Toiling Away

Where: National Portrait Gallery

When: closing September 3, 2018

Museum quality portraits are usually of the high and mighty, but this show focuses on the workers of society.  Where else would you see a Richard Avedon photograph of an oil rig workers?

The wall notes at the beginning of the show set the tone for what will follow:  "Work serves as a foundation for the philosophy of self-improvement and social mobility that undergirds this country's value system."

I think that's quite true; the American Dream is that, if you work hard and play by the rules, you can succeed in improving your financial situation and your social status.  What happens, however, when the dream is revealed to be just that: a dream?   Or when the amount of work required just to survive means there's no time for any quality of life?

This show offers the viewer the opportunity to look at work on different levels: as constantly changing due to new technology, as backbreaking and dangerous labor, as a place of common purpose and community.    It also demonstrates that physical labor may have changed over the centuries, but it is with us still.  The blacksmith is gone, but the migrant worker remains.

I was struck by the ambrotype "African American Woman with Two White Children" by an unidentified artist in 1860.  It reminded me strongly of some of the Sally Mann photographs I saw in her National Gallery retrospective recently.

I also saw a Yousuf Karsh, not of a famous person, but of two auto workers.  It was described as showing their friendship and ability to work together.  Am I the only one to pick up on an element of homoeroticism?

Finally, there was an Elizabeth Catlett piece, "Sharecropper."  I very much admire her work, so was happy to see another example.

This is mostly a combination of photography and paintings/prints.  There's also a video at the end and some sculpture.  I found the photographs, for the most part, less sentimental than the other works.  It's hard to romanticize a barefoot child working in a poorhouse, if you don't have license to add in a smiling face or cheerful sunshine.

Verdict: Very fine show; worth spending some time to see the art and the message behind it.