Walker Evans

        The above wonderful picture is simply named « Houses and Billboards in Atlanta ». It was taken by the American photographer Walker EVANS in 1936. It is normally exposed in The Museum of Modern Art of New-York, but I didn't have to travel that far away to admire it. Indeed, it was a photography of the exhibition that took place in the Centre Pompidou from june to august 2017, called « Evans ».

        Let's start by describing this picture. First and foremost, it is a black-and-white photograph that was taken in a residential area like so many others in the United states. The photographer stands on the opposite pavement, insofar as he wants to show full front view of the street. In the foreground, there are several film advertisings-witness Love before breakfast or The Chatter Box, directly disposed on the houses closes. In the backgroung, there are two massive, wooden and similar houses, almost hidden from view. They are built this way : two-staired homes with a porch on the second floor left, a big window and a little one just below it. But what most catches the eye is the total lack of human presence. The street is empty, only infrastructures. So what can that mean ?

        There is no denying that this lack of human presence has a huge signification. Historical contextualization. USA. 1936. The Great Depression has destroyed cities, lives and even families. This picture is thus one of the few images taken during this times of austerity. Evans poetically and sadly depicts a stark contrast between those living in poverty and those fortunate enough to have escaped the financial hardship. Indeed, the boundary fences are repossessed with these billboards as if they were made to distract passengers from this voluntary relinquishment of higher authorities. The houses, almost visible, seem to suggest that their former occupants were expelled. Moreover, there is no person in the frame. It strenghtens the feeling of emptyness, despair and lonelyness of the photograph.

        Here is the studium. No matter how much hermetic the spectator may be, he cannot escape this testimony of Evans, who highlights a mournful period of american History. We easily make connections between the atmosphere of the picture, its date and the context during which it has been taken. But the punctum is somewhere else. According to me, it arises from the billboards. They are like an ironic touch of joy in this gloomy photograph. They seem to say « you probably have lost everything you have but go distract yourself ». Panem et circenses.

        All in all, we may say that this picture makes us react. It is all the more interessant as it echoes the subprimes crises and questions then the bases of the American economy.

        The place of the picture in the exhibition is to reinforce Evans' reporter statuts. Each of his  photographs are somehow telling a story and this work is in keeping with this talent.

...