The event is hosted by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and features the work of Photographer Zoe Strauss, an artist who has had tremendous influence in the Philadelphia area.
Her father died at age six, but Strauss was raised by her mother, and her grandparents who still live in a row home located at 16th and Susquehanna. Born and raised in North Philadelphia Strauss received a camera at age 30 and with no further training, began taking photos of marginalized neighborhoods in the Philadelphia area. He grandparents house consistently appears in her work.
In 1995 Strauss created the Philadelphia Public Art Project. It is a 10 year program where she works to document the people and places of Philadelphia.
Strauss works to make her art as accessible as possible. Annually she holds a one-day art show named “Under I-95” where she hangs her work from cement pillars under the highway. At the event she sells five dollar photocopies of her pieces. The event is open to anyone according to a description online.
Her “10 years, Billboard Project” exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art goes until April 22 and is located in the main building of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Included as part of the exhibit, are several billboards in the Philadelphia area that display her work to anyone that drives by. The billboards are located on different roads like I-95 and route one.
The display at the Museum is only one exhibition room large, but features about 100 photos and a slideshow area with more. Each work is displayed in the same simple white frame. Oftentimes Strauss’ work was explained in the description as “minimalist.”
The majority of the photos were taken in Philadelphia and surrounding areas of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. There are a few shots from places like Los Angeles and Las Vegas included in the exhibit.
Her “minimalist” style could be seen in her photos that were of a fluorescent light bulb or a stark white wall with a horizontal blue stripe.
Strauss is considered a “street photographer” and the subjects of her photos are representative of the notion. Her work at the the show includes shots of condemned buildings, burnt out neon signs, and drug users.
Though these subjects are not strictly Philadelphian in nature, the places that the shots were taken in what is considered the rougher neighborhoods of Philadelphia. Some of the shots were from places like the Kensington and North Philadelphia neighborhoods.
Oftentimes Strauss’ shots were of subjects that were representative of some of the people from those neighborhoods. Bob Lambert, a former Temple University, Tyler School of Art student born and raised in Philadelphia describes the people in the photos as “hopeless.” A few photos showed people smoking or holding what looked like crack and another was a woman displaying her track marks.
There also seemed to be a large theme featuring injury. Many photos were of subjects displaying scars or for example a man being placed in a stretcher after being shot in the leg.
“She is a stark street photographer with an eye for the harsh, and she knows how to use an images strength” said Bob Lambert.
Lambert grew up on Berks and Front on the border of the Kensington neighborhood in Philadelphia. “I saw these alleyways,” he said before turning around and pointing to a photo of the elevated subway stop at Berks street and explaining how he took it to work everyday.
When asked if the whole body of work was a good representation of Philadelphia Lambert responded by saying, “She’s not off the mark.” He struggled to come up with any other word than “hopeless” to describe the people and the places in Strauss’ exhibit.
The event notation described Strauss’ work as, “Installations that push the boundaries of public space.” In this case they even pushed out of the museum and onto the billboards of the area that Strauss’ work captures on film, and seems to teach residents about a community that they are a part of.
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