May Issue 2001
Center for Documentary Studies in Durham, NC, Shows Work of William Gedney
Short Distances and Definite Places: The Photographs of William Gedney, the first exhibition to present a survey of the work of American photographer William Gedney (1932-89), is on display at the Center for Documentary Studies (CDS) at Duke University in Durham, NC, through Aug. 4. Margaret Sartor is curator of the exhibit and editor of What Was True: The Photographs and Notebooks of William Gedney.
A film series and a special panel discussion featuring North Carolina author Allan Gurganus will accompany the exhibition.
Gedney's eloquent black-and-white photographs, taken largely from two bodies of work created from the mid-1960s through the early 1970s, capture coal miners' families in eastern Kentucky and hippies in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco with a quietly sensual eye, inviting us into a world distinctly separate from our own. The exhibition also includes later street scenes from India and photographs Gedney took from the window of his apartment on Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn; in these images as well we find personal glimpses, quiet moments stolen amid the restless chaos of urban life.
Gedney's "unique alchemy as a photographer combines a poignant awareness of the solitary individual with a rare and lyrical appreciation for the sensuality of the human figure," says Sartor. "For him, human beauty was not idealized or static, but a quality to be found in the imperfections, the fleeting gestures and postures of ordinary people in the real world."
The very private Gedney, born in Albany and raised in upstate New York, led a modest life in Brooklyn and later on Staten Island, supporting his creative work by teaching at his alma mater, the Pratt Institute of Art, and at Cooper Union. He had discovered photography while he was an art student at Pratt, and he pursued his art with passion and at every opportunity, though he made few efforts to bring his work to public attention.
In 1964 he traveled to eastern Kentucky and spent eleven days living with and photographing the Cornett family - Willie, Vivian, and their twelve children. He formed a lasting connection with them and kept in touch through letters over the years, returning again to photograph them in 1972
In 1966, a Guggenheim Fellowship allowed Gedney to travel across the country, taking pictures as he went. At the end of the year he arrived in San Francisco, where he began photographing a small group of men and women living communally in the Haight, following them as they bunked down in one vacant apartment after another.
Gedney had his first and only solo exhibition in 1968, organized by John Szarkowski at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and featuring works from Kentucky and San Francisco. Gedney's later work was focused mainly around two lengthy trips to India ten years apart, funded by Fulbright and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships. During this time he also constructed book dummies of the San Francisco images and a series on living American composers from the late 1960s. As he considered titles for a book, he recorded lines from W. H. Auden's poem In Praise of Limestone, from which the title for the retrospective exhibition was drawn: "examine this region / of short distances and definite places."
During the last ten years of his life, Gedney undertook few new projects, though he did photograph the annual June rally commemorating the 1969 Stonewall riots. He was diagnosed with AIDS in 1987 and died on June 23, 1989, leaving his work to photographer Lee Friedlander. His vast archive of photographs and notebooks now resides in the collection of Duke University, donated by Friedlander and Gedney's brother, Richard.
Short Distances and Definite Places was organized by Sandra Phillips and premiered last year at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, in conjunction with the publication of What Was True: The Photographs and Notebooks of William Gedney. Selected by the Village Voice as one of the Top 10 photography books of the year, What Was True is part of the Lyndhurst Books series published by the Center for Documentary Studies in association with W. W. Norton & Company. The book is available for purchase at CDS.
The exhibit is presented in cooperation with the Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, with additional support from the Lyndhurst Foundation.
Special events associated with the exhibition, Short Distances and Definite Places: The Photographs of William Gedney.
Panel Discussion:
Friday, June 22, 6-8pm
"The Sensual Eye. William Gedney's Photographs"
A panel discussion with slides. Participants: Allan Gurganus,
novelist; Joe Caldwell, novelist and friend of William Gedney;
Carol Mayor, professor of art, UNC-Chapel Hill; and Margaret Sartor,
editor of "What Was True".
Film Series
In conjunction with the exhibition, CDS is screening five films
that reflect certain aspects of the times and cultural context
in which William Gedney lived and worked. The films will be screened
on the last Thursday of each month beginning in April and ending
in July, with a final, special screening to close the show in
early August. All screenings will begin at 7pm.
April 26
High Lonesome Sound (1963, 30 mins.) This film, made by John Cohen around
the time that William Gedney first went to eastern Kentucky, features
the traditional music of the mountain people of the area: an unemployed
worker, coal miners, church congregations, and members of a miner's
family.
May 31
Shadows
(1959, 87 mins.) One of the landmarks of independent American
cinema, John Cassavetes' first film features two brothers and
a sister who move jerkily through their lives as Cassavetes' free-wheeling
camera, naturalistic dialogue, and jump cuts capture their arguments,
sexual encounters, and parties. With Lelia Goldoni, Ben Carruthers,
and Hugh Hurd.
June 28
After Stonewall (1999,88 mins.) Continuing the chronicle of gay life
begun in Before Stonewall, this sequel charts the community's
history from the time of the Stonewall riots to near the end of
the century, focusing on how AIDS changed the direction of the
movement and, despite initial fears and conflicts, resulted in
wider acceptance of homosexuals in America and the world. Singer
Melissa Etheridge narrates.
July 26
Intrepid Traveller and His Merry
Band of Pranksters Look for a Kool Place
(56 mins.) It was 1964. Mercury sold a convertible. The Beatles
wanted to hold your hand. Barry Goldwater was running for president.
A group of people were getting together in California. One of
them, Ken Kesey, had just written Sometimes a Great Notion.
The publication party was to be in Manhattan in the middle of
June. The whole group decided to go. They bought a bus, painted
it, outfitted it with a sound system, bought movie cameras and
tape recorders. Their plan: to film and record everything along
the way.
August 3
Deadline at Dawn (1946, 91 mins.) William Gedney quoted dialogue from
this film in one of his many notebooks. The plot: Bill Williams
is a sailor in deep trouble. Lola Lane slips him a "mickey"
one night. When he's out cold, she gets murdered. With only seven
hours of leave left, he seeks a solution with the help of Susan
Hayward and Paul Lukas. Great film noir, based on a screenplay
by Clifford Odets. based, in turn, on a novel by Cornell Woolrich.
The Book
What Was True: The Photographs and
Notebooks of William Gedney,
Edited by Margaret Sartor, co-edited by Geoff Dyer (Lyndhurst
Books / W.W. Norton, 192 pages, $35) Available for sale at the
Center for Documentary Studies.
The Web Site
William Gedney: Photographs and Writings (http://scriptorium.lib.duke
edu./gedney/)
The site-possibly the largest catalog of an individual photographer's
life and work available on the Internet today-includes extensive
selections from Gedney's finished prints, work prints, contact
sheets, notes, notebooks, handmade photographic books, book dummies,
and correspondence. Peruse more than 4,900 photographic images,
1,200 images of writings and notebooks, and 270 images representing
nine digitized photographic book projects. Eight of Gedney's notebooks
have been fully transcribed and are available as both text and
images, and one typescript is available as electronic text.
Funded in part by a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library
Services, the Web site is a project of the Digital Scriptorium
at the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library
at Duke University.
For further information check our NC Institutional
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