Ironies in American Life

If you walk along a downtown street of any major city in America, you are confronted with irony—a contrast between rich and poor, comfortable and uncomfortable, beautiful and ugly, common and exotic. Tensions exist wherever you look. There are moments in which these tensions are exacerbated, when the contrast on every urban street is made more obvious to the casual observer. War, protests, and even lockdowns can highlight these differences in our culture and can fill us with a sense of unease. However, is it these deep and dramatic ironies that are the more haunting, or is it the everyday, almost imperceptible ironies that we have become numb to? Are you more put off by the homeless man on the corner that you walk past every day, or by the protestors at the state capital, fighting for COVID-19 restrictions to be lifted? Street photographers in the 1960s and 1970s worked closely with these ironies in American society. While some captured the overtly dramatic moments of the Civil Rights and Vietnam War era, others photographed the quieter ironies, the one of a black nanny holding a white baby, or the young prostitute sitting next to a modest older woman on a park bench. Both of these—the overt and the quiet—are the ironies of American life. The following photographs will give you a taste of the more subtle ironies, but perhaps you will decide they are all the more haunting.

Los Angeles, California

Garry Winogrand

1969, printed 1974

Gelatin silver print

MET: 1978.660.11

Winogrand’s black and white photograph, Los Angeles, California, highlights tensions between social classes in urban life. The women in the middle of the photo, with big hair and classy dresses, walk towards the camera with eyes turned to the left. Their gazes are fixed on a man in front of them, who is slumping in a wheelchair in the foreground on the left side of the image. Although your eyes are immediately drawn to the three women in the middle of the photo, Winogrand insists that we recognize that the scene is not as glamorous as we might initially think. He sets a visual tension between the illuminated women and the less savory aspects of street life in L.A. Are you uncomfortable yet? Or is the man asking for money on the sidewalk too common of a scene to bring uneasiness?

American Legion Convention

Garry Winogrand

1964, printed 1974

Gelatin silver print

MET: 1978.660.9

This Winogrand photograph, American Legion Convention, captures one of the more obvious ironies on our streets: the contrast between those with physical disabilities and those without. In this image, an older man without legs sits on the ground, surrounded by men and women standing tall. Although perhaps unknowingly, those standing around the disabled man give him a bit of distance, which creates a circle of negative space around the man. This highlights the contrast in height and draws your attention to the man. As the man stares straight at the camera, the contrast is made all the more loud, and the viewer is almost forced to immediately engage with this tension. Uncomfortable questions need to be quickly addressed: will you choose to drop eye contact and walk around him, or will you choose to approach him? Do I need to help him? Does he even need help?

Los Angeles

Garry Winogrand

1980-83

Gelatin silver print

MET: no number

This photograph, taken seemingly haphazardly, highlights a contrast in lifestyle of those in a city. A street scene is pictured, with a car rolling past a woman lying face down on the pavement on the side of the road. The tilt of the photograph, in addition to a slight blur of motion, gives you the sense that you too are in a car driving past this scene. Although this irony is maybe less common, it will be past in a few seconds and you will never see this woman again. Still, you ask, how did she end up passed out on the street? Is she just a drunk? Instant judgements are made. Are you tempted to look back? Or is she just a fleeting concern, gone from your mind by the next stoplight?

Charleston, South Carolina

Robert Frank

1955, printed 1977

Gelatin silver print

MET: 1986.1198.23

           Charleston, South Carolina, is a simple photo highlighting ironies found in differences in race. A black nanny, shot in profile, protectively holds a small, white baby. The contrast between the woman’s dark skin and the slightly blown-out white background make the difference in skin tone all the more obvious. She is surrounded by whiteness, perhaps referencing the Jim Crow white power structure that she was subject to in the South. This woman is trusted with the intimate responsibility of caring for a baby, but at this time in 1955, she was not trusted to share a water fountain. There are deep, complex inequalities occurring in this photo, some that do not exist in the modern age, and some that still persist. These ironies in American life can change over time, but we should not forget from where we have come.

Movie Premiere, Hollywood

Robert Frank

1955-65, printed 1977

Gelatin silver print on paper

MET: 986.1198.10

Robert Frank captures one of the more subtle tensions of American society in Movie Premiere, Hollywood, that of fame and wealth. A woman with curled hair and fancy dress takes up the majority of this image, but it is not she who is in focus. Rather, by shifting the focus to the crowd behind her, made up of men and women craning their necks to see the movie stars, Frank seems to make the common people the stars of this photograph. This irony of fame and commonness in America may be one of the less stressful contrasts in this selection, and by placing the focus on the non-famous, the juxtaposition of characters in this image becomes something almost to be celebrated.