The exhibition Portrait of a City is a captivating exploration of American photography, showcasing a century's worth of urban landscapes and the photographers who captured them. It's a journey through time, revealing the evolution of the cityscape and the art of photography itself.
What makes this exhibition particularly special is its focus on the DNB Savings Bank Foundation collection, which provides a unique perspective on the era-defining photographers of the 20th century. From the pictorialist pioneers of New York, Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen, to the social documentary masters like Dorothea Lange and Lewis Hine, the show offers a concise yet comprehensive overview of American photography.
One of the most fascinating aspects of the exhibition is the way it intertwines the construction of the modern urban environment with the language of photography. Many of the photographers in the first part of the show trained as painters, and their influence is evident in the glorious attentiveness to composition and light. Aaron Siskind's Harlem Document is a prime example, reflecting the influence of his friendships with Rothko and Kline, and searching for abstract expression in the torn posters and peeling paint of Harlem.
As we move through the exhibition, we see how the cityscape evolves from the Great Depression to the New Deal, and how urban construction, regeneration, and optimism soon give way to something more sinister. Images of solitary figures against the immensity of the city recur, like Louis Faurer's Looking at the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center, where an anonymous figure in a fedora looks towards the mighty building, filling the whole frame.
At night, the city's tensions rise to the surface, and all the weirdos come out. The exhibition highlights the images that revel in this, like Weegee's ominous, sensationalist snapshots of New York after dark, depicting murders, awful accidents, and the odd moments only a city can yield. These images are a testament to the power of photography to capture the essence of the city, even in its darkest moments.
One of the most achingly simple genius works in the exhibition is Roy DeCarava's Hallway. A photograph of an empty corridor in a tenement building in Harlem, lit dimly by a single lightbulb, it draws your eye in and down the space, making you feel what it is to stand in that space. DeCarava finds the richness and expressivity in the colour black, as complex, volumetric, and varied as any other hue.
The exhibition as a whole retells the American narrative of the city, with almost all of the photographers being first- or second-generation European immigrants. It also shows how photography became a way for artists to deal with the overwhelming nature of the city, to try to take hold of it, to make it their own. Garry Winogrand's quote on the exhibition wall, emphasizing his desire to disappear into the city and come closer to 'not existing', is a testament to this.
As we move through the 60s and 70s, the hair gets hipper, and politics get more intense. The exhibition ends with Bruce Davidson's 1980s Leica shots of New York's graffiti-covered trains, where people go to celebrations, to work, fall asleep, fall in love, and fight. The crimson light of sunset skies bathes the carriages in a beautiful, sensuous glow, and the train keeps moving, a testament to the unstoppable city.
Portrait of a City is a must-see for anyone interested in American photography and the evolution of the cityscape. It's a quiet-but-dazzling exhibition that captures the multiplicity of instants that happen every day, from the grim loneliness of the Great Depression to the vibrant energy of the 1980s. It's a testament to the power of photography to capture the essence of the city and the human experience within it.
