Shane Lavalette

Girl in Shopping Cart, Chicago, 1989
© Paul D’Amato

Paul D’Amato has the above photograph in the Presumed Innonece exhibition that I just mentioned. It’s from his beautiful series entitled Barrio, photographs made between 1988 and 2002 in Pilsen, Chicago’s largest Mexican neighborhood, and the neighboring Little Village.

The photographs that D’Amato made in those fourteen years became increasingly intimate; he eventually grew to know residents of the neighborhood and could then make photographs of people at work, children at play, families at weddings or parties, and even portraits of gang members.

Here are a few of my favorites along with excerpts from D’Amato’s Words (journal entries made between 1989 and 2002):

Barbershop Window, Chicago, 1990
© Paul D’Amato

But still the question “why Pilsen?” versus anywhere else is a good one for me to consider. I think the nature of my attraction has been the same from the first day I drove down 18th Street. I’ve simply been trying to awkwardly squeeze that feeling into different shaped explanations. At first it was a kind of predictable documentary answer: urban neighborhood, Latino culture, etc… Then it became a little more personal as I saw the hood as a kind of metaphor for immigration itself and a contemporary expression of what my father’s neighborhood might have been like in Boston at the turn of the century.

Shorty-B, Chicago, 1994
© Paul D’Amato

After my gang experiences I became disenchanted with the whole documentary approach to life. I was also getting fed up with the so-called political correctness implicit in the question. So my answer to that question became more belligerent: I was only doing this for myself, I don’t care about Mexican culture, which photographically I don’t, and would you ask this of a Latino photographer photographing white suburbia? Man, I would get so furious over this “photographing the other” crap. All this from “critics” lording from on high who haven’t a fuckin’ clue about making work. Judge the pictures, (remember the pictures? the things that you can see?) but don’t dare tell me where I can go or what I have a right to be interested in.

Isela (Girl in Spray), Chicago, 1993
© Paul D’Amato

Since then my explanation has taken a more romantic turn. It is a kind of visual love affair and, like any love, the reasons are complicated. With any love there are a lot of positive qualities and even some negative. You love (someone, some place, anything) because it makes you a better person. I don’t know about the better person part, but my love for Pilsen has certainly made me a better photographer. I’ve thought of lots of reasons to explain my outside interest in a Mexican neighborhood, but it all boils down to a kind of visceral attraction. And there’s only so much analysis that can take.

Groom Toss, Chicago, 1993
© Paul D’Amato

In the end, I think it is interesting simply because I am so interested. People should be more interested in the world outside their own lives anyway and simply go out and have their own experiences. Its amazing what one can learn when they are young and willing to get into trouble. (Garrison Kiellor) or as I would say: willing to be a stranger.

Boy Reaching for Plastic Grapes, Chciago, 1991
© Paul D’Amato

Ultimately, part of me distrusts all of these explanations. If the pictures don’t justify my time in Pilsen, then nothing I say will.

Girl in Rain, Chicago, 1991
© Paul D’Amato

See more from Barrio here and read more excerpts from D’Amato’s journals here.