Wendell White at Mason Gross

After viewing, On photography: Culture, History and the Narrative, I was very struck by the 28 pigment inkjet prints on paper by Wendell White.  One of my first impressions of the prints, was that they had, an eerie sense of time standing still.  Another feeling I had while viewing this series, is that the viewer was welcomed into the picture.  They are very cold and abrupt which is why, I believe they're not inviting and keep the viewer at bay.  White uses formal techniques such as one and two point perspective and extreme contrast in colors that are juxtaposed to one another, in the prints as well.  Seeing the strong use of perspective shows that the artist was well aware and considered his surroundings in conjunction with formal techniques applied in the prints.  Given the title of the show and the images that these prints are made up of, I believe, that an issue White deals with is Americas past and how it is still looms, in the architecture of the country.  The fact that he photographed specific schools dedicated to colored children and made the school so dark, deffinitly plays in to Americas past.  Also, in the print that focuses on The School for White Children, the artist again uses color to convey on of his reasons behind making this series.  In the Print, The School for White Children, the work becomes overwhelmingly about the US, and how it was once separated by skin color, was the norm.  I also found it very compelling that out of the 28 prints, two of them did not overtly say they were schools in the title, thus prompting me to research.  However, after researching the Whitefield House and Millers Grove, Millers Grove was once the site of an African-American farming community, established in 1815.  The Whitefield house in Nazareth, PA, was once used as a nursery for children of the Moravian community.  This house is also the oldest Moraviam site in North America.  Not only do these prints pertain to communities and children, but they also support the viewers theory that the underlying issue in these works, that have to do with race from America's past.