Bed, 2003 122
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Top to bottom: LaToya Ruby Frazier, Grandma Ruby on Her Recliner, 2002 LaToya Ruby Frazier, Grandma Ruby’s Hands, 2002 123
Left to right: LaToya Ruby Frazier, Momme Silhouettes, 2010 LaToya Ruby Frazier, Grandma Ruby’s Recliner, 2009 LaToya Ruby Frazier, Grandma Ruby’s Carpet Debris, 2009 124
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Left to right: LaToya Ruby Frazier, 1908 Eighth Street Market on Talbot Avenue, 2007 LaToya Ruby Frazier, Mom and Her Boyfriend, Mr. Art, 2005 LaToya Ruby Frazier, Mom Holding Mr. Art, 2005 LaToya Ruby Frazier, Aunt Midgie and Grandma Ruby, 2007 LaToya Ruby Frazier, U.S.S. Edgar Thomson Steel Works and Monongahela River, 2013 126
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127
LaToya Ruby Frazier, HomeBody Series (227 Holland Avenue): Wrapped in Gramps’s Blanket, In Grandma Ruby’s Velour Bottoms, In Gramps’s Pajamas, Covered in Gramps’s Blanket, 2010 128
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Left to right: LaToya Ruby Frazier, Landscape of the Body Series (Ajax Way), 2011 LaToya Ruby Frazier, HomeBody Series (227 Holland Avenue): Wrapped in Gramps’s Blanket, In Grandma Ruby’s Velour Bottoms, In Gramps’s Pajamas, Covered in Gramps’s Blanket, 2010 LaToya Ruby Frazier, Home on Braddock Avenue, 2007 130
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Garry Winogrand, Women Are Beautiful, 1957–73 132
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133
Garry Winogrand, Untitled, N.D. 134
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. . . I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed. Basically, that’s why I photograph, in the simplest language. That’s the beginning of it and then we get to play the games. —Garry Winogrand
Garry Winogrand, World’s Fair, New York, 1964 135
Top to bottom: Garry Winogrand, New York, 1968 Garry Winogrand, Hippy Hollow, Lake Travis, Austin, Texas, 1973 136
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Garry Winogrand, New York, ca. 1970 137
Vanessa Winship, Victor Snr and Victor Jnr After the Church Meeting, Richmond, Virginia, 25 March 2012 138
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Vanessa Winship, Ray Nixon Road, Abandoned Car and Twisted Tree, Denver, Colorado, November 2011 139
Top to bottom, left to right: Vanessa Winship, Deer on Highway Embankment, Buffalo, New York, 4 November 2012 Vanessa Winship, Mining Scar and Flowers, Butte, Montana, 31 October 2011 Vanessa Winship, Lathan and Bethany, Art Fair at Jenks, Jenks, Oklahoma, 13 October 2012 Vanessa Winship, Rosa in the Car by the James River, Richmond, Virginia, 28 March 2012 Vanessa Winship, Horse on Pedestal, Las Cruces, New Mexico, 24 November 2011 140
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Vanessa Winship, Bridge on Canal Street, Chicago, Illinois, 23 November 2012 142
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This work is a chapter; a quote of America, at a very specific time in history in the lives of the people I met and places I saw, and also of my own personal history during this time. —Vanessa Winship
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Vanessa Winship, Ripple on Pond, Valpariso, Indiana, 19 November 2012 144
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Lewis Baltz, Candlestick Point, 1984–88 146
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Lewis Baltz, details from Candlestick Point, 1984–88 148
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I became more courageous and adept as I went along, but by the time I got to Candlestick Point, there was no single image that was better than another. I wanted them all to be good enough and equal enough so that the piece itself, all the photographs together, would be one work. —Lewis Baltz
Lewis Baltz, detail from Candlestick Point, 1984–88 150
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Lewis Baltz, detail from Candlestick Point, 1984–88 151
Pier 24 Photography would like to acknowledge the following individuals and lenders for their assistance in making this exhibition possible: 303 Gallery Eamonn Doyle Randi & Bob Fisher Estate of Diane Arbus Fraenkel Gallery Jeffrey Fraenkel & Alan Mark Gallery Luisotti LaToya Ruby Frazier Lee Friedlander Charlotte King Michael Hoppen Gallery Michel Rein Abner Nolan Ed Panar Alec Soth Stephen Shore Sprüth Magers Laura Steele Carrie Thompson Awoiska van der Molen Henry Wessel Vanessa Winship This publication would not have been possible without the generous contributions of the Pier 24 Photography volunteer and intern team. Director: Christopher McCall Creative Director: Allie Haeusslein Editor: Ry Allred Editorial Associate: Mari Iki Copy Editors: Amanda Glesmann & Brianna Nelson Design: Bob Aufuldish, Aufuldish & Warinner Installation Photography: Charles Villyard Print Management: Sprinkel Media ISBN: 978-0-9972432-1-5 Printed in the United States Cover image: Robert Adams, Catholic church, Ramah, Colorado, 1965–66 Endsheets: Ed Panar, November 2014, Cliff Street View, 2014 © 2017 Pier 24 Photography. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright holders.
Pier 24, The Embarcadero San Francisco, CA 94105 p. 415.512.7424 e. info@pier24.org www.pier24.org
Photography Credits: Robert Adams: © Robert Adams, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco / Diane Arbus: © The Estate of Diane Arbus LLC / Lewis Baltz: © The Lewis Baltz Trust. Courtesy Gallery Luisotti, Santa Monica / Bernd and Hilla Becher: © The Estate of Bernd and Hilla Becher, courtesy Sprüth Magers / Eamonn Doyle: © Eamonn Doyle, courtesy the artist and Michael Hoppen Gallery, London / LaToya Ruby Frazier: © LaToya Ruby Frazier, courtesy Michel Rein, Paris/Brussels / Lee Friedlander: © Lee Friedlander, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco / Nicholas Nixon: © Nicholas Nixon, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco / Ed Panar: © Ed Panar, courtesy the artist / Stephen Shore: © Stephen Shore, courtesy 303 Gallery, New York / Alec Soth: © Alec Soth, courtesy the artist / Awoiska van der Molen: © Awoiska van der Molen, courtesy the artist / Henry Wessel: © Henry Wessel, courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York / Garry Winogrand: © The Estate of Garry Winogrand, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco / Vanessa Winship: © Vanessa Winship, courtesy the artist Text Credits: Foreword from Prairie: Photographs by Robert Adams. © 1978 Robert Adams. Reprinted from the 2011 edition with the permission of Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco. “The Little Screens: A photographic essay by Lee Friedlander with a comment by Walker Evans.” © Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Reprinted from Harper’s Bazaar, February 1963, pp. 126–9.