Signs

by Andrei Codrescu, Walker Evans (Photographer)

Walker Evans photographed signs throughout every phase of his career. From the 1920s to the time of his death in 1975, Evans was obsessed with the signage he found in modern America--from billboards to gas station pumps to street graffiti to handmade announcements of a Saturday-night dance.
This book features fifth photographs of signs from the Getty Museum's collection, presented with a lively, provocative essay by Andrei Codrescu. Codrescu trains a perceptive eye on the artistic and social climate in Evans's America and reflects on the photographer's images as documents and
commentary. Some of the images included come from the place and era most closely associated with Evans--the rural South of the 1930s. But also included are photographs that will be less familiar to many of his admirers, such as his images of New York City street scenes and advertising signs, or
pictures he took in Havana and in Sarasota, Florida.

Genres: Photography, Art, Nonfiction

96 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Andrei Codrescu is a poet, novelist, essayist, and NPR commentator. His many books include Whatever Gets You through the Night, The Postmodern Dada Guide, and The Poetry Lesson. He was Mac Curdy Distinguished Professor of English at Louisiana State University from 1984 until his retirement in 2009.

Reviews

[J.D. Steens · Rating 2 out of 5]

This collection of Evans’ photos was put together by the Getty Museum. Nothing much struck me about these pictures and the accompanying essay by Andrei Codrescu seemed overdone. Codrescu interprets these photographs as evidence of Evans’ anti-capitalist leanings, and the underlying “mistrust of what words had come to mean in the bourgeois world: debased in advertisements, spoken without meaning on the streets, issuing fully stillborn from the mouths of politicians, sprayed like cream swirls on the rococo pastries of art.” Later Codrescu writes that Evans “pursued this text that invaded every nook and cranny and even wrote the skyline” and that, as a modernist, Evans’ “social rectitude, though not strictly socialist, would have maintained that economic conditions were at the root of everyone’s oppressed condition, male or female.” Perhaps it was some or all of this, though I didn’t see it. Signs as noise, and noise as environmental pollution, made more sense to me. In one photo of an old truck backed into a garage, while Codrescu’s describes it as “framed by all the reverence due a church saint, perhaps Jesus himself,” I saw just a truck in a garage. Then, with a half-cropped truck that is pointed down the street, away from the garage, Codrescu writes that that very same truck is “parked deferentially as if awaiting its turn to worship.” Really.

[Joshlynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

i'm so glad this book exists. when i first encountered the work of walker evans i was immediately struck by the way he shot signs. they took on a mysterious power that they still have in real life but which is magnified in the photographs. the focused selection in this book also hammers the point home that walker wasn't just a great photographer, he was also a solid found-text poet. the denser photos, with signs hanging at different angles and at different distances from the camera, accomplish a poetic 3-d composition in a way that the dada poets tried and failed to do. walker understood that the century could no longer be expressed solely on paper, while also acknowledging that text and runes were more vital now than ever. the result is a whip-smart collection of photos, many of which knocked my breath out with their unexpected balance of humor and anger. codrescu elaborates on these ideas in his essay, which is largely very insightful but occasionally veers into the silly (the truck isn't jesus, andrei. it's a truck. calm down.) overall, a book that has provided me with new enthusiasm for an artist i already loved by approaching a particular aspect of his work from an innovative angle. check it out.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of black and white photos of interestingly shot signs and storefronts with an essay by Andrei Codrescu from The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

[Yifat]

I heart Subway portraits 1938-41

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed the photographs, but wasn't overly enamoured with the essay. It was very dry, hence why it took so long to actually read the book.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

great and informative