8/17/2023 0 Comments Open roads milwaukeeHis hair is coiffed like a greasy replica of Elvis Presley. William Eggleston photographed a young grocery boy in Los Alamos as he collected shopping carts in a parking lot in the late 1960s. A road trip through the America of today might look very similar. The photos in the exhibit seem to express these anxieties in clear focus. It feels timely, as American citizens face disparity, prejudice, and bald grabs for power and wealth. Not all of the imagery in this exhibit is this grim, but there is a gravity, a potential for loss, that pervades. Four figures stand behind, smoking or quietly looking on, their shoulders hunched against a bitter wind that blows snowflakes past the camera lens. A canvas shroud hides the unknowable shapes on the ground and gives the viewer a foreboding sense of what occurred. Inside the windows are two figures, their faces obscured in darkness and shadows.Īnother image displays the aftermath of a car accident in Arizona. At a parade in Hoboken, we see a fluttering American flag draped across a brick building. Jack Kerouac wrote the introduction to “The Americans,” an anthology of Frank’s photos, and indeed, an essence of Beat culture resounds. Robert Frank’s stark, black and white photos are iconoclastic and skeptical, revealing a country emerging into a deeper and darker place in the post-war years. Their work is on view through April 22 at the Milwaukee Art Museum.īeginning in the 1950s, the exhibit is organized chronologically. It is an exhilarating ride, reflecting faces of an unsung America, filled with hope, longing, and at times, anguish. “The Open Road: Photography and the American Road Trip” is a traveling exhibit of 19 renowned photographers who have used their own journeys on the road for inspiration. Howling forth, we head for the horizons of this country, seeking freedom, redemption and transformation. The road trip remains the most romantic journey of the American imagination. View Gallery: The Open Road: Photography and the American Road Trip
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