Witnesses to a chaotic world
Christopher Morris’s image of a Chechen fighter fleeing the presidential palace is on exhibit at the Tufts University Art Gallery.
(Christopher Morris/Vii)
Published February 13, 2010
Photographs tell stories of conflict, change
MEDFORD - Ten days after 9/11, I interviewed John Szarkowski. The occasion was a lecture the longtime head of photography at New York’s Museum of Modern Art would be giving soon at the Museum of Fine Arts. We sat on the porch of Szarkowski’s house, overlooking an apple orchard in the Berkshires. He spoke of Eugene Atget and Ansel Adams, the subjects of his lecture, and, inevitably, the terrorist attacks.
“You know,’’ Szarkowski said, “no matter how many times they show those planes going into those buildings, the images are never an answer. They’re always a question.’’