"Yes, I'm writing this all down..." I interview Allan Sekula and the Renaissance Society's Hamza Walker on new photography exhibit

Renaissance Society introduces Sekula to Chicago arts scene

Photographer Allan Sekula struggles to document a place that doesn’t exist. In his new series, “Polonia and other Fables”, on display at the Renaissance Society, Sekula travels from the University of Chicago’s Pick Hall to a Polish pig farm to trace the co-mingling of national identities, capitalism, labor, and globalization in America and beyond.

Hamza Walker, director of the Renaissance Society, says that Sekula and his challenging social photography make him a perfect candidate to exhibit at this contemporary art museum space.

“Allan Sekula is one of the foremost photographers working in a social documentary vein,” says Walker. “But he’s very under-represented in the United States [and] he’s never had a show in Chicago.”
Renaissance Society: ‘An artist’s museum’

Though the Renaissance Society does not have a permanent collection, Walker says the Society’s chief role in the contemporary art world is to contextualize the works of living artists about art historical-movements the way a museum might; this distinguishes the Society from other galleries. “Our exhibitions represent a critical first-response to these works.”

But Walker is wont to share the Society’s methods for selecting artists: “It’s a secret process that involves incense, oddly weighted bronze coins, very thin leather straps, and a little bit of rice. Those things are deciphered on a platypus pelt, but the freshness of the pelt is also very important… are you writing this down?”

Platypus pelt or not, Sekula rose to the challenge of exhibiting in the Renaissance Society’s unique gallery space. “Because [the gallery] is free, people can come back if they’re on campus, and you can expect that people will spend time in your exhibit maybe not during a continuous period, he says. “I think of the whole installation as a work in itself, so I’m always thinking about the specific quality of the space. The hallways and entry way are really key to me.”
‘Discourse on the value of a humanities degree’

When visitors enter the gallery, they are met with the photo of a young woman—an art student—on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. According to Sekula, wrapped up in this single image, the exhibit’s opener, is a discourse on the value of a humanities degree, the intersection of the art world and finance, and the state of capitalism in the wake of the recession. “She spoke to me because she had some background in photography. She could have been one of my students, working to make a living here…”

Other works in the exhibit more opaquely address the other keystone of Sekula’s series—“Polonia.” Polonia, says Sekula, describes both the locations where Polish immigrants settle outside of Poland and the imaginary embodiment of their country. Because Poland wasn’t recognized as an independent nation until 1918, and suffered colonial domination throughout its history, Polonia has arguably existed for much longer as the locus of Polish national identity.

“Poland hasn’t had its own history—there are these blanks, periods where the language was outlawed,” and episodes of Polish diaspora during the nation’s communist and post-war periods, Sekula said.

But in addition to documenting “Polonia” in and out of the United States, Sekula’s photos speak to the universality of the immigrant experience. “Part of American history is the history of immigration, especially in the Midwest and Chicago. Today you have people coming to work in the industrial jobs that the Poles worked in. I wanted to show who is falling into the roles once occupied by the Poles, and playing them today.”

To do this, Sekula sought inspiration in Chicago—and on campus.
Sekula’s Chicago inspirations

One photo in the Eastern corner of the gallery depicts what Sekula and Walker both call a peculiar campus ritual—University students and staff gather around to watch the high-noon shadow of Dialogo, the bronze sculpture by Virginio Ferrari in front of Pick Hall on May 1, which is rumored to form the shape of a hammer and sickle.

“That event with the shadow is just ready-made irony,” Sekula said. “People come to see that rumored apparition of the hammer and sickle at noon on May Day. Some look to be more conservative, some to be more hip, young, politically liberal or left. I like to look at it as a physiognomy of the University community,” he said; in that sense, the piece puts the University’s conservative and liberal personas in tension, and suggests its role in global economic affairs.

The statue may not cast the exact shadow of a hammer and sickle, Walker adds, “But it’s near enough to activate wishful thinking, which can’t be discredited. Who would show up for this rumored event?” On the opposite wall is a photo of the 2009 May Day Parade in downtown Chicago. “You’ve got this working-class protest going on at exactly the same time—and you can see that the issues of immigration and labor rights are hopelessly intertwined.”

“Documentary is often equated with the quest for social justice. But is that idea that you can point a finger at a very clear wrongdoing even possible anymore?” In Walker’s interpretation, Sekula’s images suggest that, thanks to globalization, no one can view injustices with the distance of a photographer anymore.

“Sekula’s work is also an indictment of that ethical lens,” he says. “That’s what makes Sekula extremely important—his reflection on the genre.”

By Rachel Cromidas, third-year in the College