Fairs, fairs, fairs. Paris Photo, the Armory, Paris Photo LA, Frieze. A horrible way to see art. No room to move, no room to breathe, works poorly hung. Your eyes bleed by the end. And you see the same things, again and again.
Sometimes, though, you see the same wonderful thing. Katy Grannan’s photographs of people she finds on the sun-scorched streets of California are hard-hitting, haunting, and breathtaking. Reflecting the FSA work of Lange and Evans through the prism of contemporary portraiture, Grannan’s images make clear that our current situation is just as dire for a great many people as it was during the Depression.
They put the other work on view in those fairs , and the fairs themselves, on notice, while making one’s attendance entirely worthwhile.
Photography by Katy Grannan, from her series 99. Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
