ICP

Since I’ve always been interested in photography, I was excited to go to ICP. I liked it, but it was a lot smaller than I anticipated. The two exhibitions we saw, Zoe Strauss and Lewis Hine, were pretty cool. I liked them being shown together because they’re opposites; Strauss photographs present day Philly whereas Hine photographed early 1900’s New York. Descending the staircase from the Strauss exhibit to the Hine one is like going back in time. One piece that caught my eye in the Strauss exhibit was “Man Shot in Leg on Gurney.” It shows a man, clearly just shot in the leg, sitting on a gurney, about to be transported to the hospital. What is remarkable is the man’s demeanor and body language. He’s totally cool about it, smoking his cigarette as if nothing happened, as if it’s just another day. This makes me wonder about everyday life in Philadelphia: is this a common occurrence? It also reminds me of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and R.Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet. In the latter, a man is shot in the arm, but reduces his injury to “just needing a bathroom.” He comes out a few minutes later with a band-aid on and carries on as usual. In short, I liked seeing Strauss and Hine together. It’s really inventive for the museum to juxtapose them in the way they did. I would definitely go back.