JTF (just the facts): A total of 33 black and white photographs, framed in white and unmatted, and hung against white walls in a single long gallery space on the second floor of the museum. All of the works are gelatin silver prints, made between 2002 and 2011; no physical dimensions or edition information were provided. The show also includes 3 sets of 3 raster etched aluminum plates, made in 2010, and two end walls covered in custom wallpaper, made in 2013. This is Frazier's first solo show in New York. (Installation shots at right.)Comments/Context: While LaToya Ruby Frazier's photographs have found their way into a number of important group shows and biennials in recent years, this show finally offers an opportunity to see a larger selection of her recent work in one place. Frazier's penetrating black and white images of her family and the surrounding community of Braddock, PA, feel at first glance like a throwback to a style of concerned social documentary from decades earlier. But this is really only the first layer of a complex multi-pronged exploration, with interior still lifes, portraits of her mother and aging grandparents, and unflinching self-portraits added to the mix, making her investigations much closer than arm's length, more intimate and personal. With a further element of archival research and the related study of collective and individual memory, her photographs come together in a satisfyingly interleaved whole, touching on repeated themes from a variety of angles.
Frazier's images in and around Braddock capture a depressing sense of decay and inattention. Overgrown greenery covers boarded up buildings and chokes the remaining trees, smoky factories sit idle, and the local hospital is demolished into a pile of rubble. The once prosperous steel industry of Andrew Carnegie is a faint memory, leaving behind the ghostly shell of its prior glory, along with plenty of toxic leftovers, environmental damage, and jobless workers. The fact that a tavern is left standing like a stage set amid the crushed cement of the old hospital is a quiet testament to the trade-offs this community has been forced to make. But Frazier isn't content to document the struggles of this place from afar; the best of her pictures track her own extended family as it is pushed and pulled by disease, poverty, and a lack of options. Abstract problems are given real human faces, as Grandma Ruby cares for her ailing husband, travels to the hospital, arranges her collection of dolls, and ultimately becomes painfully frail herself. The wearying force of the entire situation comes through poignantly as Grandma Ruby dies, her formal wake and her now empty recliner equally dispiriting. Frazier's images of her mother tell a different tale of trapped endurance, one of cramped apartments, dead end jobs, boyfriends, surgeries, and Red Cross blankets; there is little joy in her face, but plenty of determined, supportive resolve. When seen together, the three generations of women remind us of the scale and duration of these fraying communal issues, of intractable problems passed down through the years and strong women trying hard to find ways to make the best of it.
While Frazier's portrait of her family and hometown is certainly disheartening, there is never of feeling of giving up. These are hard hitting, honest pictures, but they leave you with a sense of quiet tenacity, where outrage is joined with practical making do. The issues she depicts are entirely specific but broadly universal, showing just how closely the complex well being of local citizens is tied to the often overlooked historical and intergenerational roots of the community in which they live.
Collector's POV: Since this is a museum show, the works on view have no posted prices. Frazier doesn't seem to have any New York gallery representation at the moment; Galerie Michel Rein in Paris (here) appears to be her only outlet at this time. With little or no secondary market history for her work, gallery retail will be the best/only option for those collectors interested in following up.
Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)Transit Hub:
- Artist site (here)
- Features/Reviews: New York Times (here), New Yorker (here)
- Interview: Art in America (here)
Through August 11th
200 Eastern Parkway
Brooklyn, NY 11238
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