| For more information about this article or gallery, please call the gallery phone number listed in the last line of the article, "For more info..." |
February Issue
2011
The Nasher Museum of Art in Durham,
NC, Features Works by W. Eugene Smith
The Nasher Museum of Art on the Duke University
Central Campus in Durham, NC, will present, The Jazz Loft Project:
W. Eugene Smith in New York City, 1957-1965, an exhibition
of photographs by W. Eugene Smith and recordings of some of the
jazz world's greatest legends, on view from Feb. 3 through July
10, 2011.
In the late 1950s, Smith lived and worked in a New York City loft
building with an amazing list of inhabitants - famous jazz musicians,
filmmakers, writers and artists. In photographs and audio recordings,
he documented an era and rare moments with people such as Thelonious
Monk, Zoot Simms, Norman Mailer, Diane Arbus and Salvador Dali,
presented here in photographs, work prints, videos and audio.
In January 1955, Smith, a celebrated photographer at Life
magazine whose quarrels with his editors were legendary, quit
his longtime well-paying job at the magazine. He was ambitious,
quixotic and in search of greater freedom and artistic license.
He turned his attention to a freelance assignment in Pittsburgh,
a three-week job that turned into a four-year obsession and, in
the end, remained unfinished. During this trying period, Smith
moved into a dilapidated, five-story loft building at 821 Sixth
Avenue in New York City's wholesale flower district.
The address 821 Sixth Avenue was a late-night haunt of musicians,
including some of the biggest names in jazz - Charles Mingus,
Zoot Sims, Bill Evans and Theloious Monk among them - and countless
fascinating, underground characters.
From 1957 to 1965, Smith exposed 1,447 rolls of film at his loft,
making roughly 40,000 pictures, the largest body of work in his
career, photographing the nocturnal jazz scene as well as life
on the streets of the flower district, as seen from his fourth-floor
window. He wired the building like a surreptitious recording studio
and made 1,740 reels (4,000 hours) of stereo and mono audiotapes,
capturing more than 300 musicians, among them Roy Haynes, Sonny
Rollins, Bill Evans, Roland Kirk, Alice Coltrane, Don Cherry and
Paul Bley. He recorded, as well, legends such as pianists Eddie
Costa and Sonny Clark, drummers Ronnie Free and Edgar Bateman,
saxophonist Lin Halliday, bassist Henry Grimes and multi-instrumentalist
Eddie Listengart. Also dropping in on the nighttime scene were
the likes of Doris Duke, Norman Mailer, Diane Arbus, Robert Frank,
Henri Cartier-Bresson and Salvidor Dali, as well as pimps, prostitutes,
drug addicts, thieves, photography students, local cops, building
inspectors and marijuana dealers.
Writer Sam Stephenson discovered Smith's jazz loft photographs
and tapes 11 years ago, when he was researching another Smith
project in the archives at the University of Arizona's Center
for Creative Photography, and he has spent seven years cataloging,
archiving, selecting and editing these materials for a book and,
along with other partners, a radio series, an exhibition and website.
The Jazz Loft Project: W. Eugene Smith in New York City, 1957-1965
was organized by the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University,
the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona
and the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.
The Jazz Loft Project at the Center for Documentary Studies
at Duke University was made possible through the generous support
of the Reva and David Logan Foundation, with significant additional
support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National
Historical Publications and Records Commission, the National Academy
of Recording Arts and Sciences (The Grammy Foundation), the Duke
University Office of the Provost, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation,
Ken and Amelia Jacob, and Kimpton Hotels.
At Duke University, major support for the exhibition is given
by David Lamond, Anne T. and Robert M. Bass, the Robert K. Steel
Family Foundation, Sally and Russell Robinson, Bruce and Martha
Karsh, Charles Weinraub and Emily Kass, Drs. Victor and Lenore
Behar, Barbara T. and Jack O. Bovender Jr., G. Richard Wagoner,
the Bostock Family Foundation, and Ruth W. and A. Morris Williams
Jr. Additional support is given by William H. and Lorna Chafe,
John A. Forlines Jr., Tom and Margaret Gorrie, Peter and Debbie
Kahn, Patricia and John Koskinen, Peter Lange and Lori Leachman,
Ann Pelham and Robert Cullen, Barry Poss and Michele Pas, Tom
Rankin and Jill McCorkle, Alan D. Schwartz and Nancy C. Seaman,
Mary D.B.T. Semans, and Courtney Shives. We also thank Patty Morton,
Joy and J.J. Kiser, Cookie and Henry Kohn, Michael Marsicano,
Susan M. Stalnecker, Sallyan Windt, Karla F. and Russell Holloway,
Jim Roberts, Robert J. Thompson, Jr., James L. and Florence Peacock
III, W. Joseph and Ann Mann, Charles and Barbara Smith, Louise
C. and Waltz Maynor, Joy and John Kasson, Dr. Assad Meymandi,
Leela Prasad, and Alan B. Teasley.
For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery
listings, call the Museum at 919/684-5135 or visit (www.nasher.duke.edu).
For more information about the The Jazz Loft Project visit
(www.jazzloftproject.org).
Carolina Arts is published monthly by Shoestring Publishing Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc. Copyright© 2011 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts Online, Copyright© 2011 by PSMG, Inc. All rights reserved by PSMG, Inc. or by the authors of articles. Reproduction or use without written permission is strictly prohibited. Carolina Arts is available throughout North & South Carolina.