Neighborhood Watch

"Zoe Strauss: Ten Years"
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Through April 22

When I read about the new Zoe Strauss exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, I also read about the free DIY exhibitions she’d held from 2001 to 2010 under an elevated section of Philly’s I-95, where she would put up her pictures on the columns supporting the highway and charge $5 for photocopies of the exhibited works. And I read that most of the images in this mid-career retrospective, titled “Zoe Strauss: Ten Years,” were the ones shown in Strauss’ make-shift urban jungle museum, and that even though Strauss was mostly known for the pictures taken in and around the greater Philadelphia area, there were also ones here taken from other parts of the country.

But when I arrived at the museum, full of statistics and quotes and facts, I realized I hadn’t come emotionally prepared to handle just how real her photography is. The subjects of her photography aren’t typically beautiful. They don’t get Photoshopped or airbrushed, and most of the time they don’t even smile or pose. They also don’t wear makeup or fancy clothes. Sometimes they’re wearing neither, and they’re naked. Sometimes they’re wearing clothes so flimsy or dirty they’d probably be better off naked.

In the plainly titled “Alzheimer’s,” a frail and elderly woman is in her slippers, wearing an unzipped heavy overcoat and nothing else underneath. She’s just holding a dog while standing in the middle of the sidewalk half-naked. No big deal. What are you looking at? Nothing to see here.

Alzheimer’s, chromogenic print, 2002 (negative), 2003 (print). Purchased with funds contributed by Theodore T. Newbold and Helen Cunningham. Philadelphia Museum of Art.

As I looked at “Alzheimer’s,” and then at the photographs of people with black eyes; infected belly button piercings; oozing newly done tattoos; scars; and tattooed penises, I started wondering about Strauss’ technique. Not the literal, physical elements of it, such as what kind of camera she used to take the picture or how she developed the film; I mean the technique that can’t be seen or deduced from her pictures.

How did she ask her subject’s permission to take their picture? And what did she say to make them feel comfortable enough to smoke crack in front of her, as one person obviously did? Did she ask the girl to start abusing drugs, or was she already doing it when Strauss somehow stumbled upon her somewhere? Did Strauss pay (or feed or clean) the skeletal-looking guy featured in “Man’s Back” as a thank-you for letting her take a picture of his dirty, emaciated frame?

Man’s Back, inkjet print, 2004 (negative), 2006 (print). Purchased with the Lynne and Harold Honickman Fund for Photography. Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Most of all, I wondered how she found the guts to find these people and take pictures of them. Did she walk around the city with her camera, staring hard at what people like me glance over for a second before switching our steadfast gaze to “tunnel mode” so we purposefully don’t see the drunk homeless man slumped against the wall or the warn-down shady-looking shops that needed a fresh coat of paint ten years ago?

Because that’s what Zoe Strauss does. She removes the blinders for us when she finds the beauty in the overlooked and takes a picture of it so we can’t pretend not to see it. And then other people, good people, put her pictures on billboards and in museums so now we really can’t pretend not to see it.

I took along one of my best friends with me to view the exhibit. He wasn’t that familiar with the photographer, just like me, so we mostly just spent the walk to the museum laughing and talking and catching up. The first photo we saw when we entered the exhibit featured two women with track marks and, after that, we stopped laughing and talking for the next half hour as we silently stood next to each other in front of each picture.

We weren’t the only visitors stunned into silence. Everyone else quieted down once they started looking at the photos too. It wasn’t uncommon for a group of people to stand silently in front of one picture, pointing at the things they weren’t talking about.

Mom Were OK, inkjet print, 2005 (negative), 2006 (print). Gift of the artist. Philadelphia Museum of Art.

When my friend finally spoke, it was when we were walking out of the exhibit. He exclaimed, almost as if he’d been holding it in the whole time, “They really shouldn’t let kids in here. It’s so inappropriate for them to see these photos!” I nodded distractedly; I was too busy fighting the sudden urge to call my mother to verbalize a response.

Since we were already at the museum, we decided to walk around some more and look at other art. Prettier art. Faker art. Easier-to-look-at art. As we looked at a beautiful painting of a cherubic, naked woman and discussed the use of color and model, my mind flashed back to the “Alzheimer’s” woman that Zoe Strauss must have happened upon, randomly. She didn’t edit out the flaws of her pictures, like a painter might when painting a model. She could, but she doesn’t, and that makes her photography even more real, beautiful, and difficult to see.

I flashed back to the art class in high school where we were assigned to sketch a still life of a classmate. I felt so embarrassed and awkward even though my classmate was fully clothed and had volunteered to do it. After that class, I suddenly had a lot more respect for the artists who painted naked people and spent hours looking at their nakedness, because I didn’t know how they could do it.

After I went to the Zoe Strauss exhibit, I felt the same way about her. It seemed to me that maybe painting a naked woman would be easier to do than taking a picture of, or even seeing in person, a random semi-naked woman just standing on a sidewalk, just watching you pass her by.

On the homepage: Benny Krass(2002). Slide projection, archival inkjet print, color photostatic copy, and online image. Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist. Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Pictured above: Daddy Tattoo(2005). Slide projection, archival inkjet print, color photostatic copy, and online image. Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist. Philadelphia Museum of Art.