People seen in “Labor Daily” do just that: farm workers, restaurant workers, miners, factory workers. Although the photographs here are about jobs and workplaces, and unforgettably so, they are more about people, and unforgettably so.
With Carl Corey, Daniel Overturf, and Xavier Tavera, people are seen participating in the photography, looking into the camera with a quiet, understated pride.
Corey, who edited “Labor Daily,” has twelve images from his series “BLUE – A Portrait of the American Worker.” The images are large, 24 inches by 24 inches or 24 inches by 36 inches, and show their subjects in situ. The wrenches emblazoned on the back of “Todd – Shipyard Machinist – Superior, Wisconsin” are almost as big as Todd.
Twelve of Overturf’s paintings are nearly as large as Corey’s, 22 inches x 22 inches, and show their subjects in action. The photos are from his series “Illinois Workers: On the Rivers and in the Mines.” One of the portraits does double duty. “Miner Larry, Viper Mine, Arch Coal, near Williamsville, Illinois” is not just a pretty picture. It pays homage to the patron saint of labor photography, Lewis Hine. Perhaps Hine’s most famous painting, “Power House Mechanic,” shows its subject framed in the round wire he is working on. Overturf shows a Larry framed with an oversized wheel.
(On the topic of photographic similarities – tires, too – is Inna Valin’s “A Man Recycling Old Tires on Route 66” a deliberate reference to Herb Ritts’s beefcake extravaganza “Fred with Tires” or is it a coincidence? It’s fun either way, it’s more intentional than that.)
The 11 paintings from Tavera’s “Restaurant Service Laborers” series show their subjects in a neutral setting, their work indicated by their tools of the trade: knife, spatula, pin, etc. Their size, 24 inches and 32 inches wide, emphasize the sense of great dignity that the images convey. However, it is surprising that Tavera does not give the name of each title. Maybe the idea is to show everyone as an archetype rather than an individual? Or is it considerate that, in these critical and critical times, to identify working people who may be immigrants to put them at risk?
Like Tavera, Chris Aluka Berry focuses on a specific occupation, farm workers. His 17 pictures show them working, resting, walking, and even praying. The weirdest pictures of a man being drafted: He wants a photo ID. What might once have seemed like a tedious administrative business now feels very different.
Terry Evans, who lives in Chicago, is one of America’s most prominent artists. The nine paintings in “Steel Work” do not show fields or fields. Instead, Evans presents a Western Mordor: piles of slag, graphite, limestone and coal. They are natural scenes that are as beautiful to look at as they are to be haunted by thought. There are also three scenes inside the steel mill. Think of them as machine images, and they are equally bound to look at them as a pile of trash. Their measure of discipline, as the letter of the assembly entitled, “Preparation Area (Minor Men), Indiana Harbor,” suggests.
For Julie Dermansky, in her series “Introduction to the Climate Crisis in the Peace of the Fossil Fuel Industry,” the work involved is not that of the workers but of those who live in the places where the industry pollutes daily life. The visuals tend to be pretty – and overdone in line with the series – but that does nothing to detract from how impressive they can be. Or disappointing.
The museum likes to combine the work of a contemporary photographer with that of its namesake, photojournalist Arthur Griffin. Based on the main theme of workers, Edward Boches has 14 photographs that include oyster farmers and a butcher, among others, to accompany 10 of Griffin. The oysters are excellent.
A panel will be held with several Labor Daily photographers. in Griffin on April 17 from 3:30 to 4:30 pm
WORK DAILY | American Labor Party
LABOR OF LOVE | Lighting Archive, Edward Boches and Arthur Griffin
At the Griffin Museum of Photography, 67 Shore Road, Winchester, through May 24. 781-729-1158, griffinmuseum.org
Mark Feeney can be reached at mark.feeney@globe.com.
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