ARTIST:

Katy Grannan

Katy Grannan
Anonymous, Los Angeles, Boulevard 27, 2008 / printed 2011
Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper mounted to Plexiglas
139.7 x 104.1 cm

Katy Grannan
Anonymous, San Francisco, Boulevard 15, 2010 / printed 2010
Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper, mounted to Plexiglas
139.7 x 104.1 cm

Katy Grannan considers her pictures to be portraits. If they are, why title them all ’anonymous’? Part of the answer lies in the fact that they have all agreed to be photographed; she has tipped her hand, relinquishing the power of the candid shot of the street photographer for a risky collaborative portrait session.This might have given guarded results, but happily the complicity has produced images of raw power.
While not denying the label ’portraits’, I question the designation because it doesn’t quite do justice to the pictures. They are really not so much about individuals as about the range of prideful individuality among human beings, and their common fate, symbolized, I think, by that ubiquitous white wall. Grannan accepts that each person has a rich history, with its victories and defeats, which a single image can only hint at, but it’s the sum total of her portraits that gives this work its power. Caught in the blinding glare of the California sun, restless and worn yet often possessed of fierce pride, the figures stand, shift, turn, look away – resigned to the next throw of the dice while not holding out much hope that it will go their way.

Text by William A Ewing

Katy Grannan
Anonymous, Los Angeles, Boulevard 6, 2009/ printed 2011
Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper, mounted on Plexiglas
139.7 x 104.1 cm

Katy Grannan
Anonymous, San Francisco, Boulevard 22, 2009 / printed 2010
Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper, mounted on Plexiglas
139.7 x 104.1 cm

Katy Grannan
Anonymous, Los Angeles, Boulevard 13, 2008/ printed 2011
Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper, mounted on Plexiglas
139.7 x 104.1 cm

Katy Grannan
Anonymous, Los Angeles, Boulevard 19, 2008 / printed 2010
Archival pigment print on cottom rag paper, mounted to Plexiglas
139.7 x 104.1 cm

Katy Grannan
Anonymous, Los Angeles, Boulevard 9, 2009/ printed 2011
Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper, mounted on Plexiglas
139.7 x 104.1 cm

Katy Grannan
Anonymous, Los Angeles, Boulevard 24, 2009/ printed 2011
Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper, mounted on Plexiglas
139.7 x 104.1 cm

Katy Grannan
Anonymous, San Francisco, Boulevard 31, 2010 / printed 2011
Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper, mounted to Plexiglas
139.7 x 104.1 cm

Katy Grannan
Anonymous, San Francisco, Boulevard 4, 2009/ printed 2011
Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper, mounted to Plexiglas
139.7 x 104.1 cm

Katy Grannan
Anonymous, San Francisco, Boulevard 3, 2010/ printed 2011
Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper, mounted to Plexiglas
139.7 x 104.1 cm

Katy Grannan
Anonymous, Los Angeles, Boulevard 12, 2009/ printed 2011
Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper, mounted to Plexiglas
139.7 x 104.1 cm

Katy Grannan
Anonymous, San Francisco, Boulevard 1, 2008/ printed 2011
Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper, mounted to Plexiglas
139.7 x 104.1 cm

Katy Grannan
Anonymous, San Francisco, Boulevard 20, 2010 / printed 2011
Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper, mounted to Plexiglas
139.7 x 104.1 cm

Katy Grannan
Anonymous, San Francisco, Boulevard 40, 2010 / printed 2011
Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper, mounted to Plexiglas
139.7 x 104.1 cm

Katy Grannan
Anonymous, San Francisco, Boulevard 66, 2010 / printed 2011
Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper, mounted to Plexiglas
139.7 x 104.1 cm

Katy Grannan
Anonymous, San Francisco, Boulevard 5, 2009/ printed 2011
Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper, mounted on Plexiglas
139.7 x 104.1 cm

Katy Grannan
Anonymous, Los Angeles, Boulevard 11, 2009/ printed 2011
Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper, mounted on Plexiglas
139.7 x 104.1 cm

Katy Grannan
Anonymous, Los Angeles, Boulevard 26, 2008 / printed 2011
Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper, mounted to Plexiglas
139.7 x 104.1 cm

Katy Grannan
Anonymous, Los Angeles, Boulevard 74, 2008 / printed 2011
Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper, mounted to Plexiglas
139.7 x 104.1 cm

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