Submitted by Jean Dykstra on Sun, 05/01/2011 - 9:20pm
Will Steacy's spare exhibition at Michael Mazzeo Gallery was brief – it opened the evening of April 28 and closed April 30 – but it packed a punch. His unframed 8x10-inch photographs simmered with outrage over the events transpiring in Wisconsin and the economic devastation emptying many middle American cities. The pictures were accompanied by an installation of newspaper headlines and other ephemera referring to Wisconsin governor Scott Walker's push to limit unions' collective bargaining rights and other issues of the day (including references to the absurd “birther” movement and the scapegoating of teachers). A former union laborer himself, Steacy is also the son of a Philadelphia newspaper reporter, and his photographs follow the best tradition of socially committed documentary photography. Steacy works with a view camera, though, so the photographs capture a remarkable degree of depth and texture. Shot over a 48-hour period that took Steacy from Madison to Gary, Indiana, home to the first US Steel plant, they include a long-empty Wig shop on a desolate street, a photo that nods toward Walker Evans; a portrait of firefighter Allen Madison, holding his union flag; and a sad, half-melted snowman in Madison holding an American flag and a small sign that says "Voice." In some ways, this project is a continuation of Steacy's series, Down These Mean Streets, which documented the palpable anxiety felt in America's urban centers, landscapes littered with burned-out cars forclosed homes and boarded up stores. His pictures have integrity and sincerity, both of which seem to be in depressingly short supply in much of today's public discourse.
