We went to the Annie Liebovitz exhibit at the Mint Museum in Charlotte Friday. We had considered doing a multi-day visit, because we've seen very little of Charlotte but well, the HEAT! The picture above could have been the orchards that surrounded my house, and populated the entire area, where I grew up, but as you see below, appearances can be deceiving:  More pictures referenced above:  Hard to know where this picture was taken, but to me it was arresting.  Although the space the exhibit was in was not huge, there was a massive amount of photography displayed. Some was displayed almost as snapshots on boards like that below, some in larger format also massed together, some circulating on immense screens. This array was very close to the exhibit entrance, showing many celebrities from the 60s and 70s in cars. At first I thought that Liebovitz had brought each of them to the same car, but I was tricked by the style of the era and the black-and-white imagery.  Here, Martin Sheen, then an English singer (note the location of the steering wheel):   This one took a moment:  It was very difficult to get shots of photography on this wall without getting my own reflection, but I just had to. From the movie Pulp Fiction:  (Same problem with getting this shot.) You will remember both the picture and the picture below if you read Vanity Fair magazine. Liebovitz's composition of each of these pictures drew me in. I wondered how Quentin Tarantino felt about having half of his face showing above? Note how the lone woman is at the center of each picture?  Needless to say, I would highly recommend going to this exhibit if you can, at the Mint's Uptown location. Without being there, you can't examine George W. Bush's expression. Even up close, it is fairly inscrutable; I was reminded of the snap taken while he was being told of the Tower hits on September 11, 2001. These two are easier to read: "You aren't getting anything out of us!"
Illinois Senator (and veteran) Tammy Duckworth, at work with her children:  Part of the wall-commentary at the exhibit talked about how Liebovitz strongly prefers photographing subjects in their own environments. Note the pictures behind Maryland Governor Wes Moore:  (By the way, I strongly recommend the Governor's book The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates, a memoir/biography written about 15 years ago which digs into what factors changes people's lives.) When I visited the Supreme Court in my early twenties, the immense pillars didn't make a strong impression on me. These pictures draw out the dignity of justice and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Some of the photographs on the rotating displays caught Liebovitz's subjects' workplaces:   Because there are so many photographs in the exhibit, there are small-type keys to access. Many people quizzed themselves aloud while watching the huge screens rather than looking at the keys. I don't know who or what this was about, but I do love maps and wide-open roads!  These last three pictures are my own, shot quickly from the adjacent sidewalk across from the Museum. Really old cities - more of which you see on the East Coast - can be like this; vastly different eras sitting one, two, three beside each other.
I'll be doing another post about the exhibit in a few days, mostly of portraits.
Annie Liebovitz' work will be on exhibit at the Mint Museum through August 31, 2025. If you would like to receive email messages when we upload new posts to this blog, email us at [email protected].
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