Walker Evans
The Magazine Work
curated by David Campany
29 July – 18 September 2016
Walker Evans (1903-1975) remains one of the most important and influential photographers in the history of the medium. His career spanned the emergence of the modern mass media in the 1920s to the full acceptance of photography as an art form in the 1960s and 1970s. Many of Evans’s individual images have become landmarks both of photography and the social history of that era.
This exhibition took a different look at Evans, placing the emphasis on his printed pages, and in particular his work for American magazines. Evans began to publish in 1929 and soon found ways to set his own assignments, write the accompanying words and design his layouts.
Working in both black and white and colour for nearly four decades, Evans used the popular magazine page to produce a resistant counter-commentary on American society and its values. Where the mass media enjoyed celebrity culture, Evans photographed anonymous citizens. Where the mass media promoted consumerism, Evans valued enduring objects and the persistence of the past in the present. His subjects included automobile junkyards, graffiti, shop window displays and postcards. These photo essays were often subtly at odds with the editorial line of the magazines that published them—notably Fortune, America’s prime magazine of big business and industry.
Evans was a pioneer of modern photography but on the magazine page we can see his understanding of context; the meanings of his images are shaped by editing, writing and design. Experimental and yet classical, these photo-essays have been overlooked until recently.
Walker Evans: The Magazine Work has been presented in several important venues globally, including MOCAK, Museum of Contemporary Art, Kracow, Poland, and the Palazzo Magnani, Reggio Emilia, Italy. This was its exclusive New Zealand presentation.
David Campany is a leading London-based writer and curator of photography. He visited New Zealand to accompany this exhibition as the fourth CLark Collection Critic/Curator in Residence. For more information on David Campany visit his website davidcampany.com.
Walker Evans: The Magazine Work received substantial support from Displayschemes, Wellington. Campany’s visit to Wellington was supported by The Clark Collection.
This exhibition was staged concurrently with Sherrie Levine: African Masks After Walker Evans, Sonya Lacey: Newspaper for Vignelli, and Patrick Pound: Documentary Intersect.
Exterior view, Walker Evans: The Magazine Work, Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University of Wellington, 2016. Photo: Shaun Waugh
Installation view, Walker Evans: The Magazine Work, Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University of Wellington, 2016. Photo: Shaun Waugh
Installation view, Walker Evans: The Magazine Work, Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University of Wellington, 2016. Photo: Shaun Waugh
Installation view, Walker Evans: The Magazine Work, Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University of Wellington, 2016. Photo: Shaun Waugh
Image: Walker Evans, page spread for 'Labor Anonymous', Fortune, November 1946. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Installation view, Walker Evans: The Magazine Work, Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University of Wellington, 2016. Photo: Shaun Waugh
Eight popular postcards, 1890–1910. Photographers unknown. Installation view, Walker Evans: The Magazine Work, Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University of Wellington, 2016. Photo: Shaun Waugh
Walker Evans, ‘Color Accidents’, Architectural Forum, January 1958. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Installation view, Walker Evans: The Magazine Work, Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University of Wellington, 2016. Photo: Shaun Waugh
Installation view, Walker Evans: The Magazine Work, Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University of Wellington, 2016. Photo: Shaun Waugh
Installation view, Walker Evans: The Magazine Work, Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University of Wellington, 2016. Photo: Shaun Waugh
Installation view, Walker Evans: The Magazine Work, Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University of Wellington, 2016. Photo: Shaun Waugh
Installation view, Walker Evans: The Magazine Work, Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University of Wellington, 2016. Photo: Shaun Waugh
Walker Evans, ‘When ‘Downtown’ Was a Beautiful Mess’, Fortune, January 1962. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Installation view, Walker Evans: The Magazine Work, Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University of Wellington, 2016. Photo: Shaun Waugh
Installation view, Walker Evans: The Magazine Work, Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University of Wellington, 2016. Photo: Shaun Waugh
Installation view, Walker Evans: The Magazine Work, Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University of Wellington, 2016. Photo: Shaun Waugh
Installation view, Walker Evans: The Magazine Work, Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University of Wellington, 2016. Photo: Shaun Waugh
Installation view, Walker Evans: The Magazine Work, Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University of Wellington, 2016. Photo: Shaun Waugh