As I mentioned in yesterday's blog post, I attended the Denver Art Museum's Final Friday event and was kind of disappointed that not only was there nothing new on display (unless you paid $12 extra for the Women Artists in the Age of Impressionism exhibit, which I intend to see, but not now), but two full floors of the museum were closed either for the installation of new exhibits or for renovation. However, Common Ground, an exhibit of photographs by Fazal Sheikh, is still going on, and I really enjoyed seeing these photographs again. Sheikh, who was born in New York City, but whose family comes form Nairobi, Kenya and before that India, has dedicated his life to taking photographs of refugees and the dispossessed, and his style reminds me a lot of Sebastiao Salgado. I was especially fascinated by his photographs from India. I have mentioned in a previous blog of seeing his photographs of the women of Vrindavan, a community of widows who have been thrown out of their homes after their husbands die, left to fend for themselves. This past Friday I focused on his photographs of the children of India, whom he encountered on the streets of it's cities. In the photographs above, clockwise from the top left, are a girl selling flowers, a child living in a squatter's settlement, a child bride, and a street performer. I really want to visit India - it is a fascinating country and a photographer's dream. But when you look at their society, you have to wonder why the government and the wealthy aren't overwhelmed with shame about what goes on in their country, and do something to change things. Be sure to check out Sheikh's web site at https://www.fazalsheikh.org/. And just a hint - to get to his photographs, you have to click on the three horizontal lines on the right. It took me about half an hour to figure that out. I really must be getting old.
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