Robert Taylor Homes, Bronzeville, 2007. From “South Side” by Jon Lowenstein, winner of the 2014 Lange-Taylor Prize.
In recent years, the South Side of Chicago has made headlines once again as gang violence led to an increase in crime. At the same time, there has been a concerted effort to gentrify the neighborhood as President Barack Obama has announced that he will have his library and museum built there.
Photographer Jon Lowenstein has lived and worked in the South Side of Chicago for more than a decade, documenting the systemic destruction of the community and their fight for order in the chaos. His collected work, “South Side”, which combines black-and-white photographs, video, personal narrative writing and poetry, oral histories, and the collection of found ephemera, is currently on view through February 27, 2016 at Juanita Kreps Gallery, Center for Documentary Studies, South Durham, North Carolina.
A young man on the street, Pocket Town, 2005. From “South Side” by Jon Lowenstein, winner of the 2014 Lange-Taylor Prize.
Lowenstein observes, “My insider/outsider access, in combination with my long involvement with the community, affords me a unique perspective. During the time I’ve lived on the South Side, the largest housing projects in the United States were demolished, dislocating about 100,000 of America’s poorest residents. Barack Obama became the 44th and first African American president of the United States. The housing crisis hit the neighborhoods like a bomb, leading to some of the highest rates and totals of subprime loans and foreclosures in the United States. The city has consistently led the nation in murders, and in 2013 Mayor Rahm Emanuel oversaw the largest public school closing in American history.”
Lowenstein was awarded a solo show at CDS as winner of the 2014 Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor Prize, given to encourage documentary work in the tradition of acclaimed photographer Dorothea Lange and writer and social scientist Paul Taylor. In addition to the exhibition, Lowenstein received an award of $10,000 that supports his fieldwork, which includes geo-tagging and mapping his photographs with Instagram (@jonlowenstein), and creating short experimental films.
Yung Jock fans at the Bud Billiken Parade, Bronzeville, 2006. From “South Side” by Jon Lowenstein, winner of the 2014 Lange-Taylor Prize.
The photographer reveals, “When I first started the project I believed strongly that photographic images alone could portray what I wanted to show. However, as I learned more about the community’s history and layered complexity, I discovered the disparate threads and narratives that were at work within the community, and ultimately, within myself….I’ve gathered my photographs, moving images, personal narrative writing and poetry, oral histories, and found ephemera in an effort to stitch this story together and trace the space between post-industrial meltdown and repackaged, ‘gentrified’ city. ‘South Side’ examines the legacy of segregation, the impact of vast wealth inequality, and how de-industrialization and globalization play out on the ground in Chicago.” Lowenstein’s work gives us the opportunity to see the neighborhood from the inside out, allowing us to see the neighborhood in this pivotal time of transition.
“South Side” is currently on view through February 27, 2016 at Juanita Kreps Gallery, Center for Documentary Studies, South Durham, North Carolina.
Miss Rosen is a New York-based writer, curator, and brand strategist. There is nothing she adores so much as photography and books. A small part of her wishes she had a proper library, like in the game of Clue. Then she could blaze and write soliloquies to her in and out of print loves.
