I don’t know why it seems appropriate that William Eggleston’s The Last Dyes opens at David Zwirner New York next week, but especially given what just happened in Minnesota, there is a version of America in his photos that just constantly moves me.
Maybe it’s because there is a collective spirit to the way he sees this place, the way his lens sees it, that, for some reason, used to give me hope. He made me fascinated and interested in America. I know I’m from here, and maybe sometimes being from Northern California can feel a bit removed from everything east and north and south, but Eggleston saw that sort of American “kitchen sink realism” of this place, to borrow a phrase from the UK. He saw America with hurt and hope. He saw simplicity and complexity. He saw nostalgia and progress. The photos are filled with pain and power.
There isn’t much I can add to the conversation about where we are now as a country, but I see these photos and I think about this singular vision of this vital American artist, and I feel so much of what Eggleston meant when he noted, “Words and pictures don’t— They’re like two different animals. They don’t particularly like each other.” I don’t have the words, but the pictures say it all. —Evan Pricco
