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Bruce Davidson | Review of December 2003 exhibition:
The following article is taken from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, December 12, 2003:
Davidson's photographs are a celebration of the human spirit
by Judy Wagonfeld
Growing up, Bruce Davidson was a loner who hated school. Photography, which he discovered at 10, set his life's direction.
Although Davidson worked prolifically for Vogue, Life, Esquire, Vanity Fair and the renowned Magnum Photos agency, his passion lies with social photography. When delving into a series he says, "I enter a world and it forms me."
Whether focusing on a neighborhood, gang, circus, movie set, trailer park or subway, his projects take months or even years. He starts relationships slowly, allowing them to warm, expand and firm up like bread.
Taking the photographs is like buttering the finished loaf. Seeing them is sinking your teeth into chewy textures.
When asked how he knows he's completed a series, New Yorker Davidson said, "It's never finished." The response begs the issue. As with a term paper, you must wrap it up. Still, he has a point. Subjects nag like cravings for chocolate, begging for encores.
And now, at 70, Davidson, is taking another bow. Printing images left out earlier, he's reissuing out-of-print books and currently exhibiting in two Seattle galleries.
Davidson exposes what's under people's skin. Behind the wrinkles and tattoos, he unveils tenacity. Amid crumbling walls, sinister alleys and civil rights marchers, he finds courage. On bare mattresses, fire-escapes and rooftop refuges, he gleans dignity. In draped Kennedy photos, crisp white dresses and newborns, he encounters hope.
At the Photographic Center, Davidson's "East 100th Street" chronicles Harlem's most notorious slum. Shot from 1966 to 1968, the photographs characterize the area as an inner city "Grapes of Wrath," a poverty-stricken world reeling in filth, decay, crumbling walls, draped electric cords and dim rooms. They focus on Latino and black families struggling to survive while children play in garbage-strewn streets and lots.
Some succumb, giving in to the wretched conditions. Others, heroic figures willing to battle the odds, overcome. Proudly, they scrub and decorate apartments, send kids to school and wear clean, neat clothing.
In the survey collection at Greg Kucera Gallery, Davidson's photos depict an underdog class, socio-political issues and famous people. Part photojournalism and part fine art photography, they harbor gripping stories.
In a potent civil rights era photo, two women, one white and one black, sit next to each other at a lunch counter. Frightened black girls, dressed for school, dash past a white boy and girl. Rifle-toting guards protect a busload of Freedom Riders.
Davidson's photos can be as brutal as the reform photography of Jacob Riis or Lewis Hine, as tragic as the impending fate of Dr. Martin Luther King and as playful as Marilyn Monroe in his candid movie set shots. What hooks us goes beyond shock or star power. It transcends the squalid tenements, gangs, race demonstrations and glitz.
Even when Davidson features detestable events and conditions, his subjects' gestures and glances celebrate the human spirit. There's no gratuitous altering of his black-and-white images, only intuitive framing of angles, shapes, shadows, events and timing.
The resulting visual harmony reflects what his mentor, Henri Cartier-Bresson, called "the decisive moment." Though the subjects may be out-of-date, Davidson's moments usually sustain the impact.
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A Time of Change Photographs 1960-1965 by Bruce Davidson
On May 25,1961, Bruce Davison joined a group of Freedom Riders traveling by bus from Montgomery, Alabama to Jackson, Mississippi. The actions of these youths challenged and disobeyed federal laws allowing for integrated interstate bus travel. These historic episodes, which ended in violence and arrests, marked the beginning of Davidson's exploration into the heart and soul of the civil rights movement in the United States during the years 1961-1965. In 1962, Davidson received a Guggenheim Fellowship and continued documenting the era, including an early Malcolm X rally in Harlem, steel workers in Chicago, a Ku Klux Klan cross burning near Atlanta, farm migrant camps in South Carolina, cotton picking in Mississippi, protest demonstrations in Birmingham, and the heroic Selma March that led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was instrumental in changing the political power base in the segregated Southern states. In the 140 photographs collected here, many of which have never before been published, we see intimate and revealing portraits of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis, and other leaders made by Davidson during those turbulent times. These images describe the mood that prevailed during the civil rights movement with a lyrical imagery that is both poignant and profound. As Davidson bears witness to these historical events, and documents the degradation and segregation that were endured, he gives testimony to the struggle for freedom, equality, justice, and human dignity.
Bruce Davidson is a major figure in modern photography who has created compelling documentary work for over 40 years. Born in 1933, he began taking photographs at the age of 1o. After military service in 1957 he worked as a free- lance photographer for Life Magazine, and in 1958 he became a member of Magnum Photos. Davison continued to photograph extensively from 1958 to 1965, creating such bodies of work as The Dwarf, Brooklyn Gang, Subway, East 100th Street, and The Civil Rights Movement. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1962 to document youth in the south during the civil rights movement, and in 1966 was awarded the first grant for photography from the National Endowment for the Arts. Davidson's work has been shown at many of the world's leading museums, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the International Center of Photography; The Walker Art Center; the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C.; and the Parco Gallery, Tokyo. He continues to work as an editorial and documentary photographer and his work appears regularly in publications all over the globe.
- text from the book's introduction by Congressman John Lewis
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