INTERVIEW: Walker Evans – “The Thing Itself is Such a Secret and so Unapproachable” (1974)

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by

Trent
in

An Interview with Walker Evans: ‘The Thing Itself is Such a Secret and so Unapproachable’ (1974)

Roadside stand near Birmingham, Alabama, 1936

“I didn’t like the label that I unconsciously earned of being a social protest artist.”

“The Thing Itself is Such a Secret and so Unapproachable”

George Eastman House, Image Magazine, Vol. 17., No.

via AMERICAN SUBURB X: http://www.americansuburbx.com/2011/10/interview-walker-evans-with-students.html

Walker Evans: I guess I’m the only survivor of my age of the school of non-commercial and extremely self-virtuous young artists that I was when I was your age. We wouldn’t do anything we were asked to do, and we fought around it. Of course that kills most people. For some reason or another it didn’t kill me. And I feel that since I’ve progressed rather slowly, I still have a long career ahead of me.