"New York", gelatin-silver print, 1963. Photo courtesy Paul
Kopeikin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. Copyright, The Estate of Garry Winogrand
""New York", gelatin-silver print, 1963. Photo courtesy
Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, CA. Copyright, The Estate of Garry Winogrand
by Jody Zellen
(Paul Kopeikin Gallery,West Hollywood)
Garry Winogrand photographed to see what things looked like photographed.
He first picked up a camera in the 1950's and didn't put it down until his
untimely death in 1984. During the 30 years he photographed, Winogrand created
numerous images, produced five books, and exhibited extensively throughout
the United States and abroad. He shot in the street, from the hip, up close
with a wide-angle lens, often tilting the camera. He was a prolific shooter
and his images capture what is known to photographers as the 'decisive moment.'
Winogrand's subject was America. He documented the city and the urban landscape,
concentrating on its unusual people and capturing odd juxtapositions of
animate and inanimate objects. Winogrand began photographing in New York,
doing commercial work. He was inspired by Walker Evans' 1955 book American
Photographs and for the first time realized that photographs could communicate
something special and unique. Impressed by not only Evans, but also by Robert
Frank, whose book The Americans also came out in 1955, Winogrand
emulated their intelligent use of the photographic medium. And immediately
set out to carve his own niche as an imagemaker who participated in, as
well as documented contemporary life. Winogrand made the city, the zoo,
the airport, and the rodeo his home, and spent endless hours photographing
there. A photographer of this sort is a wanderer, constantly roaming the
globe, clicking the shutter wherever he went.
Winogrand's photographs catch that odd moment where unrelated activities
coincided, and it is the nature of these juxtapositions that sets his work
apart from other photographers. He photographed all subjects with the same
detached but observant eye, making complex compositions through which the
viewer weaves. In his first book The Animals (1969), photographs
of people and animals at the zoo are both a humorous and sarcastic look
at the human race. The animals exhibit human-like qualities and when photographed
in relation to humans it is often hard to tell who is performing for whom.
In one shot an elderly woman wearing diamond studded pointy sunglasses looks
out from the lower right hand corner of the image. Behind her two rhinos
butt heads, their bodies echoing the shape of her glasses. In another zoo
photograph a couple rests against an animal cage, their backs turned to
the animal who visually will cross their paths, breaking their interaction
apart. Much of the action on Winogrand's photographs is implied. The pictures
exist before, in anticipation of that which is about to occur.
Winogrand's other books include Women are Beautiful (1975), Public
Relations (1977), and Stock Photographs: The Fort Worth Fat Stock
Show and Rodeo (1980). For Women are Beautiful Winogrand photographed
women on the streets of New York. He pictured them going about their business,
unaware that they were being photographed. The women pictured are determined
and fierce, and not necessarily feminine or beautiful. The pictures seem
to be less about a particular subject than where the subject lies in space
and how the light falls to illuminate them and their surroundings.
Public Relations was a project to "photograph the effect of
the media on events." The photographs in this series include pictures
taken at sports arenas as well as at special parties and events. Shot with
a flash, these images not only document a particular time and place in American
history (like a Muhammad Ali press conference, or a dinner for the Apollo
11 astronauts), but they give us a glimpse of how these situations were
created for the media.
This exhibition juxtaposes a selection of the photographs he made in New
York City with those from Los Angeles. Those of New York are dark and dense.
Shot from the hip, often at an angle, they are packed compositions that
usually feature a central figure or couple juxtaposed with peripherals that
echo the central image. In photographing Los Angeles, Winogrand opened up
his compositions, allowing light the fill the frame. These images feature
the lure of Los Angeles--snake charmers on Venice Beach, tourists in Hollywood,
the Huntington Gardens and the Santa Monica pier. The characters who populate
these places, celebrating the complexities of their interactions, is the
subject of these images. Winogrand might document a single small gesture
or look, but the photograph makes that moment significant. And it is this
collection of significant moments that constitutes Winogrand's unique view
of the world.
