Bruce Davidson (1933- )
Artists often become trapped within their own comforts and style, essentially reproducing their past successes with varying degrees of assured results, leading to feelings of guilt and ennui that deaden their work. As a result, viewers often reminisce about the "nerve" or "freshness" of the early production. However, as Marcel Proust wrote, style for an artist is not a matter of technique but a matter of vision. Therefore, the perfection and confidence in technique often cause the vision to fade.
Many artists counteract this self-imprisonment by opting for risk over safety, exploring new (to them) expressive avenues in hopes of renewal.
The results might be disappointing, but they are not to be discarded, as they usually lay the groundwork for future success, which the mediocrity of safe repetition would never allow.
However, the majority of photographers facing the same issue err by thinking that change merely involves choosing new subjects or tools, believing this alone will ensure the desired rebirth. They seem to forget that their style is their vision and their vision is their style. Thus, new tools and themes should rejuvenate the same person, not someone else bearing the same name.
There are many positive examples from great creators of the past. However, the most impressive and bold example today is the renowned photographer Bruce Davidson, whose work we are discussing. Constantly photographing for sixty years, driven by professional obligations but fueled by personal passion, Davidson never ceased to believe that photography, like all art, is not only a window to the outside world and a mirror to the inner world but also a continuous question about its own limits and history. His belief, combined with the vitality that he maintains through continual engagement with the medium, has allowed him to evolve through changes in technical means and themes, thus ensuring renewal while maintaining coherence.
Davidson's unprecedented success is not a miracle but the result of deeply ingrained values. He approached his subjects not merely as depictions of reality but as incarnations of his unspoken and internal values, touching both the subjects themselves and the photographic medium. His work is characterized by rigor, authenticity, respect, immediacy, simplicity, and, most importantly, upliftment and optimism.
Given the impressive variety of subjects and formal approaches that have marked his work, one might expect his inventiveness to wane. Yet, with his latest work, Davidson surpasses himself, boldly photographing unprecedented subjects with youthful vigor. The biggest surprise, however, is that these recent photographs naturally continue from his previous works, like the prone horse, the child in Sicily, the embraced couple in New York, or the pair of men in the park, while also paying an indirect and perhaps unintentional tribute to Atget, thereby connecting with photographic history and expressing both artists' sense of escape and catharsis. Therefore, Davidson may have changed the framework but not the direction, as it remains rooted in his vision.
Plato Rivellis