| From the beginning of his artistic career, Paul Graham established himself as a photographer unwilling to stay within the confines of the traditional definitions of his medium. In a shimmer of possibility, Graham’s latest series of photographs partially on display at the Museum of Modern Art, he combines this spirit with a literary, almost poetic sense of photography in images of everyday life amongst middle-class Americans. The result is a collection that reaches beyond its unassuming subject matter—the collective whole imparting not a definitive social topography, but an impression of a shifting, varied culture. |  |
Éva Pelczer on Paul Graham at MOMA.
From the beginning of his artistic career, Paul Graham established himself as a photographer unwilling to stay within the confines of the traditional definitions of his medium. In a shimmer of possibility, Graham’s latest series of photographs partially on display at the Museum of Modern Art, he combines this spirit with a literary, almost poetic sense of photography in images of everyday life amongst middle-class Americans. The result is a collection that reaches beyond its unassuming subject matter—the collective whole imparting not a definitive social topography, but an impression of a shifting, varied culture. In recording downright unremarkable moments and presenting them as glimpses into unfinished narratives, Graham brings a sense of the ethereal to scenes firmly rooted in reality.
Though some of Graham’s earlier work is tinged with social politics—class tension in American Night (1998-2002) and the changing face of a country in Troubled Land (1984-86)—this collection teems with subtlety and a sense of aloofness from the photographer’s subjects. Presented in the gallery salon-style, the majority of images are arranged in three- or four-photograph series and record Americans in the midst of everyday routine. Texas (2005) shows a girl shooting basketball in front of her house with an older brother at dusk, their bodies barely distinguishable from the street behind them in the enveloping darkness. California (2005) juxtaposes a photograph of a man eating his dinner by a trash can with a little girl spreading out her playthings on a sidewalk in daylight, implying a similarity in their movements. Other series depict a man taking a cigarette break and another mowing a commercial lawn adjacent to a parking lot. None of these people seem aware of the presence of the camera. There would be a sense of voyeurism on the part of the viewer if it seemed like there was anything worth looking at that one wouldn’t see simply driving down the street.
The scenes themselves aren’t extraordinary, but the nearly invisible hand of the photographer who has placed them together elevates them from their quotidian status. Graham resists assigning narrative within each series; the way these images tell a story is more observant, the scattered photographs literally piecing together a small series of moments in strangers’ lives. The focus is as much on the human subject as the space around them—how they create an environment with their movements, gestures, objects, and possessions. For example, New Orleans (Woman Eating) (2004) documents a haggard woman finishing her takeout lunch and starting a post-meal cigarette over the course of six images. What shapes the scene is not just her physical self but also the detritus she is creating and scattering—when she leaves her bus stop bench, outside of the realm of the series, her Styrofoam container, the remains of the chicken bones she’s been eating, and likely her cigarette butt, will stay behind as an imprint of her presence.
A shimmer of possibility was originally manifested as a 12-volume series of books in 2007, and only later curated as an abridged museum exhibit. The influence of Chekov’s short stories on Graham’s work has by now been well documented, and is easily attributed the literary sense of the show. Each series and individual photograph is presented in medias res—not with a beginning or an end, but in the middle of a potential narrative, one that Graham suggests instead of develops. In California (2006), a pair of rough hands holds a Styrofoam cup, the contents of which is obscured by the lip. The placement of the photograph (not in the center of the wall, but flush against its left side) makes it seem like not much more than a fleeting impression, one rich enough to let the viewer to fill in the rest, be it with compassion, judgment, or apathy.
Though Graham’s photographs reflect the similarity in patterns of everyday routine, the subjects seem completely unrelated to each other. Graham himself has denied contriving intimacy with his subjects (as he stated in an interview, “The world is comprised of 99.9% strangers”) and the unassuming shimmer of possibility reflects such detachment. But there is something vaguely existential about the show, in isolating commonplace events that still show a very natural human compulsion and activity reflected among strangers. Of shimmer of possibility, Graham tells The Daily Telegraph, “The challenge in this case was not to try to return with some nugget from the riverbed but to reflect something of the ebb and flow of the river itself;” the current of day-to-day life is unspectacular, but perhaps still rhythmic and graceful.
