“I know this style and flow. I’m fluent. But it’s not my first language visually.”
For the last few weeks, Andre and I have been working through the hallway portion of the exhibition for the Marshall Fredericks Sculpture Museum show.
We started with a nine-photo grid that just wasn’t landing. I wanted this section to have a different kind of energy than what was happening in the main gallery. Something more visceral and immediate than the rest of the show.
I kept thinking about the visual language people often associate (or expect) with lowriding. Much of what gets to the general public is dramatic imagery. It’s spectacle—cars hopping, custom paint and engraving, tattoos, gestures, and urban landscapes. These are often the kinds of things that pull somebody in from the outside.
Juice, W. 62nd St., Chicago, IL (2008)
That isn’t usually how I choose to organize and present my work. I might use quieter photographs and everyday moments to build a story together with the more dramatic scenes. This is true with The Lowriders, it’s true with my photographs of Southwest Detroit, and with much of my work.
I do know this style and flow. I’m fluent. But it’s not my first language visually—it often feels sensational for stories that want to be told slowly, intimately. For this installation, though, I started to think it might be the place to let it show up more fully. It’s in a hallway outside the main gallery and it’s about how people encounter lowriding.
Andre introduced me to Daido Moriyama’s and Wolfgang Tillmans’ exhibitions and pointed out the way the photographs, scale, density, and space all work together to create an experience. That helped (and inspired) me. And it got us closer to what we were trying to do.
We expanded the grid to 24 photographs. I wanted to go all black and white and frame it with an image of fire coming out of the tailpipes of a classic Chevy on Woodward Ave.
Fire. Woodward Ave., Detroit, MI. (2008)
We worked at it slowly for a few weeks. A few sessions lasted a couple of hours and moved us forward only a little. Then one day we came to the studio, found an extended Dilla mix on YouTube and got to work.
I don’t know what happened… Flowers [09:10] for the transmission of Yancey loops and drums that had us in a different place.
At some point we realized the grid needed a different cadence. There were too many photographs doing the same kind of work. We started pulling photographs in and out, switched up the pacing and went looking for images that could interrupt the rhythm a little. We got into a flow. I went back into the archive for several medium shots, close details, and a few photographs that brought place firmly back into the sequence.
It came together fast.
After spending weeks trying to figure out what this part of the exhibition wanted to be, all of a sudden it felt right!
A few folks were around for community darkroom that day and came over to see it as we were finishing up. That felt right too. So much of this project has come together like that. Slowly, collaboratively, and then all at once.