Viewing Sandy Diaz’s retrospective can be overwhelming at first, and you need to take your time to meaningfully appreciate the show.
The exhibition is the culmination of 40 years of work. For the artist, it’s a “memoir.” “Looking back at it all, it gives you a good sense of where I was, what I was thinking, what I was feeling.” It’s a testament to her career that the project was funded by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Iowa Arts Council, part of the Iowa Department of Economic Development, and she wanted to make sure I showed her appreciation with this piece.
You have to orient yourself as the artist reveals so much of himself through the multitude of images on display, saturated colours, crisp black and white, and overlapping collages and videos – the latter forming a cacophony in the low background – it was sometimes difficult to be in the space as you were trying to take it all in at a glance.
Don’t. Start at the dividing wall, read the artist’s statement, and pick up the list of works to see titles, dates, and prices. The gallery is divided in two, with one half housing the “Lost in the Midwest” series and the other half housing the rest of the series, video works, collages, and more – 10 elements in total.
People, Places and Colours
Lost in the Midwest begins on a familiar note, at least to me. I’ve heard of some of Dyas’ subjects, I’ve spoken to one or two, I know their names, maybe even seen them somewhere. This was a new experience for me, and it stuck with me as the familiar quickly becomes strange. Dyas reflected back to me the everyday. It’s not someone else’s, or any other place or region’s, the everyday life of eastern Iowa made strange.
It’s my perceived ordinariness that hits me. Diaz offers a different perspective on our lives. With a camera, an insider becomes an outsider. “I think people tend to trust me. It usually takes a bit of time for both my subjects and myself to relax and go with the flow.”
I think people tend to trust me, it usually just takes a little time for both the subject and myself to relax and go with the flow.
Sandra Diaz
Part of this trend can be seen in the use of saturated colors and the way the subjects relate to their environment. These elements may be familiar from the work of artists with whom Diaz has an affinity, Helen van Meen and William Eggleston. She shows her deep engagement with her models by framing each person (or pet) in the center and carefully coordinating the subject and the environment. For example, a small subset of four photographs hung on the central wall use yellows and greens. The subjects match the tones of the environment, as if the relationship between the subject, the room, or the landscape itself creates the vibrant colors. Other series such as “Truth & Beauty” (2017-2022) and “My Eyes Are Not Shut” work in a similar way. Diaz reveals the contents of her mind to the viewer, giving us a glimpse into her inner world-making, as if her care and consideration highlight parts of the world for the viewer to contemplate.
Layers of color, layers of sound
A similar sentiment is present in her videos and collages, where the process of layering helps the artist understand the passage of time and “the impermanence of life,” as she notes in her artist statement. Her videos, particularly those she has made in collaboration with filmmaker Lianne Erickson since 2013, focus on the “primacy of place.”
My favorite videos to see this phenomenon are “Red Roses for Gertrude Stein” and “The Barn Cops.” In the former, two children toss a ball to each other in front of a dilapidated barn while a passage from Stein’s poem “Tender Buttons” is recited. The vibrant green of the grass and the bright red of the barn make the place feel otherworldly. In the latter, the same video of children playing is superimposed on an image of the now-dilapidated barn.
In a 2018 talk, Diaz cited the influence of filmmaker Wim Wenders, his belief that landscapes tell stories. Documenting the Iowa landscape allows her to “look for the traces we leave behind.” Inspired by the work of Robert Frank and Doug and Mike Stern, in All You Can Eat and Collages & Constructions, Diaz edits, cuts, tears, tapes, and writes on images. Collage is an analog, physical technique used to process the traces of time to get closer to the truth of everyday life. Each individual can see the same landscapes, know the same people, and go to the same events, but the sum of it all never means the same thing to anyone else.
Web of Life
The entire exhibition is so saturated and textured that the two black-and-white series on display on the gallery’s back wall were a resting place for my eye, a place to stop and change gears. These photographs behave differently because of their presentation and manual processing. “Down to the River; Portraits of Iowa Musicians” and “The Lost Nation Photographs” both date from the mid-1980s to the 2000s, and all the images have white mats and black frames. In each series, Diaz arranges them in tight, tight rows. There are resonances in these works with Robert Frank, Daido Moriyama, Sally Mann, and Diane Arbus.
The arrangement of “Down to the River” evokes a loosely-knit yearbook, a record of a particular scene in a particular place. For local music lovers and musicians, or anyone who knows her subjects as neighbors, townspeople or friends, it’s a treat. Dias moved to Iowa City in 1987 and, through a musician boyfriend, frequented venues and became close friends with many musicians, including Pieta Brown, Bo Ramsey, Dave Zollo and Joe and Vicki Price. She affectionately describes the photographs as “a personal collection of portraits and memories.”
These photographs are not absolute truths, they are a collaboration between me and the person in front of the lens.
Sandra Diaz
“These photos are not absolute truths. They are a collaboration between me and the person in front of my lens.” She took her camera with her to capture her experience at the show, a close-knit, warm community. “I was a part of every bit of it… dancing and spending the night with friends and amazing musicians… it was truly magical for me… the musicians onstage, the people dancing, it felt like we were all one.” You can sense her love for her subjects by seeing the musicians’ motivations.
“The Lost Nation Photographs” is my favorite series because it reveals the contrast between how much we know about Diaz through her work and how little we know about the lives and landscapes she captures in her frames. While the “Down to the River” exhibit conjures up a familiar lineup, the presentation here evokes a window into the web-like world the artist has created. She describes these images as “made very quickly and spontaneously, in response to my eye, my intuition, my timing,” spider-like. This wall-hanging momentum is the pull that comes from Diaz weaving the images together as “a personal and poetic exploration of emotional solitude and the amazing human spirit.” But the images themselves leave me with questions I can’t answer, threads I can’t trace outward and into the world of my subjects. Time passes, death comes to us all, and Diaz is a stark reminder that it’s the little moments of everyday experience that create life’s mysteries.
The sense of being alone in Diaz’s world in the middle of the afternoon means she is close, and omnipresent. It all points to the love and deep engagement she has with the world around her. As you look at a lifetime of emotions and thoughts, look carefully, as Diaz does with all her subjects. Look slowly, deliberately. Take your time.
Information in the works listings can also be found at sandydyas.com.
Related Events
Homecoming Reception
Peter Paul Luce Gallery, McWethy Hall, Cornell University, Mount Vernon, Saturday, October 5, 3-5 p.m.
Entangled in Time / Retrospective / Sandra Louise Diaz
Peter Paul Luce Gallery, McWethy Hall, Cornell University, Mount Vernon, exhibition runs through October 6
