Holli Garrido Julie D.

Hicks 30 January 2012 Response 1 The Light Factory Stepping into an almost completely abandoned gallery, with large black and white photos lining all four walls, I immediately felt the need to make very little sound. The gallery was open and bare, with only the walls illuminated, leaving the center dimmed so that the photos could hold complete attention. Of course as I started to view the photos I continued to feel calm and still, almost hushed, so as not to disturb the people in the pictures or alter the moments depicted in any way. The exhibit I viewed that day was called Streetwise: Masters of 1960s Photography, and consisted of nine photographers who took their cameras and turned to the changes taking place in the world around them in this hectic and turbulent time. Using Robert Franks survey of a less-than-idealized America as a framework, these artists changed the way we see the 60s and the people that were responsible for the revolution. After spending not nearly enough time with each photo, I was drawn back to two in particular, each from a different photographer and with nothing in common. The first was a photo I came up to early on, by Diane Arbus, and I was immediately hit by the powerful look on the subjects face. Girl in Patterned Stockings, New York City taken in 1965, only six years before Arbus committed suicide. The woman in the photograph wore a look of defiance, that nothing could surprise or harm her anymore, and that perhaps all of the pain in her life has

already happened. Her lips are pressed stiffly together, her hands folded firm, one into the other, and her brow slightly raised as if to ask and your problem is? Her shadow darkens the otherwise illuminated bed, with the only patterns present being the ones on her stockings and the one on the edge of the bed, the rest of the area and herself is bare. I almost instantly am reminded of many of Richard Avedons striking portraits, of the defeated and the worn down, the real looks of people that he so powerfully captured in his own photography. As I discovered later, Arbus and Avedon were friends later in her lifetime, though it was a short one. After her marriage fell apart in 1969, Arbus later suffered with depression and eventually killed herself in her room in 1971. While alive she photographed the people she found while wandering around NYC, often in the seedy areas and bars late at night, giving her photographs a raw quality to the already offbeat and sometimes eerie subjects. I believe that through the art one creates a mirror to what is going on in their mind, whether it comes across in an obvious way or tucked into the corners and little details of the work. This photograph grabs you so that you cant help but look into her eyes and wonder what happened to her. Why is she so tired, so defeated, and yet so stern? Considering the date of the work, I can only be suspicious that these feelings were some of Arbus own, and definitely some of mine as well as I gazed at the girl in the patterned stockings. Walking around campus I most often keep my arms crossed around my waist, almost as a guard, much like the way she holds her hands in this photo. As if this is one more layer of protection from the outside world, and yet, whatever she was fighting had made its way into

her already. She is obviously alone, and seems very tired and sad. As Im sure everyone does at one point or another, I go through particularly drawn out periods of feeling alone and worn out, giving up. Whether a trick of the lights in the gallery or my own connection to the piece, as I looked into the picture I was seeing my own face reflected back at me, much larger but also at the same level as her own. So that her eyes peered back at me from right in between my own. Her hands folded right where my hair falls at my jawline, her figure almost completely contained in the length of my face. As if everything she was, and was experiencing, I am feeling in my own head. If that isnt a connection of artist and audience, I dont know what is. Plodding through life in the 60s was not an easy task for anyone, including Arbus, and that worn out mentality of the girl could very easily be applied to the society around her. Fighting for change as well as for equality in terms of race, gender, and even the sparks of the sexual revolution left a lot of people involved and exhausted. It seems as if she has been affected by all of this change in one way if not many, leaving her scared but toughened in defense. Even if the world outside her is colorful and full of transformation, the room in which she sits is quiet, plain, and safe. Perhaps the one place for sanctuary. The second photo that grabbed me, even causing me to choke up a bit, was one by Jerry Berndt taken in the shadows of 1968. Orts Golden Nugget, Saturday Night, ca. 1am, The Combat Zone, Boston, MA, a long title but it adds a degree of background to the moment depicted. His Combat Zone Series was taken in Bostons notorious red light district in the 60s, home to the lonesome drinkers, bums, and hookers that congregated there. His work ranged between glitzy film noir elegance and desolate jazz age melancholy. One exhibit described Berndts work as Sammy Davis Jr. meets Charles Bukowski. While most of his subjects already focused on the bars and strip clubs of the 60s and 70s, he was working in the Combat

Zone on assignment from Harvards Laboratory of Community Psychiatry, a fascinating mission because he was very clearly looking for psychological depth in his subjects and what the situation might have meant to them. The long golden curls of a woman that fall onto her illuminated figure and dress as she wraps her arm around the man in front of her. Their embrace is out of focus, maybe to emphasize the uncertainty of the situation, which is only exaggerated by the expression of the man she is holding. His hands are around her waist, but not quite holding her like she is him, instead they hover just above her dress, hesitant, unsure of what to do. His head is the same, right at her shoulder and almost nestled in her blonde hair but not yet resting on it. Her face is unseen, so we can only assume the emotion is happy and enthusiastic based on her stature, but his eyes glance down, his lips far from smiling, he is the epitome of solemn feelings despite his situation. The only other face that is visible is that of an uninvolved man off to the left, giving a skeptical look at the couple, as if heightening the circumstances of the situation. Is this a hello, a goodbye? Are the two strangers, or lovers, or acquaintances from across the room? Regardless the two have found a shard of light in an otherwise dark and hazy room, though it is blurred like the memories from the evening. Those two in their embrace rang particularly true for me as of late, probably the reason why it hit me as hard as it did. One is more than ready to let something happen and grow, while the other is hesitant, scared, and unsure. Then suddenly the roles switch, so in reality I was the

one who was ready, while he is nowhere close. Like the skeptic man to the left, my friends watch this happen and warn me otherwise, though it doesnt matter. Whether in the corners of Bostons red light district or the spaces of a college dorm, grab the moment and hold on, because its not going to last. I wonder if those two ever saw each other again, if they remembered who the other was or even that moment. I wonder if Ill be forgotten, swept under the rug along with so many other moments in the hectic days of a college student. Berndt knew how to take the uncertainty of a relationship and make it definite and real in one shot. From personal experience or a keen eye for poignant emotions, his work has effectively taken its toll on me. Forcing me to look inside my own head and make sense of what Im feeling and why, somewhat like a successful therapist, making us aware of the things wed rather forget, or the moments wed rather move past. Change and fleeting moments were what made up the 1960s, one day the world around you looks nothing like it did the day before. Being able to find a solitary moment amongst the chaos was a goal of many. Even the most rigorous protestors needed a breath every now and then. This photo captures one of those breaks, a moment where no one is fighting, protesting, or revolting, but simply embraced. Two people, probably from very different lives, coming together to share a whisper, a quiet understanding. Will it last? Probably not, did anything about the 60s culture last in the long run? The riots calmed, the hippies shaped up, and things simply moved on. What Berndt, Arbus, and countless other artists did was take moments from this era and make them infinite, so that decades later we are reminded of the people, the situations, the moments, and the memories that made up the 1960s. Every showgirl, hooker, bum, protestor, bar regular, icon, and nobody; all thrown together into turbulence and chaos. Of course, that was the 60s.