A Few Questions for Chris Verene


© Chris Verene, 2007

I?ve been familiar with Chris Verene?s photographs since I started graduate school at the School of Visual Arts in 2006. Chris was a critique teacher there, and although I never had the chance to study with him I was always curious about his highly saturated, unsettling and poignant images of his extended family. Chris has been photographing his relatives in Galesburg, Illinois for 26 years. His approach to depicting his family is tender and humorous and often disturbing. His style is distinctive; marked by his use of fill flash, a square film format and the addition of neatly handlettered text surrounding the image.

His exhibition, Family, is currently showing at Postmasters Gallery in Chelsea until October 16. Last week I had a chance to see the show, which features over 41 images densely packed into two large rooms, and to browse the handsome new book of the same name published by Twin Palms. I asked Chris if he would be up for a quick interview. I was very happy when he agreed.

AMY STEIN: I?m interested in your relationship with your family. In particular with the members of your extended family in your images. Are you close? How do you deal with the distance that comes with the repeated act of photographing your family, of placing yourself in the role of observer. Or does the act of photographing them bring you closer?

CHRIS VERENE: I'm very close with my family, pictured and not pictured. As an only child, I clung to my cousins like siblings, and we still are very connected. I do not work as an 'observer,' that is your job as the audience. I am relating the stories from their source, our family, town, and neighbors out to the world at large. I think that the act of photographing makes me close with only the people who really enjoy the photography-- the people who time and again ask for pictures, and compel me to tell those stories.

© Chris Verene, 2002

AS: Your images are accompanied by handwritten text, which gives them context and deepens the narrative of the series. It also mimics the conventions of the family photo album, which is almost extinct. Can you talk about the role of text in your work?

CV: The text is like signing your name on a letter or document. It's one's own writing, and it guarantees that one stands behind what is written. I struggle with the writing every time-- it is hard to do, very permanent, and must be done on every single piece throughout my history. It is the best I can do, but often looks imperfect. It also probably keeps me outside of some curatorial worlds, it's perhaps too weird, too personal, too off-beat in a cool Chelsea world of photo --filled with the slick conceptual object-photos of Roe Ethridge, Oliver Boberg, Sarah Charlesworth, Gursky, etc.

The handwritten text is a rule-- I almost always do it, and I can't escape my thoughts. One key to understanding the text is that it's usually like you said, Amy, it's like a family album-- it tells us why a picture was taken at that exact moment, it tells what was thought to be the story's end at that moment or other key fact that was in our minds when I came to make a picture.

AS: I read somewhere that you were inspired by Arbus. For me your work is reminiscent of photographers who explore family and rural life Nick Wapplington, Shelby Lee Adams and Larry Fink. Can you talk about some of your photographic inspirations?

CV: Well, Arbus was a book I took out of my parents' locked bookshelf at elementary school age. Waplington has not been an influence, but it was encouraging to see that people worldwide accepted him as an artist. Shelby Lee Adams is an influence, as is Emmet Gowin, and Larry was my teacher for 5 great days at a workshop. He's a GREAT teacher, and I like his rule wherein any level of student can study with him, even beginners. I'd say that Nan Goldin's work was not an influence, but when I saw her book in a store (my first exposure to her) I was amazed that people would accept such snapshots as art-- it encouraged me to know that the language of a small flash camera and everyday moments were high art, because that's what I was already doing in the 1980's.

© Chris Verene, 2005

AS: Some of your images comment directly on the diminishing choices of people living in smaller, economically challenged communities like Galesburg. For example, your cousin Cindy and her husband lost their jobs when the Maytag local factory closed down. There was a time in our country where you could comment about economic hardship without it seeming like an overtly political statement. Today, in this hyper-polarized climate that's harder to do. Did you intend these images to be overtly political?

CV: Naw, it's just a sad fact. I am a documentary artist, so I just have facts to show. The North American Free Trade Agreement meant that Maytag could make their fridges about 10 feet across the Mexican border, and make so much more money, because the people in Mexico will work for a lot less money, and the safety restrictions are very shallow across the border--which also is good for corporations' profits. For Candi and Craig, who both worked at the factory, it meant a carefully balanced life of two working parents with young children was dumped quickly for corporate cash. Galesburg workers were suicidal. Their pensions were dumped, their dreams wasted. My grandfather was cheated out of his railroad pension through similar corporate tricks. It's not politics, it's corporate greed and shifty accounting. I could go on-- my cousin worked for Wal-Mart for 20 years and still has no benefits, they keep scheduling her for 38 hours per week-- she's 'freelance'-- but when Wal-Mart started to carry groceries, she was forced to sign a non-compete clause, which meant she had to quit her other job bagging groceries-- because that breaks the non-compete clause... I could go on...

© Chris Verene, 2004

AS: I knew your Family series was a long term project, but I had no idea that you had been photographing for 26 years. That sort of long term commitment and relationship to your subject reminds me of Doug Dubois, who?s also photographed his family for decades.

CV: Yes, Doug is a good friend of mine, but his pictures are elaborately staged theater, which he makes to look effortless. I much prefer Doug's personal family theater to Crewdson's theater of actors.

© Chris Verene, 2007

AS: What are the challenges and rewards of focusing on one subject for such an extended period of time?

CV: Well, it's all I know. I don't really know what it would be to do someone else's family, or some other such story. I have photographed some special people on assignment for magazines, for example I did a Newsweek cover story on men with Chronic Depression. That's just a few hours with a person.

© Chris Verene, 2006

AS: You?re an educator as well and an artist. Can you talk about balancing those two aspects of your career?

CV: The balance part is just a matter of putting enough hours in the day!! I do love teaching at State University/Westchester Community College-- it's great, and the students are often from a very socially and/or economically disadvantaged background. it is similar to my time spent with teenagers in Galesburg.

© Chris Verene, 2006

AS: What, ultimately, would you like us you understand about family and place by looking at your images?

CV: Ahhh- I don't know what to say! I do hope people will spend some time looking at 50 or more pictures and really look at it before they go too far on their own. I also think reading my essay and my father's essay in the new book are required reading to understand the work.

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Evolve or Die

© Mona Lisa Productions

I'm a bit of an evolution junkie. I'm particularly fascinated by the idea of evolution in real time. We tend to think of evolution as something that happens over millions of years, but there is evolutionary change happening right under our noses. See this story on Live Science about fish in southern Mexico who are adapting to a centuries old, yearly religious ceremony practiced by the Zoque people. As part of the ceremony, the Zoque stun the fish with a plant toxin. Most fish knuckle to the toxin, float to the surface and are eaten. The fish that have developed a resistance to the toxin live to swim (and reproduce) another day.

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Thank You Kodak

Through the loupe
A year ago I met Stacy Mehrfar for a drink at the Half King in Chelsea. We'd known each other since our early days printing in the color darkroom at the ICP, but on that day Stacy was in town from Sydney, where she lives with her husband Gavin. As we were catching up over a drink and talking about her new adopted country, she mentioned a strange phrase, Tall Poppy Syndrome. Tall Poppy Syndrome is an Australian societal phenomenon where people who are seen to be successful are resented by their fellow citizens. Having been raised in a country that preaches the religion of individual success (USA! USA! USA!), this concept was foreign to me. As we discussed it further we decided it would be a great structure for a photo series about Australia.

Switch to a year later, I'm in Australia and we are about to head out on the second leg of our photographic road trip exploring the land Down Under.

Mostly unshot film
This project was made possible in large part because of the support of my chairs at SVA and Parsons and the folks at FotoFreo, but there's not a chance in hell we could have pulled it off without a generous film sponsorship from Kodak. As long time Kodak shooters, Stacy and I are thrilled to have their support for this project.

Ready for processing
During our first leg of this trip into the Australian Bush and Outback, we shot hundreds of rolls and sheets of Kodak Portra 160 and 400NC. Yesterday we picked up the processed film and were thrilled with the negatives so far. We'll be posting some early scans of the film in the next week. Stay tuned.

4x5 negatives!
Thank you Kodak!

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Tales From FotoFest

The stage is set for portfolio speed-dating
I've always wanted to go to Houston for FotoFest. The shows, the people, the line dancing. One year I'll get down there. In the meantime I asked a two friends, Phil Toledano and Justine Reyes, who attended the portfolio reviews this year to report back from the trenches. It's been a few days since they returned home, but you get the idea.

Phil Toledano
Now I know what it?s like to be a cow at the meat-yard, waiting for the compressed-air bolt to the forehead.

Fotofest is a very interesting experience-it peels back the little band-aid the covers the giant weeping rash of desperation that all (ok-most) of us suffer from. Of course, it?s useful-for some of us, it?ll crack open a career. But (to quote George Bush, which I try and do as much as possible) make no mistake-we?re all down here dancing about like monkeys, selling our wares. Is this a little bleak? Well, I suppose so, but then again, I am the Morrisey of photography.

Sometimes I?m asked what I hope to get out of a meeting. Honestly? The only thing I?d like to hear is something along the lines of: ?I?ve never seen genius of this importance before in my life-hang on, let me get the curator of MOMA on the horn? That would be great. Or a screaming artgasm ?when harry met sally? style, reviewer white-knuckling the sides of the table.

But I?ll settle for a group show in Nebraska.

Now, don?t get me wrong, I?ve had a good time, and I?ve had some lovely conversations with some people who seemed (at the time) interested. I also met some really great photographers (red Sonja and death reyes-shout out to my peeps!)

We all ask each other how it?s going, and it?s a question I find very hard to answer. Some people liked my work, others, not so much. You really don?t have any clue. It can take a week, a month, or a few years.


Justine Reyes
Last day at Fotofest. Trying to summarize this experience seems like an extremely daunting task at the moment. I am exhausted. Being a first timer I guess I didn?t quite know what to expect. For only four days a lot is packed in. I met with ten reviewers today alone and then did an open portfolio night.

On the good side I have gotten to know some really lovely people, talented photographers and critical thinkers. It has been fun looking at people?s work and getting feedback on my own.

On the bad side there is at times this odd competitive/aggressive energy that I naively wasn?t expecting to encounter.

All in all I am glad I got to come and be a part of it although I don?t think I will be able to process this experience fully until after I return home and escape the vortex that is Fotofest.

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