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Shelby Lee Adams: Modern Appalachia Recent Work November 16, 2001 - January 5, 2002 Reception for Artist: Friday, November 16, 2001 from 6 - 8 PM Adams has spent most of his time recently in the Lost Creek area of Kentucky, where he photographed the more contemporary aspects of his subjects’ living standards. Satellite dishes are seen throughout the images, though sometimes they are serving secondary functions such as a canopy for farm animals. Trailer homes are used for business and living purposes and recreational vehicles - four wheelers - are used instead of horses to travel through the mountains. These Appalachian residents are also wearing more trendy name brand clothing such as LA Gear, Nike, and Levi’s, and t-shirts with designer logos. Families still look forward to each visit by “the picture man.” Adams often revisits old friends and then photographs the younger generation, meeting new subjects by word of mouth. For example, Reverend Bill Noble, a mountain preacher, was portrayed in Shelby’s last book in front of his church with a sign above that reads, “Gateway to Heaven”. Now his son Donnie has been photographed in front of his house holding his baby beneath a satellite dish canopy with his cows. Adams usually spends a lot of time with his subjects, talking for hours, eating dinner with them, helping to build new roofs or other labor tasks. He always gives the families Polaroids of the pictures he takes and when he returns the next year, he gives them 8 x 10 prints. Shelby Lee Adams’ photographs have been exhibited throughout Europe and Japan as well as in the United States. Among the many museum collections that include his work are: the Amon Carter Museum in Ft. Worth, TX; the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX; the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; and the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C. Adams has two monographs published: Appalachian Portraits, 1993, and Appalachian Legacy, 1998. Photographs and essays have been published nationally and internationally in numerous books and periodicals. He is also the subject of a feature length documentary film that will soon be released. The film crew has been traveling with Shelby in the past year. Interviews with notable figures in the photography world will also be featured in this film, including photography critics A.D. Colman and Vicki Goldberg, and photographers Mary Ellen Mark and Wendy Ewald. Appalachian Journey is directed by Jennifer Baichwal and produced by Mercury Films, Inc. (producers of the award winning documentaries The Holier It Gets (2000), and Let It Come Down: The Life Paul Bowles, which won an international Emmy in 1999). Approximately 30 photographs by Shelby Lee Adams will be on view for this solo exhibition. |
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