591 Exhibition: Keith Dannemiller
My City My Soul
"I have auditioned in my mind hundreds of titles for this ongoing work. One title that I keep coming back to, and that resonates is, "My City, My Soul". The DF can be a very inhospitable place if you do not have a personal compass to guide you. I feel like I am always in the process of trying to fashion a space for myself here in the urbe which is Mexico City.
One way I can do it is by populating that space with people I meet and photograph -- people with whom I identify. I guess it might be similar to writing fiction and selecting characters that reflect various facets of your own self. Characters will always be filtered through the prism of the writer's psyche.
I am a documentary photographer. And while on one level these are factual, accurate images, on another, I suspect they represent a subjective, but no less truthful, account of one man's search for his soul in this once and future city." -Keith Dannemiller
Photos are © Keith Dannemiller
Keith Dannemiller is such an excellent photographer of people. I am in love with the woman "stretching out her tounge" and so many others of these pictures from Mexico City - expressive and vivid. You have seen a series by Keith already on 591 called "Women in Glove" (a play on the title of the D.H. Lawrence novel, "Women in Love") showing women boxers.
I liked the series very much and asked Keith if he wanted to exhibit on 591 Gallery, and he was very interested in doing so. Recalling his bio, I discover that Keith is just about the same generation as myself and Abelardo Morell opening another online exhibition this weekend. It's nice, but as you probably have noticed there are photographers of all ages on 591 - the youngest born 1988 I think.
I have a another favourite among Keith's photos - it is called "Asi es la vida", portraying a fruit vendor eating a mango, during a break at the beach of Veracruz. Visit his site to see that image.
Keith Dannemiller
Born:1949
Lives in: Mexico, DF
Latest exhibition: "Luz Translation", November 2007
Inspiration (photographers): Richard Avedon; The FSA photographers from the 1930's USA, especially Russell Lee; Diane Arbus; Eugene Atget; William Eggleston; Nacho López
Inspiration (other): My father; the Centro Historico of Mexico City; Ernesto Guevara; John Berger; Johnny Cash; Martin Luther King; Toni Morrison; Charles Bukowski; Alejandro Escovedo; Roberto Bolaño
Film, digital or both: Both
Quote: "Look at those eyes!" breathed Dean. They were like the eyes of the Virgin Mother when she was a cjild. We saw in them the tender and forgiving gaze of Jesus. And they stared unflinchingly into ours. We rubbed our nervous blue eyes and looked again. Still they penetrated us with sorrowful and hypnotic gleam.---Jack Kerouac, "On the Road"
A favourite photograph: Eugene Atget, "La Villette, Prostitute Paris, 1921."
Homepage/contact: www.keithdannemiller.com
Comments
-alf Johansson
Tatiana