The 'American Photographs' of Paul Shambroom
The first of Paul Shambroom’s American Photographs you come to in the Katherine E. Nash Gallery is shot from an empty outdoor basketball court, still puddled with water from a recent rain. On the left, in the background, stands an old white wooden church, complete with a clock, a bell tower, and a steeple reaching towards the heavens. On the right, standing nearly as tall and also pointing skyward, is a decommissioned nuclear ballistic missile marked “USA.”
The scene is from Warren, New Hampshire, snapped in 2008 as part of Shambroom’s Shrines: Public Weapons in America series. The retrospective exhibition celebrates Associate Professor Shambroom’s career as an artist and educator ahead of his retirement from teaching at the end of this semester, after joining the UMN faculty in 2011. The show features work from a wide variety of series Shambroom developed over the past 40+ years, exploring the American cultural landscape under the guise of what the artist humbly describes as “a guy with a camera.” The Warren, New Hampshire photograph in particular serves as a fitting opener for the exhibition, focusing on where military might, world events, and the banality of government intersect with local communities — the global meeting the granular in the particular and peculiar cocktail of American politics.
Many have argued over what makes up “the real America” — the argument usually zeroes in on dichotomies such as urban versus rural, ivory tower versus working class, and secular versus religious — but in his travels documenting communities, corporations, military facilities, and city council meetings, Shambroom has taken as his subject the distance between the lives being lived and our perception of them. The photographs on view embody the curiosity of an observer rather than the certainty of a pundit; as viewers, we are left often with more questions about these scenes than answers. Local representatives are shown behind wide desks listening to unseen constituents. A man stands at a municipal waterway with an arrow nocked in his bow, ready to aim at an unseen quarry. A woman, slightly blurred and windswept, looks almost as much like a cut-out as the giant image of Donald Trump standing spotlit behind her.
Shambroom finds commonalities between empty office buildings and nuclear submarines, between a map of ballistic missile sites and a map of “Purpletowns,” where communities were split nearly 50-50 in the 2020 presidential election. With HAZMAT suits and exploded ordnance, shot almost like studio portraits, the threat of violence (and the entrepreneurial opportunities associated with it) becomes part of the banality, as well. Shambroom’s observation is humanist at its heart, though, perhaps no more so than in his Portraits of Hennepin Avenue, where he set up an impromptu street studio in 1979 to capture candid shots of cooks, clerks, students, hustlers, security guards, and whoever else happened by the Shinder’s Newsstand. 108 passersby had their photos taken over two warm September evenings, and the entire collection is now in the collection of the Minnesota Historical Society.
On your way out of the gallery, across from the photo of Warren, NH, a monitor flashes through a slideshow of images. Here Shambroom has turned the camera on himself but given his students the last word, encouraging them to digitally manipulate his portrait into a carousel of hilarious and humiliating images in a recurring assignment he calls Messed-Up Paul. It’s a light-hearted look into his role as an educator and gives you a sense that, even among the grave dangers of the world and the endless churn of time, there is still some fun to be had — as long as you’ve got the guts not to take yourself too seriously.
While the work may leave us with more questions than answers, the photographer does not, and Associate Professor Shambroom was happy to offer some insight into his process and his practice.
Russ White: I assume that when you dive into each of these series, you’re taking lots of photos and editing down to the best ones. What’s that process like and what, for you, makes a picture successful?
Paul Shambroom: It’s changed over the years as I have moved from analog film to digital cameras. But some things haven't changed — I look carefully at each image (as a printed proof sheet, or in recent years as thumbnails on a screen). I go through a tiered series of edits, from “not bad” to “this is the one!” I always revisit these decisions over time. My criteria are sometimes hard to describe — sometimes it has to do with content or formal concerns, sometimes it’s how well the image works in context with others from the series, and sometimes it’s simply a gut feeling.
RW: In your work visiting unfamiliar places or documenting communities of which you are not a part, are you often perceived with suspicion or are you able to blend in? Do you lean into the tension of being an outsider, and do you think your photos of a familiar person or place would come out differently?
PS: I’ve worked in a lot of contexts over time, and people’s regard for the “media” (which I am not really part of, but most people don’t distinguish between news and art photographers) has changed. But generally I am treated with respect and people are surprisingly willing to allow me to photograph after I explain my purpose. I try to carry myself as curious and respectful, while projecting a humble sort of confidence that I know what I’m doing.
RW: How do you balance irony versus earnestness in shooting places and people with whom you share a cultural or political difference? I see a lot of curiosity but also critique, for instance, in the Shrines series.
PS: Wow, that’s a great question. I try, not always successfully, to keep my politics and attitudes at least slightly below the surface of the photographs. Not because of ethical concerns, but because I don't want to hit people over the head with them. Keeping a veneer of neutrality, however thin, allows people to engage with the photos on their own terms.
RW: Near the back of the gallery hangs a collection of your street photography taken both locally and abroad. Next to it is a slideshow of your favorite Instagram images. Do you think about the two differently? Has street photography changed now that everyone has a camera and a platform in their pocket?
PS: I think of them as essentially driven by the same impulse, which is why they are placed this way in the show. It’s moving through the world and responding to what I see by freezing an image of it within a rectangle. Street photography has changed in that the gear (previously a Leica 35mm film camera, now a smartphone) is now smaller, lighter, and easier to use. And more significantly, the photos can now be shared instantly. I am happy that it is so easy for everyone. I have been in love with the Instagram platform for a while, but the corporate overlords and their algorithms have taken the bloom off the rose of late.
RW: Have you heard from any of the Portrait of Hennepin Avenue folks? Do any of them know that pictures of them from 1979 are on display right here in town?
PS: About 20 years ago, I heard from the family of the guy who gave his occupation as “orderly.” I made a scan for them because he had become a doctor and there was some milestone they were celebrating. I only spent about 90 seconds with each of the subjects, but after all these years they all sort of feel like old friends. And of course, I’ve wondered where and what are they now? Which still walk the planet?
RW: Nostalgia informs a lot of your work — particularly the Past Time series documenting the reality of places connected to white American popular culture tropes made famous by figures such as Norman Rockwell, Andy Griffith, and Ronald Reagan. You often take a critical lens to this nostalgia, but elsewhere the exhibition seems to embrace it, as with Squares, the carousel installation of found photos from 1976. What meaning do you ascribe to the photos in Squares, and how do you hope viewers will engage with that installation?
PS: I’m not big on ascribing meaning to any of my work, but I want viewers to bring their experiences and association to it. And really, my work is driven by my own curiosity and usually leaves me with more questions than answers. My own interest in the Squares photos has to do with the function of snapshots, both then and now, and how they function in our memories along the spectrum from factual documents to performed family fictions.
RW: Where do you see commercial photography, fine art photography, and teaching art overlapping? Are they separate practices for you?
PS: Separate practices — yes, but they have all informed each other.
RW: Finally, what are your plans for your retirement? Do you have specific projects in mind or locations you’d like to shoot? And what will you miss most about teaching?
PS: I plan to keep working as a photographer/artist, but that’s all I know for sure. I hope and expect that my work will change, perhaps incorporating different media, maybe music and text? I’ll always take road trips, always love photography, but I will most likely not be making large-scale work or operating in such a project-oriented fashion. As for teaching, I will miss my colleagues (faculty as well as all you amazing staff), and both the grad and undergrad students. What I won’t miss? Grading and a lot of the bureaucracy that makes up this institution.
Paul Shambroom's American Photographs is on view in the Katherine E. Nash Gallery through March 8, with a participatory event in the gallery scheduled for Thursday, February 6, at 5pm.
