'Hobos' exhibit shows homelessness then and now
By: Georgia Rowe
Special to The Examiner
April 14, 2009
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Portrait of the poor: A photo by Dorothea Lange is on view in "Hobos to Street People." (Courtesy photo)
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SAN FRANCISCO —
Homelessness is one of the issues that Americans often prefer to ignore. Yet a new exhibition at the California Historical Society brings it into focus with striking clarity.
"Hobos to Street People: Artists’ Responses to Homelessness from the New Deal to the Present" spans 75 years and features more than 30 artists.
Included are paintings, prints, photographs and mixed media by artists including Dorothea Lange, Rockwell Kent, Rondal Partridge, Charles Surendorf and Eric Drooker. The exhibition runs through Aug. 15 in San Francisco before embarking on a three-year tour of colleges and museums.
The show illuminates the ways artists began using their work in the 1930s to promote social change.
Lange’s now-famous photographs of Dust Bowl migrants, for example, were brought before Congress during the Great Depression to urge legislators to fund New Deal programs.
Homelessness didn’t end then, however, and with the U.S. experiencing a new wave of poverty and displacement — a direct result of the economic downturn, mortgage crisis and massive layoffs — there are now more than 3 million homeless Americans.
"Hobos" shows how today’s artists are getting the message out.
The exhibit’s curator, Art Hazelwood, has mounted the work with an eye to parallels.
Upon entering the gallery, one of the first pieces on view is a Lange photograph of a family in a car; the mother is holding a baby, and the baby is holding a Coke bottle as a pacifier. Adjacent is a David Bacon photograph of a mother and child living in a makeshift tent in an agricultural field near San Diego.
The photos are similar — but taken seven decades apart.
Other pieces range from poignant to satirical to devastating. "A lot of the Depression-era work looked at the nobility of the people," notes Hazelwood. "You don’t see that much in the contemporary works. There’s a brutality in today’s street images."
Contemporary artists also tend to be more provocative. Hazelwood points to a recent print by Jesus Barraza, titled "How many Homeless does it take to start a revolution?"
"There’s a sense here that the only answer is activism," he says.
Hazelwood began organizing "Hobos" a year and a half ago. "At that time," he says, "the Depression looked like old history." But with the 75th anniversary of the New Deal, he felt the time was right to contrast government response then and now.
"One thing that became clear is that we were able to do something about it before," says Hazelwood. "During the Depression, the government had the will and the resources to fight poverty. In the last 30 years, the government has put its energy into demonizing the homeless. But I think there’s starting to be more awareness that it’s not a defect of the people, it’s a defect of the system. People are realizing that we’re all one medical bill away from homelessness."
‘Hobos to Street People: Artists’ Responses
to Homelessness from the New Deal to the Present’
Where: California Historical Society, 678 Mission St., San Francisco
When: Noon to 4:30 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays; closes Aug. 15
Admission: Free
Contact: (415) 357-1848, or www.californiahistoricalsociety.org
