A huge retrospective of the late photographer Garry Winogrand has recently opened at SFMOMA, and it's an eye opener on all kinds of levels.
Erin O'Toole, the museum's associate curator of photography, confessed at a press preview that she started the collaborative curating project with trepidation, because she had not been a particular fan of his thematic photo books that were published during Winogrand's lifetime. By the end of the three-year project, which involved developing and combing through hundreds of thousands of previously unseen prints, she had transformed into a devoted admirer.
I entered the exhibit with a similar skeptical attitude, since a lot of black-and-white New York street photography such as the work of Lee Friedlander strikes me as wildly overpraised, but Winogrand's work is exuberant, strange and dark, with a gift for the odd captured moment such as the early 1960s Central Park zoo photo above.
Winogrand above was a good-looking ladies' man from the Bronx who went through three marriages and probably a few other women in his fairly short life, before dying in 1984 of gall bladder cancer in Tijuana at the age of 56. Through from a working-class Jewish background, he quickly connected with the New York art photography scene in the 1950s, and was featured in museum shows and given a series of Guggenheim and NEA grants to document the United States over the decades.
The SFMOMA exhibit, which is traveling on to the National Gallery of Art in D.C., is broken down loosely into three large sections, Down From The Bronx which are his New York City pictures of the 1950s and 1960s, A Student of America depicting the rest of the country during the same period, and From Boom to Bust depicting a predominantly dark view of Texas and California in the 1970s and early 1980s.
The photos, which were always full of messy life, started becoming more desolate and sadder somehow, reminding one of just how scuzzy a lot of America looked in the 1960s and 1970s.
One of the other three curators of the exhibit is the photographer Leo Rubinfein above, who was one of Winogrand's students and friends, and who gave a charming, artspeak-free introduction to Winogrand's work. "The best exhibits I ever saw of Garry's was when he would come into a classroom with a slide projector and 200 images jumbled together from all points in his career and he'd simply take us through his world. That's what we tried to do with this retrospective." Winogrand was less interested in publishing and refining his photos than simply shooting them, so he left behind hundreds of thousands of undeveloped shots. Rubinfein, O'Toole and Sarah Greenough, senior curator of photographs at the National Gallery of Art where the show is traveling next, spent three years sifting through the unexplored work and have included a large selection of unseen photos in the exhibit.
If you happened to live through any of the times or places pictured here, it feels as if you might run into an image of yourself or friends at any corner. The photos have that kind of evocative, time machine quality, along with an unsettling vision of the United States. The show is running through the end of May, and is very much worth checking out.
The San Francisco Symphony has been working without a contract since last fall, and at Wednesday morning's rehearsal for a series of concerts featuring Mahler's final, Ninth Symphony under Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, they voted to walk out on strike. This forced the cancellation of Thursday's matinee performance, and potentially the remainder of the concerts for the weekend, plus a four-concert tour next week that includes New York's Carnegie Hall.
The Symphony PR Department quickly sent out a release yesterday morning, announcing there would be a press conference at 11AM in their Green Room. In a symbol of how bad communications are between the musicians and management right now, it took a while to realize that the musicians had also announced a press conference at the same time on the Grove Street outdoor stairs. Consequently, the press scrum was instructed to attend the musicians' event first and then return to the Green Room for a conference with Executive Director Brent Assink.
It was odd seeing symphony star players such as associate principal cellist Peter Wyrick above, wearing shades, in civilian clothes looking adrift. Plus, the strike seems so unnecessary because money does not really seem to be the major issue. The SF Symphony, in contrast to many other orchestras around the country, is in very good financial and artistic shape. They are sounding better than at any other time I've heard them over the last forty years, and just came off a 100th year anniversary that was a spectacular success.
According to an article by Janos Gereben at SF Classical Voice, "Ironically, it is exactly the Symphony's robust financial health that is a main issue for the musicians, who feel they are not getting their fair share." Gereben quotes the Players' Committee: "In the 10-year period from 2001 through calendar year 2011 top symphony leadership received salary increases in amounts substantially greater than the increases provided for musicians. The salary for the Executive Director Brent Assink increased by 79% — over 50% more than the increases for the musicians over the same timeframe. According to the latest IRS 990 forms, in 2010, the Music Director [Michael Tilson Thomas] was paid $2.4 million, 18.5 times more than the guaranteed base pay for musicians."
(Photo above is of Concertmaster Alexander Barantschik, who made $518,197 last year, which is quite a bit more than the base pay for SF Symphony musicians that is somewhere between $140,000 and $160,000 depending on who is doing the averaging.)
Part of the public relations problem for the Symphony musicians is that they are already being paid very well, more than colleagues on orchestras in New York, Boston, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Atlanta, and Houston among others. The only two orchestras paying more are Chicago and Los Angeles, so their rallying cry is pay parity with those institutions, which is not a particularly compelling message. And though he may be one of the nicest guys on the planet, violist and players' committee spokesman Dave Gaudry above looks like he was sent from Central Casting to play a union goon in an old Warner Brothers movie.
It would be difficult, though, to be receiving Grammy awards for your work and seeing everyone in the organization being rewarded but you. Giving the Executive Director "longevity" bonuses for his 17-year tenure of approximately $280,000 over the last couple of years was probably not the best idea when about to negotiate a contract with union musicians. This is especially true if you are offering a new "austerity plan" that includes a wage freeze in the first year, and 1% raises in the following two years, along with increased employee costs in health plan funding. Associate Concertmaster Nadya Tichman above has been with the Symphony since 1980 but it seems doubtful that she is being offered a similar "longevity" bonus.
What it looks like from the outside is a Human Resources department working poorly with management in a manner that doesn't know how to make employees feel wanted, needed and respected. Tympanist David Herbert, who has just jumped ship for the Chicago Orchestra after 18 years in San Francisco, writes in an open letter:
"Unfortunately there has grown, over time, a cultural disconnect between the San Francisco Symphony Management and the musicians of the orchestra who make the music come to life. The increased divide between my colleagues’ service to the music and the failure of the San Francisco Symphony Management to recognize such commitment has been disheartening." (Click here for the entire letter at the musicians' strike website here. Photo above is of principal trumpet Mark Inouye, who doesn't look very happy about the whole situation.)
The press scrum wandered back to the Van Ness Avenue Green Room for a reading of management statements by Executive Director Brent Assink (click here for the full text), followed by a Q&A. He claimed to be an "irrational optimist," and hoped it would all turn out well quickly, but the most telling moment arrived when a reporter asked if Assink had attended any of the negotiating sessions, and he replied, "No," adding weakly that he was busy with donors and such.
The musicians and management are meeting all afternoon today to try and work something out with a federal mediator, and I hope Assink shows up, and that his irrational optimism results in a win for everyone. When I asked one of the musicians outside why they were so angry, the response was interesting. "We're not angry so much as we are bewildered. Why are we being treated this way?" It seems time for some healing and less disconnect.
I was going to write this evening about the San Francisco Symphony strike that was announced at competing press conferences this morning at Davies Hall, but need to think the subject out more. Meanwhile, two blocks away at the Heart of The City Farmers Market, a busker performing for handouts was balancing on a ball while playing an accordion and singing with a surprisingly beautiful voice.
A Long Island friend once told me that walking around San Francisco was a constant amusement because everyone looked like they were wearing a costume, a remark that came to mind walking through the market today.
