Street Portrait | Christopher Anderson
Image: Christopher Anderson’s photograph from the series “Approximate Joy” (2017) © Christopher Anderson | Magnum Photos
Snapshot
Christopher Anderson’s photo, Street Portrait
From his series: Approximate Joy
Artist: Christopher Anderson
Title: Street Portrait (Shenzhen, China)
Photograph
Year: 2017
Dimensions (print): 13 x 18 in
from the LARS “Art in our Apartment” catalog / essay series
Seeking Respite in Anderson’s Approximate Joy
Red. Blood spattering, vampire red. Stranger Things, sci-fi red. Ink slashed, graded papers red. Or perhaps… a personal power, superhero red. Oh red, how you flirt with us!
Colors hold such dynamic range – from communicating emotions to enhancing pre-existing ones. We ask: what message is offered by this particularly intense crimson in Christopher Anderson’s Street Portrait photograph? But perhaps a better question is: how can we interpret this red in a way that is most amiable for our emotional needs? This striking red light source — emitted from our vantage point — could be originating from our presence instead of from an ominous, unseen figure. In that case, it is as though we did indeed adorn the empowering hero’s cape whose hue is reflecting back at us. This towering glow — pulsating up the cathedral of trees — could be offering us a sense of protection instead of menace. In that case, this haven of illuminating red exists for those of us needing a respite and recharge from the fast-paced city churning just over yonder.
Anderson’s 2017 photo series, Approximate Joy, showcases shadowy scenes of buzzing Shenzhen, China. Predominantly, the series contains intimate (borderline eavesdropping) portraits of eager laborers. Through melancholy blues, hopeful yellows and vivacious reds, Anderson captures emotional cycles of what it means to work hard and chase big-city dreams that do not always actualize. It is a gritty, persistent class of skilled workers striving and only sometimes thriving. The series’ dramatic use of cropping closely examines the emotions of strong-willed emigrants. Approximate Joy has a somber tone, quite literally zooming in on the downcast disappointments that arise in the hamster-wheel chase that comes with living in a tech-booming, consumerist society. Anderson commented on his work, saying:
“If you look at the faces in the book, Shenzhen is a young city, young people are coming from all over to fulfill their dreams…They have all the modern things that we’re told we should want…but there’s a certain melancholy in the faces. Perhaps I am just projecting the isolation that I personally experience when I am there. But I think it is a universal idea that hopes and dreams are infused with anxiety and frustration”
Here we remember the title choice, “Approximate Joy”. How close can we get to fulfilling our aspirations before we recoil or burn out? Where can we exist with sustainable momentum? For all of our sakes, let’s hope it is the journey, the endeavor, where we find gratification – Icarus’s flight efforts, not his scorched collapse.
In the making of this series, Anderson was honing in on the aesthetics of his cinematic enthusiasms from “future now” cities. Think: Blade Runner, Mad Max and any other Matrix-like metropolis – all buzzing, taunting and congested with possibilities. While Street Portrait has slight implications of a dystopian luminescence, its subject of trees blanketed in warm hues makes this scene stand out as one of the few hushed settings in Approximate Joy. In it, we have found a break from the gloomy facades and neon zigzags of downtown and have moved into a sheltering nook of a foliage-lined street.
It reminds me of when I was a hustling waitress in Manhattan’s sticky, stuffy Lower East Side and my restoration came during my post-shift, late-night bike rides home to Brooklyn. The commute was cooling – both physically and emotionally. My adrenaline weaned and my mind cleared. From memories of those rides, I visually recall the charming way in which the street lights would filter through the delicate petals blossoming from springtime trees above. It was like a peaceful lantern canopy, creating an ethereal wind-down tunnel for a worn-out night owl such as myself.
Metaphorically with blistered feet and exhausted vision, one can appreciate Street Portrait and its presented solace. We should receive the electric red here as though it were a gift for the nightshifters whom Anderson observed with tenderness. After all, they/we are the diverse group of protagonists who continue to keep a city’s story exciting and vibrant. An endeavoring lifestyle can have its challenges, wearing on one’s spirit and perseverance. But, sometimes bright spaces (physical or mental) can show up in the darkness and suggest, “keep going” — like that crimson cape that continues to peer out from your closet, reminding you of its quiet presence. Or, like this pausing scene of glowing power red. The dreamers who have pulled over here are not lost to the metropolis lifestyle nor naive to its hardships. They/we are simply yet powerfully recharging, getting back on path as soon as dawn breaks. (ok, more like at mid-afternoon).
pairs well with:
Kafka on the Shore (book by Haruki Murakami), Let the Right One In (film), echos, umami, graphic novels, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (film), Watchmen (TV series), flashlights, lurking, gig workers, Night on Earth (film), stalagmites, nail polish names, What We Do in the Shadows (film), childhood homemade forts adorned with haphazardly draped sheets and mismatched supportive furniture
Works Cited
Havlin, Laura. “Approximate Joy: How Christopher Anderson’s Imagined Future Shaped a Vision of the Present.” Magnum Photo, January 10, 2021, URL.