Steidlville

Exhibition: Jasper, Texas: The Community Photographs of Alonzo Jordan

Alonzo Jordan worked for forty years as a photographer in Jasper, Texas, a small town that was little known until the brutal murder there of a forty-nine-year-old African American named James Byrd by three white males on June 7, 1998. While Jordan died in 1984, his photographs offer new insight into the social and cultural milieu in which Byrd grew up and spent his entire life, but perhaps, more enduringly, illuminate the intrinsic power of the image to shape perception. Jordan’s photographs are windows into an unseen world. A barber by trade, he took up photography to fill what he perceived as a need in his community. He understood the ways the photographic image could imbue its subject with a greater sense of meaning and bolster self-esteem.

21 Jan - 8 May, 2011
1133 Avenue of the Americas at 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036