Arts: Documenting change: two artists tell their stories

Documentary work requires that its author have a little faith. After all, it's not every day that someone will decide art can and will elicit socio-political change. And it's not every day that a photographer will travel to Senegal or move in with sharecropper families in the South during the Depression. But occasionally these things do happen, because occasionally an artist will believe in change. In the words of Roland Barthes, "Photography is always invisible, it is not it that we see." It was this very impetus that drove the work of renowned documentary photographers Kerry Stuart Coppin and Walker Evans. Their visions are on display for all to experience at the Center for Documentary Studies' two current exhibitions--Materia Oscura/Black Matter and Walker Evans at One Hundred.

The Juanita Kreps Gallery houses a focused selection of Coppin's photographs in Materia Oscura/Black Matter (below). Coppin addresses the complexities of African identity by tracing Black communities around the world. There is a quartet of aspiring jazz youth in Miami, business owners in Senegal, masked and painted men in Barbados, basketball practice in Maryland and a mural of topping dominos painted on a brick fence in Cuba. The large, black-and-white photographs were taken in locations throughout the Caribbean, United States and Africa. A yellow tint creates an archaic aura around each work and--because the prints have been digitally reproduced--the enlarged pixels lend a translucent quality to the figures. Coppin asks his audience to reconsider the formation of African identity through his subtle meshing of social documentary with the fine arts.

Across the hall in the Lyndhurst Gallery is an exhibit of digitally reproduced photographs celebrating the 100th year anniversary of Walker Evans, one of the foremost founders of the documentary studies movement. Walker Evans at One Hundred reaffirms Evans belief that photography should be always open to translation and reinterpretation. While the new digital technique undeniably alters the original emphasis of the photographer, it allows for clearer prints with more visible details. The exhibit includes seven images from his famous collaboration with the writer James Agee for the photographic book, "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men", finally published in 1939 after being rejected by Fortune Magazine. Many of the other works revolve around poverty in the rural South and Evans' dedication to the dialectics of culture. 

Courtney Reid-Eaton, Exhibitions Director at the center, points to the similarities in the focal points of both Evans and Coppin. "They were very involved in the community, although they had different political purposes." she said. "Their works deal with visual connections, a love of the streets and attributions to vernacular images." Barthes would be proud. 

Exhibits are on display until Jan. 10, 2004 at the Center for Documentary Studies, 1317 West Pettigrew Street. The opening reception is today from 6-9 p.m., with a talk by curator John T. Hill, executor of the Walker Evans estate and Duke professor Alex Harris, former student of Walker Evans.