Milwaukee Art Museum's Herzfeld Center for Photography and Media Arts hosts "True Story: Photography, Journalism, and Media," a photography exhibition of works drawn from its collection that explores how images have affected the way in which we view world events.
The show, with more than 100 objects – photographs, magazines, prints, collages and film – from this century and last, opens Friday, Nov. 15 and runs through March 16.
There's a definite focus on Wisconsin photos and a series of images documenting the 20th century is heavy on Milwaukee history, including photographs of a Nazi rally at the Auditorium in the 1930s, a portrait of Mayor Daniel Hoan and other local subjects.
Exhibition curator Ariel Pate, who is MAM's assistant curator of photography, says "True Story" can also be seen as a companion to the Robert Longo show on view upstairs in the Baker/Rowland Galleries.
"This show is really conceived as a complement to that show because (Longo) is really taking images from photojournalism," Pate says. "He does a lot of manipulation of them. He can move elements around, whereas here the journalists are grabbing and framing images specifically to support the story that they want to show."
"True Story" includes works by Robert Capa, Eugene Smith, Lewis Wickes Hine, Wayne Miller, Danny Lyon, Larry Burrows, Christian Patterson, William Weege, Bruce Conner, Taryn Simon and Robert Heinecken that look at the Civil Rights Movement as the Vietnam War as well as a car crash, a parade and a Packers game.
Much of the exhibition is a testament to the way in which photographers have used the medium to effect social change.
Photographers like Wisconsin's Lewis Hine, who was active in the National Child Labor Committee, which sought to improve the lives of American children.
A number of his works here show young kids working in mills and factories.
"He was really advocating for a shift in public opinion," Pate says. "Pointing out that this was a problem – it wasn't just isolated incidents, it was a systemic problem, that this was not appropriate thing for 6-, 7-, 8-year-olds to be doing – and also that public opinion could change things. If you started lobbying your congressmen, etc., laws could be passed.
"He's really an early utilizer of photography to advocate for the improvement of social conditions."
A series of phographs nearby, by Wayne F. Miller, depicting African-American life on Chicago's South Side in the 1940s, grew out of the photographer's desire to be a force for positive change, too.
"He worked with Edward Steichen, he was part of Steichen's Navy Air Force corps of photographers (the Naval Aviation Photographic Unit) who were photographing World War II," Pate notes.
"He basically created propaganda images to improve people's morale. That also meant that he was among the first photographers to photograph (the aftermath of the atomic bomb at) Hiroshima, and on his journey back across the Pacific at the end of World War II, he was wracking his brain: 'What can I as a photographer do that would prevent that kind of destruction from happening? How can I create some sort of universal fellow feeling across differences, how can I do it photographically?'
"He eventually landed on the idea of photographing the Black community on the south side of Chicago. And in this series of work, he's creating images that are really supposed to elevate our shared humanity, sense of common cause and looking at the hopes and lives of people who were just looking to find their way."
Also in the section is a group of photographs taken by Danny Lyon during the Civil Rights era, including at least one that depicts a young John Lewis, who became the photographer's friend.
"This is work from his time working for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee," Pate says. "He became involved with them as a college student. The protests against segregation weren't just taking place in the deep American south. They were taking place in this small town (Cairo, Illinois), not far from here."
"True Story" also includes a number of hard-hitting Vietnam War images by Larry Burrows.
"Each of them were sort of outsiders to their topic," Pate says of these photographers, "but that allowed the camera to give sort of an outsider's perspective to what they're photographing."
Of course, there's more, too, but you should go and see for yourself. As a teaser, you can see a sampling of the images included in the exhibition here.
“As the media landscape continues to grow and evolve, I hope our visitors gain an appreciation for media literacy as a crucial skill," Pate says.
The exhibition will be accompanied by programming that includes a two-day World AIDS Day Commemoration, a Haberman Local Luminaries program, Gallery Talks and other events. Details of those are here.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
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