To write about Gordon Parks is to arrive late. Not because there is nothing left to say about Parks but because so much has already been said — his work reproduced endlessly across books, screens and lectures, referenced again and again by my contemporaries and those before me.
Gordon Parks: The South in Color, curated by Dawoud Bey, is an exhibition celebrating the 20th anniversary of the founding of The Gordon Parks Foundation as well as the 70th anniversary of Parks’ images of segregation in the South in Life magazine.
When asked by ArtsATL to write about the show, I found myself frustratingly hesitant. What could I say about Gordon Parks beyond my own admiration for the images that hung on the walls at Jackson Fine Art? Beyond the way he rendered rural Black life with a whimsy, which captured me and everyone else who came to the opening reception, what is left to say?
