William Eggleston, “Untitled (Bottle on Cement Porch),” dye-transfer print, 1965-74, printed 2002 (© Eggleston Artistic Trust)
Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd St.
Daily through May 28, $12-$25 (New York residents pay-what-you-wish)
212-535-7710
www.metmuseum.org
www.egglestontrust.com
Between 1965 and 1974, Memphis native William Eggleston took twenty-two hundred photographs while traveling through Tennessee, the Mississippi Delta, New Orleans, Las Vegas, New Mexico, and Southern California, at times accompanied by actor and artist Dennis Hopper and curator Walter Hopps. Eggleston ultimately compiled seventy-five dye-transfer color prints into the large-size portfolio Los Alamos, named after the national laboratory in New Mexico. “This title cloaks with some irony Eggleston’s ostensible subjects, found in a vast American terrain, yet acknowledges his belief in the aesthetic consequences of his private quest,” Hopps later wrote. The quest is so private that there is little information provided about the photographs, which are on display for the first time in New York City as a complete set, continuing through May 28 at the Met Fifth Ave. Most of the pictures are untitled or named for the state or city in which they were taken. There is no wall text or wall labels offering any further information, save for a series of quotes by Eggleston that lend fascinating insight into his creative process. The works, supplemented by a black-and-white series taken around the same time, reveal a mastery of composition and an innate talent for capturing the soul of America, whether it’s an abandoned shack, a bottle of soda on a car hood, a sign by the side of an empty road, an outdoor water fountain and its shadow, or a man making a call from a phone booth. But I’ve already said too much; below is a handful of photos from the show, with some of Eggleston’s quotes that have been stenciled on the walls of the galleries, in between photos.
William Eggleston, “Memphis,” dye-transfer print, ca. 1971–74 (© Eggleston Artistic Trust)
“A picture is what it is. . . . It wouldn’t make any sense to explain them. Kind of diminishes them. People always want to know when something was taken, where it was taken, and, God knows, why it was taken. It gets really ridiculous. I mean, they’re right there, whatever they are.”
William Eggleston, “Memphis,” dye-transfer print, ca. 1971–74 (© Eggleston Artistic Trust)
“I do have a personal discipline. . . . I only ever take one picture of one thing. Literally. Never two. So then that picture is taken and then the next one is waiting somewhere else.”
William Eggleston, “Mississippi,” dye-transfer print, ca. 1971–74 (© Eggleston Artistic Trust)
“I think of [the photographs] as parts of a novel I’m doing.”
William Eggleston, “Greenwood,” dye-transfer print, ca. 1971–74 (© Eggleston Artistic Trust)
“I had this notion of what I called a democratic way of looking around: that nothing was more or less important.”
William Eggleston, “Untitled (Bathroom Stall Door),” dye-transfer print, 1965-74, printed 2002 (© Eggleston Artistic Trust)
“I don’t spend much time looking at other people’s pictures. It’s never interested me. In color there wasn’t anything to look at that was the kind of photography I wished and wanted to do. I just . . . made it up.”
William Eggleston, “Louisiana,” dye-transfer print, ca. 1971–74 (© Eggleston Artistic Trust)
“I don’t have any favorites. Every picture is equal but different.”
William Eggleston, “Mississippi,” dye-transfer print, ca. 1971–74 (© Eggleston Artistic Trust)
“I don’t have a burning desire to go out and document anything. It just happens when it happens. It’s not a conscious effort, nor is it a struggle. Wouldn’t do it if it was. The idea of the suffering artist has never appealed to me. Being here is suffering enough.”
William Eggleston, “Memphis,” dye-transfer print, ca. 1971–74 (© Eggleston Artistic Trust)
“Often people ask me what I am photographing. It’s a hard question to answer. And the best I have come up with is I just say ‘life today.’ I don’t know if they believe me or not. Or what that means.”