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February 2, 2007 > Arts & Entertainment > People proves to be anything but ordinary

People proves to be anything but ordinary

By Miri Kim | Thresher staff

The Menil Collection allows its relatively young photography collection to shine in Everyday People: 20th-Century Photography from The Menil Collection. The exhibit features both iconic images and works that have never been displayed.

The photography collection, compiled since the late 1960s, is a deviation from the majority of the Menil’s holdings. Known for their collections of Surrealist and abstract art, John and Dominique de Menil became attracted to photography’s realism and sense of immediacy.

The de Menils developed a rapport with various photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) and Danny Lyon, whose works occupy a central position within the gallery. From the rapturous demeanor of an official from Santiago to the laughter shared between three young black girls, the notable works by Emil Cadoo, Walker Evans, James van der Zee and others also contribute to the diversity and incisive portraits of the exhibition’s mostly anonymous subjects.

The exhibit’s innovation is immediately evident as an array of Cartier-Bresson’s works greets the viewer. Subtle identification numbers silk-screened directly onto the wall replace the wall labels that normally accompany each photograph. The images are allowed to directly confront the viewer without the mediation of wall labels.

While the photographs feature everyday people, the quality of the images themselves are far from ordinary. The title subject in Walker Evans’ Coal Dock Worker, Havana (1933) stands against a gray wall. A stark white cigarette in his mouth offsets the shades of gray and black from his well-worn, grimy clothes and angled hat. The shade on the worker’s face barely obscures a compelling, level gaze that provokes discomfort and confrontation. Havana brackets one end of Evans’ grouped works but seems to visually set itself apart by virtue of its subject’s presence.

In contrast to the hard gaze in Havana, a row of inmates clad in white uniforms and caps in Danny Lyon’s The Line, Ferguson Unit, Texas (1967-69) shows the power in the absence of eye contact as they upturn soil in the foreground of the piece. The work represents a 1970 Rice Institute for the Arts exhibition and photojournalistic examination on the Texas prison system, Conversations with the Dead, a collaboration between Lyon and convicted felon Billy McCune. Far behind the line of inmates and profiled in detail by a fair-weather sky, a single leafless tree occupies a central position in a grassy field. The tree offsets the downward cast of the inmates’ gaze with the vertical spread of its branches. It is an unsentimental, pensive group portrait rendered almost redemptive in its careful treatment of the subject matter.

Another group portrait depicts a gallery replete with fine art, viewers and a dapper family providing four expressive responses to an unknown object of study. Bemusement, insouciance, scrutiny, awe — these unique reactions create a magnetic aggregate in Cartier-Bresson’s Tretiakov Gallery, Moscow (1972). The photograph redefines the subject-viewer relationship by rendering the viewer as the new object of scrutiny.

Each image and its relationship with the other images deserves a measure of consideration. Despite its brevity, the exhibition provides an insightful exploration into the Menil photography collection. Portraits of community, religion, combat and moments in time produce a holistic, pulsating imagery.

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