Shots in the Street ëOpen Cityí Photography Reveals Life Through Urban Vignettes by Serena Lei The city as subject material, the street as public theater: Street photography offers stories we try to unravel at a glance. Street photography is something we now recognize as a technique of spontaneity, like a snapshot of a crowded New York City street corner. It is a type of social commentary, but it is also the gritty, uncensored vignettes of urban life: that close-up moment of unexplained anxiety on a strangerís face at a subway stopósomeone we can study, personally, in that frozen moment, and never really know. ìOpen City: Street Photographs Since 1950,î now at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, charts the evolution of street photography in an exhibit of more than 130 works by 19 international artists. The comprehensive exhibit is a study in urban society and realism, as photographers go from capturing real-life moments to creating them. Co-organized by Kerry Brougher, Hirshhornís chief curator, and Russell Ferguson, chief curator of the UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, ìOpen Cityî was titled after Roberto Rosselliniís 1945 film of the same title. Rosselliniís depiction of war-torn streets in Rome is similar in style to the raw and gritty feel of this collection. ìOpen Cityî begins in the early 1950s with photographers such as Robert Frank from Switzerland and William Klein from the United Statesówhose unconventional approaches inspired other photographers worldwide. Theirs was a rejection of classical composition and the planned approach. Described as urban guerillas, they used the technology of small, portable cameras to capture the uncensored moments that define a city. Klein, for example, was struck by the energy of New York City and captured it in grainy black and white. In ìGun 2, New Yorkî (1955), for example, three children smile into the camera while the boy in the center holds hands with a woman whose face has been cropped out of the frame. The smiles are juxtaposed with the disturbing image of the woman holding a toy gun to the boyís temple. Garry Winogrand also used his camera to capture unsuspected moments on New York streetsóan argument, a stolen kiss, the bizarre sight of a couple carrying two monkeys dressed like babies. In contrast, Catherine Opieís large black-and-white photographs, ìSt. Louisî (1999-2000) and ìWall Streetî (2000-2001), possess an unsettling quietónormally busy streets absent of traffic, people or movement. Meanwhile in England, Nigel Henderson used Kleinís spontaneous approach to capture Londonís East End, while Daido Moriyama, also inspired by Klein, photographed the streets of Tokyo. Both chose the seedy parts of town as their subject material. Nobuyoshi Arakiís series on children, ìSatchin and Maboî (1963), is a disquieting mix of innocence set in a post-World War II city landscape. On the other hand, Terence Donovan chose to bring the street to high-end fashion magazines, such as Vogue and Elle. His fashion spread ìTop Coatsî (1960) has the feel of casual street photography and his ìSpy Dramaî (1962) is a slick black-and-white series of photographs ostensibly ìspyingî on a spy. Other artists would later use his practice of staging photographs to look spontaneous. Although black and white lends an edgy appeal to street photography, artists such as William Eggleston worked in color for their anthropological photographs. His series of photographs of Pittsburgh in 1980 show a city of cars (Chevrolets, pick-up trucks, and billboards of car advertisements), rather than people. Lee Friedlander also brought his camera to smaller cities in America, such as Mobile, Ala., and Kansas City, Mo. His photographs play with space and often include objects in the foreground, cropped and blocking the view. Raghubir Singh uses color to show us the rich red of womenís veils in ìA Wedding Party, Jodhpur-Jaisalmer Roadî (1988). Singh believed that color was essential to represent his view of India. Street photography is art, but it is also documentary. Susan Meiselasís photographs chronicling armed conflict in Nicaragua possess a journalistís objectivity. Not so with Allan Sekulaís slide show ìWaiting for Tear Gas,î documenting the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle, which unfortunately leaves us with a one-sided view favoring the protestors. In the 1980s and 1990s, street photographers began dissolving the line between fiction and reality, to the point of staging their photographs to look spontaneous. Philip-Lorca diCorcia set up a camera and high-powered lights that could be tripped by people passing by on the street. The effect of the sudden dramatic lighting makes ordinary events look like staged photographs. Jeff Wallís photographsótransparencies lit by fluorescent lamps in a light boxólook like movie stills, which is appropriate since his works are staged to look like real events. Nikki S. Lee takes this approach a step further by placing herself in the photographs, imitating a particular social group that she is studying. Although much has been made of her anthropological approach, Lee seems to do little more than dress the part to stereotypical excess. After all, what do we learn from her trailer trash impression as she lays on top of a car in ìThe Ohio Projectî (1999)? Finally, Swiss photographer Beat Streuli places us in the participatory role as a voyeur in his works. ìBroadway/Prince Street 01-04, 2000-02î is an installation of three large-scale, black-and-white DVD projections. The slow-motion films surround the viewer and place us in an obtrusive and uncomfortable, yet riveting, point of view. Against the backdrop of distant traffic noises, we stare, close up, at men and women unaware that they are being watched. Ordinarily, our impulse would be to turn away, but Streuli knows that we simply canít stop watching. ìOpen City: Street Photographs Since 1950î runs through Sept. 8 at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Independence Avenue at 7th Street, SW. For more information, please call (202) 357-2700 or visit www.hirshhorn.si.edu. Serena Lei is an arts writer for The Washington Diplomat.