Artists that inspire us. Baldwin Lee
Baldwin Lee, a Southern Portrait (written by Open Eye Gallery volunteer Carl Culling)
Volunteering at Open Eye reawakened my interest in, and passion for, photography. I started to seek out photographer’s work that I wasn’t aware of and images that interested and inspired me. It was in March that I came across the story and photographs of Baldwin Lee.
Baldwin Lee is an Asian-American who despite being painfully shy forced himself to engage with the people he photographed. Over a six year period he criss-crossed the American Deep South with a 4×5 large format camera and tripod taking his startling images documenting the poverty and injustice he saw.
He explained that when he arrived in a new town he went to the local police station to ask the areas he should avoid and then he went there. These were invariably the poorest black areas yet the only hostility he ever encountered was from white people.
He retains a burning sense of the injustice he saw and partly as a result, after six years and 10,000 photographs, he abruptly and permanently walked away from photography.
After years lanquishing in relative obscurity a book of his work was published in America last year [Hunters Point Press, 2022, 3rd edition 2023, available from the Photographers Gallery, £60] and his photographs are currently being exhibited in the UK for the first time.
The exhibition is free but by appointment only and you’ll have to be quick! I found the exhibition an extraordinary record of a time and place and an unsettling insight into the iniquity of the American Dream.
“This one modest room of photographs is – and no apologies for the cliché – staggering. You won’t see a better show of photography this year. Maybe ever.” – Time Out
Lee however appears underwhelmed at his ‘rediscovery’ “I can’t say I’m excited,” he says, “If anything, I find it amusing.”