Art Shay At Thomas Masters Gallery
By Ben Schuman Stoler in Arts & Entertainment on Jan 29, 2010 6:20PM
The problem with photojournalist exhibitions is that no matter how cool the photos are, no matter which politician or celebrity is captured, no matter how many media outlets ran the photographer's work, it’s hard to feel anything aesthetically compelling.
You think, it’s great that Time used it as a spread. So what? Anyway the photographer probably just got lucky. S/he had credentials from a major media outlet, was assigned to an event that turned out to be historically momentous, and, once there, happened to be in the right place at the right time. Is that really art?
Illustrious photojournalist Art Shay says the secret to photography is, simply, to “shoot what you see.” But we all see stuff everyday, many of us even carry around cameras in our phones, and we don’t shoot what Shay shoots. Maybe it’s because we don’t see what Shay sees.
The Art Shay True Colors exhibition now on display at Thomas Masters Gallery—the first collection of Shay’s works shown in color—is a retrospective in the broadest meaning of the word: not only are we shown five decades (!!) of Shay’s photographs, we’re presented with some of the most important moments of the 20th century, framed with all Shay’s poignancy and punny wit.
An adopted Chicagoan, Shay can boast of close relationships with other Chicago artists like Nelson Algren, and more global figures like Simone de Beauvoir (remember this?). Many of the photos on display relate to Chicago culture, politics, or sports. He has published over 70 books and has been on over 1,000 book and magazine covers, but that's not what makes this exhibition worth your time.
What makes the exhibition engaging is a combination of the photos themselves and Shay's contextualization. His voice comes through the exhibition clearly, even beyond the photos, because Shay provides fascinating anecdotes in the first-person blurbs accompanying each photograph. Perhaps the most interesting one goes with “Murder’s Hand”: Shay relates how he got into the bathroom from which James Earl Ray shot Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis. With one foot in the bathtub, using a zoom lens, Shay was able to see the deadly balcony from the same angle Ray took the shot ("With cameras or guns one of ya'lls gonna shoot me to death"). When Shay looked away from the window, he saw a single handprint highlighted by the FBI on the bathroom wall—the same handprint that would help convict Ray.
Looking through Shay’s photographs, you can’t help but lose, at least for a moment, whatever cynicism you may harbor towards his vocation. The fact of the matter is that many of these photographs are absolutely radiating with intellect and expertise. These aren’t merely documentary pictures of protests, election campaigns, celebrities, NFL games, and American experience. These are statements (like “Two on One” with cigar wielding Chicago cops arresting a protester in 1968) and jokes (like “That’s Packaging,” with a truck bearing that moniker broken in half on the road).
Photos like “Murder’s Hand” or “Long Lost Icon”—a shot of what seems like a completely normal building until framed as such (above)—don’t follow Shay’s own mantra of “shoot what you see.” To get those photos, Shay did far, far more than walk around and press click.
Thomas Masters Gallery is at 245 W North, and Art Shay True Colors runs through February 25