This is What America Looked Like
Sunday, June 29, 2014
Garry Winogrand, Coney Island, New York ca. 1952
(The Estate of Garry Winogrand, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco)
Thousands of regular Americans were captured by the lens of the late
photographer Garry Winogrand while they were doing mundane acts like
crossing the street, or driving a car, or jumping the waves in Coney
Island.
Between the 1950s and the 1980s, Winogrand traveled around the country documenting what he saw. He was born in the Bronx and started in New York City, but he made photographs in Los Angeles, Dallas and Chicago, among other cities.
About 170 of his pictures are in a new retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum.
The exhibition was guest-curated by photographer and author Leo
Rubinfien. He said what Winogrand did was not street photography.
“Street is where he found the material that he used to speak about
something vastly bigger than the street, and that something was the
United States," he said,
Jeff Rosenheim, the curator in charge of the Met Museum’s Department of Photographs, said he once asked Winogrand what a picture of a couple in a convertible with a monkey meant. Rosenheim said this was Winogrand's answer: “Forget about the original situation, Jeff. It's gone. Look at the picture. A photograph is a new thing. An Illusion. A lie, a transformation.”
Winogrand died suddenly in 1984 at age 56.
Between the 1950s and the 1980s, Winogrand traveled around the country documenting what he saw. He was born in the Bronx and started in New York City, but he made photographs in Los Angeles, Dallas and Chicago, among other cities.
About 170 of his pictures are in a new retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum.
Garry Winogrand, El Morocco, New York, 1955
Jeff Rosenheim, the curator in charge of the Met Museum’s Department of Photographs, said he once asked Winogrand what a picture of a couple in a convertible with a monkey meant. Rosenheim said this was Winogrand's answer: “Forget about the original situation, Jeff. It's gone. Look at the picture. A photograph is a new thing. An Illusion. A lie, a transformation.”
Winogrand died suddenly in 1984 at age 56.
Garry Winogrand, Fort Worth, 1974
Garry Winogrand, Los Angeles, 1980-83
Garry Winogrand, New York Aquarium, Coney Island, New York, 1967
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Gisele Regatao, Senior Editor, Culture, WNYC News
Gisele Regatao is the Senior Editor for Culture for WNYC News, where she reports, edits and curates features, news and criticism across the creative arts and the sweeping intellectual terrain that make New York one of the most fascinating places in the universe.
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