The CSU Archives and Special Collections is currently hosting an exhibition in the Simon Schwob Memorial Library titled “My Southside,” which contains photographs of the south side of Columbus, Georgia taken by award-winning photographer Kenny Gray from 1977 to 1992. The exhibition is located on the first floor and the basement of the Schwob Library and will remain open until April 30. Additionally, a gallery talk by Gray will take place at the end of the exhibition on April 28 at 6 p.m. EST with light refreshments provided. Both the exhibition and the gallery talk are free of charge and open to all who are interested in attending.
“When you choose your subjects, that just says something about who you are, if nothing else,” said Gray. “I was also thinking about ‘self-mythology’ — your artistic output becomes sort of a self-portrait. When I started the Southside project, I was just crazy for Bruce Springsteen, and what Springsteen does is he takes ordinary people and writes poetic lyrics about those people and confers sort of a mythic quality.”
The exhibit features photographs taken throughout the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s of everyday life in the south side of Columbus, Georgia, where Gray spent most of his adolescence. The pictures displayed on the walls of the library range from the inside of tattoo parlors, Martin Luther King Jr. parade floats, pageant winners, baseball players, soldiers, strippers and everyone in between.
“Photography is a revolutionary way of seeing the world — one instant at a time,” said Gray. “That’s how we perceive things. Photography says, ‘Let’s take a little square or rectangle of it, grab it, and slam it into two dimensions instead of three, and strip away the color’ — if we’re talking about the Southside exhibit.”
Gray continued, “Photography is a miracle.”
The exhibit was displayed at The Do Good Fund gallery on 12th Street in downtown Columbus, thanks to sponsorship from the CSU Archives.
“It was very cool to have it displayed in Columbus,” said Emma Gaines, an art handler and social media manager of The Do Good Fund. “We got to see people who grew up on Victory Drive from different walks of life. We had some 20-year-olds come and say, ‘Hey, I grew up on Victory Drive,’ but we would also have people who were going to the clubs in the ‘70s, and we got to hear from them. It was like, ‘Oh, I remember this guy, this was ole’ Jimmy.’”
Gaines continued, “Celebrating the community that is there is something that really impacted me about Kenny’s work.”
For more information about the CSU Archives, visit the Columbus State website or contact 706-507-8674.
