A quick scan of your friends’ Facebook albums will likely include one or all of the following: photographic documentation of early-stage alcoholism, hastily snapped captures of Badger games, Ke$ha-inspired album titles, and otherwise uninspired material.
Not that Facebook is any place for high art (my most recent status may or may not be equating Obama’s rally with an excuse to hit the bars on a Tuesday afternoon). But suffice it to say that students don’t often see casual student-shot photos that reveal interesting or noteworthy things about Madison. Which is why Gary Knowles’ Polaroid photographs on exhibit at Madison Museum of Contemporary Art should be of particular interest to current students.
Knowles, a former UW student and longtime Madison resident, took Polaroids of Madison in the late ’70s and donated them to the permanent collection years ago. He will be giving a gallery talk this Friday, Oct. 1 at 6:30 p.m. to discuss the 26 Polaroids on exhibit.
Knowles’ Polaroids are part of MMoCA’s “Focus/Madison” exhibit, a selection of various media from the museum’s permanent collection whose main subject is the city itself. Some of the other work nods to Madison’s progressive past, capturing the political tension of the late ’60s and the future it heralded. And though MMoCA’s web site praises Knowles for uncovering the “quintessential aspects of Madison in the late 1970s,” he feels the project wasn’t guided by any preconceived cultural motives but instead by a simple interest in the world around him.
“The only thing I was shooting for when I shot pictures was to shoot stuff that I liked,” says Knowles, noting the organic nature of the project. “I really didn’t do it with the intention of documenting Madison, but it kind of happened.”
The subjects of the photos range from landmarks to the nondescript, from public officials to local barflies. Some of the places shot are still there (Library Mall, Paul’s Books) and some are not (the 602 Club, the Washington Hotel).
Even retrospectively, Knowles doesn’t see much of a thematic commonality or documentary purpose to the Polaroids. “I had just enough money to survive, no family to support, and I decided I was going to spend some time being a photographer just shooting stuff that I wanted to shoot.”
In this way, Knowles is not so much a photographic auteur per se, but rather a keen observer of the visually striking. This is not to say that he didn’t strive to do interesting things with the simple medium of Polaroid film, or as he calls it, “a chemical sandwich with a plastic back and a plastic front.” Most all of the photos are manipulated, giving off a Van Gogh-like painterly color swirl.
“I was smoking a pipe in those days,” says Knowles. “I would use my pipe lighter, and as the picture came out of the camera I would heat it up and use the pipe tool to manipulate the dyes.”
His 26 Polaroids show a broad yet highly local survey of Madison and UW: There are shots of football games and cheerleaders, the Red Gym, a basket of green peppers, and an old roommate’s girlfriend. Their diversity of subject reflects a more intimate understanding of the isthmus and its wrinkles, a relationship to the city built on more than simply wandering around with an SX-70.
“I got to know quite a lot of the people on State Street,” says Knowles. He recalls an old lawyer who advertised on the promise of a $10 first consultation and teaching alongside ex-Mayor Paul Soglin (Soglin taught on community organization, Knowles on motorcycle-hoodlum culture). He also collaborated with a highly opinionated cab driver to get him a public access television program.
“Is Nick’s still open”? Knowles wonders aloud. “Well, I knew Nick.”
Since snapping off Polaroids in the late ’70s, Knowles has bounced around between a variety of different gigs over the years, each one affording a balance of work and play.
He served as communications director for the Wisconsin Department of Tourism, a post that allowed him to tour the state taking pictures and entertaining visiting VIPs. He parlayed this experience into a book about driving the back roads of Wisconsin and goes on a four-day convertible cruise of the state every summer.
Now, Knowles is the travel editor for Dane County Lifestyles but continues to shoot whenever he can. “Right now, my main camera is just a little digital that I carry around with me,” he notes.
“To me, I think the key is that you’re born into a world of a lot of amazing things and it passes you by at 60 seconds per minute,” says Knowles. “If you see something that you really like and at least grab the moment in a picture, there’s a real joy in that.”
